Indymedia Servers Given Back 427
NW writes "According to a post on Indymedia Argentina the two Indymedia servers seized earlier by the FBI are in the process of being returned: "A Rackspace employee stated, "I was just told that the court order is being complied with and your servers in London will be online at 5pm GMT. I will pass along anymore information that becomes available and that I am allowed to." It has been verified that the returned hard-drives are the originals, but the circumstances of the seizure still remain unclear: who took them, why were they taken, and under which court order? Indymedia is not aware as to whether Rackspace is still under gag order.
The hard-drives will be treated as "hacked" (compromised) and as a result there will be delays in restoring the sites that are still down."" Here's our previous coverage on this.
So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Switzerland and Italy (Score:5, Informative)
The only likely explanation for why those governments would be interested that has surfaced so far is that Indymedia posted some photographs that were taken of undercover police officers who were photographing demonstrators (the demonstrators photographed their photographers, as it were). Apparently this is illegal in Europe?
It's all very murky, in any case.
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:5, Insightful)
If some of them were undercover agents, their lives might be in danger for all you know.
If I were an undercover agent and if photographs of me were on the web showing me in places where I ought not to be, it's quite understandable.
But what I do not understandable is why they would do this in a way that gets them so much attention. I mean, now all those pictures would be all over the place and would be quite uncontrollable. It would have the opposite effect of what they intended.
Weird. Or maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe I just need more coffee.
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:3, Funny)
oooh, the NOC list
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:5, Interesting)
This action was merely harassment.
Photos were unredacted (Score:4, Informative)
It contains four pictures of two guys who are supposedly undercover policemen. The photos have _not_ been redacted.
I guess it doesn't hurt to post the short text that came with it. But my french is a little rusty and the automatic tranlators do a poor job on this:
GENÈVE post-G8 : Vidéos, photos et témoignages ; tout est bon pour remonter la piste des casseurs. Un travail minutieux poursuivi aujourd'hui par deux inspecteurs, et qui a conduit à 200 arrestations à ce jour.
La cellule G8 avait pourtant été dissoute en décembre 2003. Elle a repris du service, en plus petit : deux inspecteurs.
Ces inspecteurs visionnent des films et photos reçu par des balancent et des collègues.
Ils viennent aux manifs sur Genève où ils pensent retrouver des "casseurs"
De plus ils prennent de nouvelles photos afin peut être de constituer une bande de données de photos d'activistes suceptibles d'être les futures casseurs des futures émeutes Genevoises.
Comme le dit l'un des 2 inspecteurs : J'ai vu deux de mes collègues se faire lyncher pendant les manifs anti-OMC, en 1998, raconte un inspecteur. Je ne l'oublierai jamais.
Peut etre qu'il y a d'autres choses que cet inspecteur n'obliera jamais ! Car il n'y a pas que le Carpacio comme plat qui se mange froid !
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:5, Interesting)
If I were an undercover agent and if photographs of me were on the web showing me in places where I ought not to be, it's quite understandable.
No it's not. Taking photographs of demonstrators is an intimidation tactic. If they were serious about taking photos to put into some big database somewhere or whatever, they could easily have done it with telephoto lenses from a distance such that the photographees did not know they were being photographed.
Instead, it sounds like they stood right out in front of the demonstrators and made it a point to be seen by the people. But, the idiots who thought a little public intimidation would be a good thing forgot about one minor detail - the freaking internet.
From the reports, it sounds like they just got a little more sauce of the goose than they could handle. So they tried to take their toys and go home.
Either that, or there is something completely unrelated going on the undercover agent thing is just a thin cover story. Aren't conspiracies great?
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:5, Informative)
No it's not. Taking photographs of demonstrators is an intimidation tactic.
Definitely! If you've ever been on a protest in the UK then see how you like it when a policeman starts jamming camcorders at you and efficiently recording everyone's faces. They especially zoom in on anyone who is particularly vocal. And they are conspicuously overt in doing so.
Point one back at them and you'll likely get your phone/camera/camcorder seized. They sure don't like the same medicine. And as to the poster elsewhere who said that undercover officers lives could be in danger - these aren't undercover officers in this instance, and what about our freedom from harrasment. Being on government subversive files can become a health hazard.
