[ale] Independent Journalism Severs Seized, Linux Distro caught in crossfire

[aaron]

>From the "Police State in Progress" department....

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www.EFF.org  front page item:

Servers in UK Containing Indymedia Websites Seized by Government 
United Kingdom -
Acting under a court order, Texas-based web hosting company Rackspace Managed 
Hosting handed over two UK based servers containing Indymedia websites to 
government agents yesterday morning. The order was apparently issued by a 
U.S. District Court and served by the FBI, on behalf of a foreign government. 
Rackspace has refused to comment on what information had been requested or 
why the servers were confiscated, citing the court order. The Electronic 
Frontier Foundation (EFF) is currently assisting Indymedia investigate 
possible responses to the seizure of their information. Over 20 
Indymedia-related websites, along with Indymedia's online radio, were hosted 
on the servers, which were dedicated machines provided by Rackspace... 

Full Release, Indymedia.org October 8, 2004. Can be found at
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml
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Linux Distro pulled:

    "At the same time an additional [IMC] server was taken
down at Rackspace which provided streaming radio to
several radio stations, BLAG (a linux distro), and a
handful of miscellanous services."

=============================================

Background:

The last few months have seen numerous attacks on independent media by the US 
Federal Government. In August the Secret Service used a subpoena in an 
attempt to disrupt the NYC IMC before the RNC by trying to get IP logs from 
an ISP in the US and the Netherlands. Last month the FCC shut down community 
radio stations around the US. Two weeks ago the FBI requested that Indymedia 
takes down a post on the Nantes IMC that had a photo of some undercover Swiss 
police and IMC volunteers in Seattle were visited by the FBI on the same 
issue. On the other hand, Indymedia and other independent media organisations 
were successfull with their victories for example against Diebold and the 
Patroit Act. Today however, the US authorities shut down IMCs around the 
world.

The list of affected local media collectives includes Ambazonia, Uruguay, 
Andorra, Poland, Western Massachusetts, Nice, Nantes, Lilles, Marseille (all 
France), Euskal Herria (Basque Country), Liege, East and West Vlaanderen, 
Antwerpen (all Belgium), Belgrade, Portugal, Prague, Galiza, Italy, Brazil, 
UK, part of the Germany site, and the global Indymedia Radio site.

===================================================
New Details:

Italy and Switzerland Requested Indymedia's Server Seizure 

Today, October 8, 2004, Indymedia has learned that the request to seize 
Indymedia servers hosted by a US company in the UK originated from government 
agencies in Italy and Switzerland. More than 20 Indymedia sites, several 
internet radio streams and other projects were hosted on the servers. They 
were taken offline on October 7th after an order was issued to Rackspace, 
Inc., one of Indymedia's web hosting providers.

The reasons for the court order or who actually holds the servers now are 
still unknown to Indymedia.

According to Italian news agency reports and an Agence France-Presse (AFP) 
interview with FBI spokesman Joe Parris, the FBI acted on Italian and Swiss 
requests. "It is not an FBI operation," Parris told AFP. "Through a legal 
assistance treaty, the subpoena was on behalf of a third country." (1)

Earlier today Rackspace published a statement that they turned over the 
servers in response to an order under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty 
(MLAT). The MLAT establishes procedures for countries to assist each other in 
investigations regarding international terrorism, kidnapping and money 
laundering. The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this 
matter. (2)

An Indymedia system administrator stated: "We do not know if Rackspace is 
under a gag order, or what legal restrictions were imposed requiring them to 
act this way, or whether their legal department had enough time to study the 
request."

Aidan White, the General Secretary for the International Federation of 
Journalists (IFJ) had this to say. "We have witnessed an intolerable and 
intrusive international police operation against a network specialising in 
independent journalism. The way this has been done smacks more of 
intimidation of legitimate journalistic inquiry than crime-busting." (3)

Indymedia condemns the fact that even 24 hours after two entire servers were 
taken down, Indymedia is still not getting any information of the reasons for 
the order.

By taking down 2 servers more than 20 Indymedia sites were affected in 
different countries globally as well as several unrelated projects. Indymedia 
considers this extremely invasive operation a a serious threat to the Freedom 
of Speech worldwide.

Indymedia insists that the servers are returned because each day they are 
inoperable and Indymedia's irreplaceable data is unaccessible means greater 
material damages to the Indymedia operation worldwide.

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Links:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/100904W.shtml
http://www.newsdissector.org/weblog/
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml
http://indymedia.org/en/static/fbi