Indymedia Server Raided by FBI 1150
jaromil writes "Today at about 18:00 CET FBI raided the indymedia servers hosted by Rackspace both in US and England. At present, the italian indymedia and numerous other local IMC websites are obscured, while the reasons why the hard drives were taken are still unknown."
Nothing known, but political motivation possible (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody's exactly sure why or how the FBI got warrants to take Indymedia's HDs, but their speculation tends to center around the fact that the Feds were spooked by the fact that Indymedia was able to publish RNC delegate names. This unfortuantely means political motivations are going to be questioned no matter what reasoning is brought forward.
Not much we can do at this hour but hold our breath and wait for more info to be released.
Hmph...well- (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04264/382137.stm [post-gazette.com]
This in from Argentina Indymedia, which has a different view -
FBI took the hard drives of IMC servers in the UK
por Mat ((!)) Thursday October 07, 2004 at 06:10 PM
-
The US authorities issued a subpoena to Rackspace's office in the US ordering them to physically remove Indymedia hardware located in London. Rackspace is one of Indymedia's web hosting providers with offices in the US and London. Rackspace complied and turned over Indymedia's hard drives/servers in the UK. This affects some 20+ Indymedia sites worldwide.
Since the subpoena was issued to Rackspace and not to Indymedia, the reasons for this action are still unknown to Indymedia.
At the same time a second server was taken down at Rackspace which provided streaming radio to several radio stations, BLAG (linux distro), and a handful of miscellanous things.
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 comunity radio stations around the US, and now the FBI is shutting 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, part of the Germany site, UK Radio, and the global Indymedia Radio site.
Micah Anderson of the global imc-tech collective said, "We suspect it has to do with an FBI request that we take down a post on the Nantes IMC that had a photo of some undercover Swiss police. They claimed there was threats and personal information, but there was nothing of the sort. The undercover police that were photographed on the page were photographing protesters. Rackspace is a US company, but have colocation in the UK where these servers are (err, were) located. So this is about Swiss police, on a French site, on a server in England, taken away by American federal police."
However, according to information from IMC Nantes the pictures in question were already removed a week ago.
Link to Argentina Indymedia
http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/22769
and one more to NYC Indymedia, which is still up
http://nyc.indymedia.org/ [indymedia.org]
Re:Why is this "my rights online" (Score:5, Informative)
(Source: Wikipedia.org. Released under the GFDL. See article [wikipedia.org])
Re:And? (Score:3, Informative)
We are dedicated to addressing issues that the mainstream media neglects and we do not conceal our politics behind a false objectivity. We hope to empower people to "become the media" by providing democratic access to available technologies and information.
Re:And? (Score:3, Informative)
They liked to live on the edge of annoying the establishment... they were the ones that broke the story of the statue of saddam hussen falling being a put-up job for the assembled press (there were only about half a dozen people there, there rest were reporters/press).
It's not surprising the US want to censor them... surprising they have the guts to do it so publicly though.
Indymedia press release (Score:5, Informative)
7 October 2004
FBI Seizes IMC Servers in the UK
US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace's office in the US ordering them to provide Indymedia's hardware located in London to the requesting agency. Rackspace is one of Indymedia's web hosting providers with offices in the US and London. Rackspace complied, without first notifying Indymedia, and turned over Indymedia's server in the UK. This affects some 20+ Indymedia sites worldwide.
Since the subpoena was issued to Rackspace and not to Indymedia, the reasons for this action are still unknown to Indymedia. Talking to Indymedia volunteers, Rackspace stated that "they cannot provide Indymedia with any information regarding the order." ISPs have received gag orders in similar situations which prevent them from updating the concerns parits on what is happening.
It is unclear to Indymedia how and why a server that is outside the US jurisdiction can be seized by US authorities.
At the same time a second server was taken down at Rackspace which provided streaming radio to several radio stations, BLAG (linux distro), and a handful of miscellanous things.
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 have been successful with their victories (thanks to the EFF), 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.
Re:Nothing known, but political motivation possibl (Score:5, Informative)
obody's exactly sure why or how the FBI got warrants to take Indymedia's HDs, but their speculation tends to center around the fact that the Feds were spooked by the fact that Indymedia was able to publish RNC delegate names.
Another theory is around some pictures of undercover Swiss police (photographing protesters) that were posted on an IMC site (IMC Nantes) - Indymedia got a request to remove 'identifying information' from the site (apparently the FBI got involved 'as a courtesy' to the Swiss authorities). Since there were no identifying details, Indymedia didn't do anything in response.