I recommend mass deployment of those cheap disposable cameras at the next march.
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought that the whole point of a protest was to be seen. There's no point to protesting if the target doesn't notice you've done anything. My understanding is that most protesters are very keen to be seen, recorded, and rebroadcast by the mainstream media, bloggers, tourists, and whomever else happens to be about. Saying "I'm going to go out in a public place, make a lot of noice, march about, and wave signs--but I only want some people to videotape me doing it!" seems a tad disingenuous.
The police pay particular attention to the most "vocal" individuals? Well, no surprise there. That's who everyone else is paying attention to as well. People with megaphones tend to attract one's notice, whether you want them to or not. Indeed, that's presumably their goal.
Is it police intimidation to record a protest? It's an interesting question. There's an argument that having a record of attendees at a large gathering--and particularly of the most vocal leaders--is good police practice in the event that something untoward does happen.
If you're at a protest or rally, then you shouldn't be doing anything illegal that will be caught on tape. Chanting, speaking, and waving signs are all generally legitimate, legal practices. If you're leading a group and encouraging them all to do something illegal, you probably should be recorded and charged. Take your lumps like a man. Civil disobedience involves facing the risk of punishment. Gandhi did it.
Police bringing cameras to a protest "intimidates" protestors in the same way that a cop on the corner intimidates pedestrians. It inconveniences you if you want to smash a window; otherwise it is--or should be--moot.
Being on government subversive files can become a health hazard.
Historically and in some countries this has been the case. Is there evidence to support this statement now, in Britain?
Re:Thing is, that might be legal (Score:5, Insightful)
Tooooot! Toooot! And it's a good thing too! We prefer real freedom (rather than all expenses-paid-holidays in Guantamo Bay), and real democracy (with more than two indistinguishable parties to chose among).
There are rights we have in the US that you do not in other free countries,...
That must be the French use of "other"...
Re:Thing is, that might be legal (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sweden != Switzerland (Score:3, Interesting)
* Who these people might be is left as an exercise for the reader.
Re:Thing is, that might be legal (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone seems to be misunderstanding the poster. He isn't saying "the world isn't free or democratic, only America is." Instead it is more "the world doesn't always agree with America on the definitions of 'freedom' and 'democracy'". Which is a completely accurate statement
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:5, Informative)
Compromising the identity of undercover police officers is something that is frowned on by governments worldwide. Don't know if it's actually illegal in Italy or Switzerland though.
In any case, it's a bit weird to generalise Italy and Switzerland to all of Europe. European countries all have their own laws, though members of the EU (which Switzerland isn't) share a lot of common laws. Not that I blame you for doing so - it's a common mistake for foreigners - but I felt I should set that straight.
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:4, Interesting)
Compromising the identity of undercover police officers is something that is frowned on by governments worldwide. Don't know if it's actually illegal in Italy or Switzerland though.
The problem of course here is that protestors for years had been desparately pointing out that agent provocaters had been the ones stirring up strife at protests, and not them.
Those cops where in classic black block garb, and provide some solid evidence of cops infiltrating to cause trouble.
I think protestors have a right to get this information out, simply because it provides some evidence towards clearing the innocence of a lot of people who have been entrapped into acts of madness by people who have less than altruistic intentions towards 'the movement'.
I assure you, if a spook was giving me grief, I'd expose his ass quicker than he can blink.
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:5, Informative)
The root of Indymedia's problems is that there are photos of some Swiss police agents (with their names and addresses, hehe) infiltrating the Black Block and triggering riots. There are photos of cops beating up people. There are photos of cops attacking a restaurant for no reason (firing CS grenades on a full terrace half a mile from the real events then shooting people with rubber bullets). Without these cops, there probably wouldn't have been that much damage to the downtown area of Geneva.
The Swiss authorities behaved in such a spastic way they don't want their stupid agents to be recognized, for they are not respectable in their actions and deliberately triggered events eventually costing millions to the community and injuring quite many innocents. I feel ashamed my government is turning to such tactics to undermine the anti-globalization movement.
It makes me smile though to see the incriminated images have now spread to about 400 mirrors worldwide instead of 2 or 3 sites. Our local authorities are going batshit about it, yelling they'll have ALL the servers containing those images seized... Tough luck, assholes!
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:3, Insightful)
Switzerland and/or Italy must be way understaffed if they have to expend their undercover agents on something as stupidly obvious as standing around in plain sight and photographing crowds.
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:4, Insightful)
They always did so in the bad old days of South African apartheid, they seem to do it here in New Zealand.
The most deeply held belief of these coinops types is that all popular activism is orchestrated by enemy agitators. (After all that is what _they_ would/are do/doing...)
For them to believe otherwise is to begin to suspect that their own dastardly deeds are wrong.
Thus they are always there, on the fringes, taking photographs and trying to correlate them to spot the real ringleaders.
Sort of sad really.
You may be tempted to wear concealing sunglasses and a hat next time you protest something, but odds on that will really convince them you're the "black hat" and they will put the hard question to you on the spot.
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Switzerland and Italy (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, this does not cover law enforcement work, otherwise Indymedia and RackSpace could sue any European Government involved for privacy violations.
On leaking the identity of secret agents. (Score:4, Interesting)
From what I've read, yes, it's a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. But the current administration doesn't appear to be doing much to track down who first leaked Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA secret agent. Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was exposed by columnist Robert Novak when Novak wrote:
To quell the knee-jerk duopoly partisans: I'm not saying a Kerry administration would do better here. I have no idea what a Kerry administration would do about this. Speaking out against the actions of one party or one administration is not implicit support for any other party or independent candidate.
Re:So... (Score:2)
but the circumstances of the seizure still remain unclear: who took them, why were they taken, and under which court order?
Not exactly, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not exactly, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get the logic in this. I have 2 particular issues:
1. So what if Rackspace is a U.S. company? If they are doing business in the U.K. they have to obey the laws in that country. Why didn't Italian and Swiss law enforcement agencies contact their counterparts in the U.K. and other listed countries instead? I'm sure the British police could easily seize those hard drives under the British court order.
What does the FBI have to do with this? Is it because the FBI has more pull now and it's easier to violate people's rights in the U.S. as long as you utter the word "terrorism" or am I overreacting?
2. As I understand, whatever was on those hard drives belongs to Indymedia. So, doesn't the FBI need to serve the court order to Indymedia directly (instead of or in addition to Rackspace)? Imagine if you are leasing a car from your local dealership and police get a warrant to retrieve an audio/video CD that they believe you are keeping in your car. Can the police serve the warrant to the dealership and then help themselves to your car without letting you know? Wouldn't they have to serve you with the warrant?
IANAL, are there any lawyers who can verify if these things are legal and if law enforcement does indeed possess such powers?
Re:Not exactly, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
So what if Rackspace is a U.S. company? If they are doing business in the U.K. they have to obey the laws in that country. Why didn't Italian and Swiss law enforcement agencies contact their counterparts in the U.K. and other listed countries instead? I'm sure the British police could easily seize those hard drives under the British court order.
I imagine that Rackspace was neither violating US nor UK law. I wouldn't be surprised if Italy and Switzerland also made the request directly to the UK, and the U
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
Hardware too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who knows what kind of traffic / key loggers have been installed.
(And yes, I realize that a hardware key logger is next to useless on a headless server.)
Re:Hardware too... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you're being a little paranoid. Why the hell would the FBI care about Indymedia's servers? From the last article they're just complying with a European country through international agreements. The FBI couldn't care less about Indymedia itself.
Re:Hardware too... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hardware too... (Score:2)
Re:Hardware too... (Score:3, Informative)
Diebold election scamming is the main one that comes to mind. Theres been a heck of a lot of anti protestor violence reported (and in some cases acted on by authorities) ie in Genoa. Indy does tend to focus on local news alot, so its in the local area indy sites that you'll find most of the scoops.
Indy does alot of work in countries with strong political repression. Iran, Iraq, Burma, etc.
Police Repression in Genoa 2001 (Score:3, Informative)
Long afterwards, a judge found the entire raid on
Re:Police Repression in Genoa 2001 (Score:3, Interesting)
The police probably felt they needed a distraction after the murder of a protestor.
As for agent provocateurs, there is no doubt these were operating in Italy--though they were probably oldtime fascist sympathizers, not undercover cops (though in Italy, the line is blurred).