It would seem strange for an American agency to get a warrant to seize information relating to Swiss undefcover police from a French website, but it's the most solid theory I've heard so far.
Re:Nothing known, but political motivation possibl (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Why is this "my rights online" (Score:2, Informative)
And according to another article, they recently published a bunch of photos identifying undercover swiss policemen. It starts to make sense, I have no idea what Swiss laws against exposing undercover law enforcement agents say.
But I guess the knee-jerk "It's a Bush comsperacie!" crap is appropriate for slashdot.
more info (Score:4, Informative)
has more information, they suspect it is related to the posting of pictures of undercover police officers. Oddly enough the officers were photographing protesters.
Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
They are not owned by large media companies, and do not give money to politicians (AFAIK - they dont' have much cash). They operate on a shoe-string budget and need more computers.
And less legal problems.
There's a short answer
--LWM
Re:Nothing known, but political motivation possibl (Score:5, Informative)
Bush Is Desparate To Fix The Election: +1, True (Score:1, Informative)
Reagan, Hoover, and the U.C. Red Scare [sfgate.com].
J. Edgar Hoover was a nut.
Seditously as always,
Kilgore Trout
Wayback machine to the rescue? (Score:3, Informative)
Better than nothing, though.
Re:nothing in archive.org either... (Score:3, Informative)
Cheez, you're as bad as Dick Cheney. [factcheck.com]
Re:This doesn't look good... (Score:4, Informative)
Who is Indymedia you ask? click the link bellow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indymedia [wikipedia.org]
You are confused (Score:5, Informative)
No jurisdiction (Score:4, Informative)
They wouldn't be obliged to take down the server in a foreign country. Believe it or not, UK soil is subject to UK law, not American law.
Final version, was: Re:Indymedia press release (Score:1, Informative)
This is the final verion of the press release, the parent has an earlier version:
Press Release
7 October 2004
FBI Seizes IMC Servers in the UK
US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace's office in the US ordering them to provide Indymedia's hardware located in London to the requesting agency. Rackspace is one of Indymedia's web hosting providers with offices in the US and London. Rackspace complied, without first notifying Indymedia, and turned over Indymedia's server in the UK. This affects some 20+ Indymedia sites worldwide.
Since the subpoena was issued to Rackspace and not to Indymedia, the reasons for this action are still unknown to Indymedia. Talking to Indymedia volunteers, Rackspace stated that "they cannot provide Indymedia with any information regarding the order." ISPs have received gag orders in similar situations which prevent them from updating the concerned parties on what is happening.
It is unclear to Indymedia how and why a server that is outside the US jurisdiction can be seized by US authorities.
At the same time a second server was taken down at Rackspace which provided streaming radio to several radio stations, BLAG (linux distro), and a handful of miscellanous things.
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.
Original on the wiki: WwwFeaturesWorkpad [indymedia.org]
Re:Cou de Gras? (Score:2, Informative)
quickest way to get your hardware confiscated (Score:3, Informative)
'... On Aug. 18, an anonymous poster to nyc.indymedia.org published the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of 1,600 delegates to the Republican National Convention in New York City along with a message for anti-RNC groups to use the information "in whatever way they see fit."
[As noted in this previous post, 10464479 [slashdot.org]]
Kiddies this is pretty much the quickest way to get your hardware confiscated.
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:3, Informative)
Your elected dogcatcher has a much greater right to privacy than the president, but they both have less than you or I.
Re:some background (Score:1, Informative)
But there servers siezed today are not the ones that had the RNC convention delegates lists posted to them...
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:3, Informative)
Most recently: http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041005-024 050-1855r.htm [washtimes.com]
I find it ironic that a bunch of anti-violence, anti-gun, peacemongers, like Democrats would behave this way. The anti-Bush crowd is foaming at the mouth. Have you all had your shots?
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.wftv.com/news/3786807/detail.html [wftv.com]
Innocent yes, immune from investigation? Heck NO! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fanatical Support™ (Score:2, Informative)
Sealand/HavenCo (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.havenco.co
Rackspace has been instructed not to comment. (Score:4, Informative)
Not operation rescue. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:2, Informative)
Black Panthers
Weather Underground
Earth Liberation Front
Nope, no radical militant liberals here.
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:5, Informative)
Except for when they shoot up Republican campaign offices [usatoday.com] and burn swastikas in Republicans' yards [channel3000.com]...
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:3, Informative)
Sure... [news4jax.com]
Re:No jurisdiction (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.creators-not-consumers.co.uk/poluk/b
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:5, Informative)
The first two of your examples haven't been heard of in over thirty years. The third (ELF) are not much more than vandals.