Nothing to stop them having been "encourag
Re:Hardware too... (Score:5, Informative)
What major stories has indymedia broken?
1. Go to any demonstration or social forum
2. Listen to what the folks there have to say
3. Read the corporate coverage of it. Check the national news, likely there will be nothing. Read your "local" (e.g. Gannett owned) newspaper and see what they say. Listen to the "local" TV (e.g. one of a few companies) coverage, if any. Listen to the "local" (e.g. Clear Channel) radio coverage, if any.
4. Go to your local Indymedia and see the coverage of the issues and what really happened at the demo.
5. Compare what you saw at the demo/social forum with what's in the corporate press.
This is one example, but is probably where Indymedia shows the most glaring difference between what really is happening and what you're supposed to hear.
On July 20th, 2001 Carlos Guiliani was shot and killed by Italian police forces during the G8 summit demonstrations in Genoa, Italy. I've always been into the news & politics so I was reading it on fucking cnn.com and they were saying "uh, some guy was shot, we dunno what happened". I mentioned it to a friend and he said, "dude, go to indymedia". Indymedia, of course, had like a dozen photos of exactly what happened. Had it not been for indymedia, the story probably would have disappeared.
At that time, I had never heard of the massive demonstrations that happened in Seattle in 1999. I had been reading the corporate press. How would I know? How would I know the issues that they were raising? If I kept reading the corporate news, I'd still be clueless as to what's going on in other parts of the word. The corporate press in other nations have their own $agenda too.
Indymedia certainly has it's share of junk, but I notice you're still reading slashdot. ;)
-Jeff
Re:Hardware too... (Score:3, Insightful)
True, various logger stuff could have been installed. (Although that would be on the harddrive, if in software.) But that's a risk you run whenever you have a dedicated server, or even if you colocate your gear where someone else has physical access.
I'd be treating the serverfarm as hacked too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'd be treating the serverfarm as hacked too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'd be treating the serverfarm as hacked too. (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest problem here is the gag order stuff and lack of information. I don't understand why Rackspace is unable to com
Re:I'd be treating the serverfarm as hacked too. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, if they wanted infroation like that (Score:5, Insightful)
It would seem that what they wanted was the data on the disks. I'm not saying they shouldn't give it a once over but really, if that was the case, it would be done in secret. They don't raid the house of a mafia member, take all their phones, and then hand them back a couple days later with bugs in them. They stick a bug on the line when no one is looking.
Re:No, if they wanted infroation like that (Score:3, Informative)
paranoid babbling (Score:2, Interesting)
Ok, just to turn the paranoia knob down ten notches here, why would the fbi/cia/M5/etc. bother to try to install key or traffic loggers? They have already demonstraited that they can literally own the box any damn time they want it. In addition, they could just slap a copy of carnivor (or whatever passes for it in Europe) on the ISP trunks, and read anything they want, and no ammount of reformatting or scanning would detect
Re:paranoid babbling (Score:3, Insightful)
If someone comes storming in to your place and takes all your computers without telling you anything, and then brings them back a week later with a big smile and still doesn't tell you anything, would that not suggest that something just ain't right?
Re:Hardware too... (Score:2)
True Reason behind the shutdown (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently the FBI agents decided that they, and GWB had been tricked one too many times
Re:True Reason behind the shutdown (Score:3, Insightful)
returning confiscated items is rare, isn't it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there any obligation for them to do this, or is it media exposure at this point?
Re:returning confiscated items is rare, isn't it? (Score:5, Informative)
They try to get the disks back in a timely fashion, when they're through with their analysis. It's completely different than, say, having your car impounded as you're arrested selling suitcases full of coke. They're taking the drives not because they were used in the commission of a crime (necessarily), but because they want evidence off of them, possibly just incidental.
No word on legal obligations, but I can say, based on what I've read (again, no personal experience here), the FBI does make a reasonable attempt to not inconvenience you *too* horribly if they have to take your disks.
Re:returning confiscated items is rare, isn't it? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:returning confiscated items is rare, isn't it? (Score:4, Informative)
However, 3 months after the incident they offered to return the data to me if i supplied a hard disk, I did this and the information was returned as promised.