And you'd probably cringe at the thought of the World Church of the Creator, the Klan, or other denizens of the radical Right held up as examples of American conservatism.
The Panthers and Weathermen were Leftists, not liberals (in fact, they scorned liberals for participating in a system that they considered bankrupt and corrupt). Some '60s leftists held decidedly illiberal views (e.g., Maoist communism).
k.
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~oracle/nuremberg/aborts.htm
I'm this case, the threat to providers listed seems pretty clear. It's far from being a simple recitation of their personal info.
Cheers,
Greg
All that you need to know (Score:2, Informative)
The Declaration of Independence [archives.gov]
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Constitution [archives.gov]
Preamble to the Bill of Rights [archives.gov]
Bill of Rights [archives.gov]
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
Re:Not true (Score:3, Informative)
While the server in the UK is subject to UK law, if a subpoena is served on a US corporation requesting information, and that information is located in some other country, the corporation is required to provide the information. Because Rackspace could not quickly locate the information, they decided to turn over the entire server.
Think of it as Open Source news media (Score:2, Informative)
Background information. (Score:5, Informative)
I asked them what the US government's interest was in Swiss police and French websites. They informed me that no law had been violated but they were just requesting on behalf of the Swiss government that the identifying information be removed. I clarified that their concern was with the identifying information, and not with the photographs, because taking pictures of someone in a public forum is not objectionable. They agreed with me and said that their only concern was the identifying information.
I asked them for the URL of the offending post. They did not know what a URL was. I asked them what the address was for the post-- "the address you would type into your internet browser." They looked confused, consulted their notes, and stated that they weren't sure, but they thought it was http://natz.indymedia.org (in fact, the correct address is nantes.indymedia.org). I informed them that it would be very difficult to track down the post considering that there are thousands of posts on indymedia sites everyday.
I told them that the Seattle Indymedia Center has no authority regarding the Nantes Indymedia Center and that they should probably direct their request directly to the Nantes Indymedia Center. They left.
I pulled up the Nantes site. On the front page of the site, at the very top, was a large logo of the FBI, and an article regarding how their ISP (Rackspace) had received a request from none other than the FBI to remove a certain post...
Nothing happened for a few days, and then today the server is gone. This is what we know for a fact:
Indymedia is working on a press release on this matter and is working with EFF [eff.org] to assess its legal options.
What. . ? (Score:3, Informative)
fascist tendencies of the american left.
Am I reading you correctly?
One of the indicators of Psychopathic tendency is to blame others for what the psychopath is guilty of her/himself.
How many Israeli houses and olive groves have the Palestinians bulldozed [bbc.co.uk]? (None.) Have Palestinan snipers been shooting teenaged girls in the head [guardian.co.uk] recently? (No.) How about destroying civilian water wells [independent.co.uk]? (No.) How many suicide bombings have the Palestinian secret service performed and blamed on Israeli rebels [aljazeera.net] in order to generate chaos and excuses to continue the war on civilians? (None.)
Don't believe it's possible? Perhaps you need to read up on mind control. It's easy to create, 'suicide bombers' [raven1.net]. Like the US, Israel has its own secret detention centers [counterpunch.org] to supply unwilling subjects for such operations. It's obviously an effective ploy because it fools people who think, "But they would never DO that!"
If you compare the times when 'suicide bombings' happen, it nearly always during a point when peace talks are looming, or tensions are easing. And the end results of a bombing NEVER benefits the Palestinians.
One way or another, when four of Israel's own security service chiefs [bbc.co.uk] cry out against Sharon's megalomaniacal policies [rense.com], it means that something is wrong. It means that most people who claim that Israel is in the right, probably don't know the subject matter well enough to make such claims.
-FL
Re: And .. you're wrong too! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How will this affect US based companies? (Score:3, Informative)
That process started in 2000. The one country that made the switch, was promptly invaded, and now has it's entire oil ifrastructure sitting in ruins. This was a major warning shot fired at the rest of the oil producers in the region. Listen very carefully to the news, in particular about those countries still looking to make the switch, and sell thier oil for euros. There's constant mentions from the us administration calling them various labels, that all boil down to 'terrorist supporter'. These are thinly veiled threats that basically say, if you make the switch to pricing oil in euro's like Iraq did, you will be next.
Re:Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press! (Score:1, Informative)
George Bush is only loved by 30% of the people not 50%. Somewhere around 40% of the population does not vote. So half of the remaining 60% are the 30% of US citizens that are republican, and most of them love G. Bush.