Another 6 months later, with much pressuring from an attounry provided by legal aid (the government paid for my lawyer because im a poor student), the rest of my equipment was returned along with the original hard disks and data.
I'm really not sure why any of this happened, however it is an example of law enforcement returning confiscated items.
Re:returning confiscated items is rare, isn't it? (Score:2)
Also do the servers belong to Indymedia or to Rackspace? Could make a difference if Indymedia comitted the crime, but using Rackspace's property, without Rackspace's knowledge.
Hard to
Re:returning confiscated items is rare, isn't it? (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't just being a grammar nazi, this is complaining about a gross violation of proper search warrant procedure.
Now if, as some are alleging, it was the British and not the FBI who conducted the raid, on what warrant were THEY acting on? No record has so far surfaced. No report of any alleged crime.
This sounds an awful lot like somebody high up saying "shut up those bastards", and somebody lower down, who can't find an legit
Re:returning confiscated items is rare, isn't it? (Score:2)
In the other case, involving a very small company the hardware (which wasn't in very good shape to begin with) was returned in a month or so and some of it had actually been repaired (not sure if this was them being nice or just a byproduct of the investigative process).
My guess is that the results vary greatly based on the mo
Info on the Disks (Score:5, Insightful)
We all know that the current world order is tending towards fascism, this incident is just another step along that path.
Re:Info on the Disks (Score:2, Interesting)
Apache on these boxes was set not to log any IP addresses in the access logs, see the discussions on the IMC Tech list [indymedia.org] if you want to know more about this.
IMC techies are now going to have to analyse the disks to see what info the FBI will have got from this, probably just a few public keys... Of course the disks are not going to be put back into a production server etc...
About time (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:About time (Score:2, Insightful)
For more background info see the sysadmin's blog (Score:5, Informative)
Jebba, the guy with the contract with Rackspace has a load more info about this whole affair in his blog. [blagblagblag.org]
Re:For more background info see the sysadmin's blo (Score:3, Informative)
Rackspace said:
Mon Oct 4 07:30:53 2004
Hello,
I am sorry for the tone of the ticket you referenced. However, we are at the mercy of the DMCA as it is written. As a hosting provider, once we have received a DMCA notification, we are responsible for removing the offending material regardless of the merit of the complaint. In fact, we
Re:For more background info see the sysadmin's blo (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember on Nov. 2nd (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree: FUCK Bush and Ashcroft on the 2'nd (Score:5, Informative)
They have made a pigs breakfast at everything from The economy, environment, egual rights, Civil Liberties.
Not one fucking thing have they managed to succed in. Not ONE.
Why would I do that? (Score:2)
Seems to me that if there is anything that needs protesting it's Interpol and the treaties that allow such a thing to exist whereby one nation can get a court order to get things in another nation from a company of a third nation. That is, if you think that sort of thing is bad.
There are plenty of arguments ag
Re:Why would I do that? (Score:2)
Re:Why would I do that? (Score:3, Informative)
Justice System?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Justice System?! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Justice System?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Acting as a go-between is no excuse for violating the rights under our justice system. Come up with something else.
The amendments were added after the main body of the constitution, and therfore override the original. If the main body says that treaties are the supreme law of the land, and the amendment says that Freedom of Speech shall be protected, then freedom of speech is to be protected over and above internationa
Silly Hosting Company (Score:4, Insightful)
And second of all, why was IndyMedia waiting for the return of the drives before restoring sites? Didn't they have backups? Now they make a big deal about how they are treating the drives as "compromised". Whey they didn't just buy new drives the day of raid, and restore the backup? Clearly, they don't have a backup, because now they have to do a selective copy of sites from "compromised" disks onto presumable new disks.
Re:Silly Hosting Company (Score:2, Informative)
There are backups, but they are not 100% complete as you would expect when the backup is an rsynced db dump done via cron every 24 hours...
Re:Silly Hosting Company (Score:4, Informative)
The FBI never seized the hard drives to begin with, but accompanied the British authorities on the raid to seize the drives
How do you know this? You don't. The various Brit cops that have been contacted have either said "no comment" or "we weren't there". We HAVE NO IDEA WHICH GOVERNMENT'S AGENTS WERE THERE. Oh, I'm sorry, I must be shouting this because I'm saying it over & over...
AC says:
why was IndyMedia waiting for the return of the drives before restoring sites?
Um, have you been to http://www.indymedia.org [indymedia.org] lately? http://uk.indymedia.org [indymedia.org] or a whole ton of other sites that were hosted on AHIMSA but are up & running? They were back online very quickly. How fast would slashdot come back online if the gubmint stole their kit?
There were backups of most things, but not of everything. Each indy was responsible for their own backups & some were better at it or had more resources than others. Some sites had newer software that allowed for easier mirroring, for others it's way more messy.
Sorry if I'm sounding a bit edgy here... :)
-Jeff
Rackspace offices dialog (Score:5, Funny)
Rackspace: *whimper* ok...
Re:Rackspace offices dialog (Score:2)
Actually, my first comment was not meant to be funny, it was meant to poke fun of rackspace for giving in to these blagrant attempts to steal away what are expected to be personal freedoms.
IMHO, Rackspace just lost the right to complain about these civil abuses going on in the world. If more people would stand up to them, they would happen less.
Translated from the site (Score:5, Informative)
"In the morning of Thursday 7 of October, American autorities delivered a federal order to Rackspace (Indymedias' provider, with offices in London and USA), requiring the surrender off Indymedias' web servers to the demmanding agency. According to what was said to Indymedia volunteers, Rackspace stated that "they couldn't give Indymedia more information respecting the order". ISPs have received orders to stand quiet in similar situtations in which orders were given not to keep the involved parts informed on what was going on.
Indymedia has not clear how and why a server outside American jurisdiction no can be requised by American autorithies.
At the same time, an aditional server was disconnected at Rackspace; that server provided streaming radio for some emitters, BLAG (linux distribution), and quite a few more sites.
In the last months numerous attacks to independant media have been seen being perpetrated by the USA federal government. In August, the secret service used a jurisdictional requirement in an attempt to disband New Yorks' CMI before the RNC, attempting to obtain IP registers in USA and Holland. The past month the FCC dismantled several American radio emtitters. Two weeks earlier the FBI requested that Indymedia deleted a story on the Nantes CMI who had the picture of some Swedish secret police officer and CMI volunteers were visited by the FBI to inquire on the same issue. Meanwhile, Indymedia and other organizations had success with their victories against, f.ex., Diebold and the Patriot Act. Today, nevertheless, American authorities have disconnected CMIs all oer the world.
The list of affected CMIs include:
Italy, Brasil, Uruguay, England, Andorra, Polonia, Western Massachusetts, Nice, Nantes, Lilles, Marseille , Euskal Herria (País vasco), Liege, East and West Vlaanderen, Antwerpen Belgrado, Portugal, Praga, Galicia..."
Re:Translated from the site (Score:2)
Sorry, make that: "Indymedia can't understand how and why a server outside American jurisdiction can be requised by American autorithies.". I need more caffeine.
EFF's press release on the subject... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2004_10.php#00200 6 [eff.org]
Indymedia Servers Mysteriously Reappear, But Questions RemainSan Francisco, CA - Rackspace Managed Hosting, the San Antonio-based company that manages two Indymedia servers seized by the US government last Thursday, said yesterday that the servers have been returned and are now available to go back online. Immediate access to the servers, which host Indymedia's Internet radio station and more than 20 Indymedia websites, will be delayed so that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) can ensure that the servers are secure and take steps to preserve evidence for future legal action.
Now that the servers have been returned, the question still remains: who took them, and under what authority? Citing a gag order, Rackspace would not comment on what had happened both in the original seizure of the servers or their return. All that is known at this point is that the subpoena that resulted in the seizure was issued at the request of a foreign government, most likely with the assistance of the United States Attorney's Office in San Antonio. Although initial reports suggested that the FBI had taken the servers, the FBI has now denied any involvement.
The seizure, which silenced numerous political news websites for several days, is clearly a violation of the First Amendment. "Secret orders silencing US media should be beyond the realm of possibility in a country that believes in freedom of speech," said EFF staff attorney Kurt Opsahl. "EFF was founded with the Steve Jackson Games case fourteen years ago, and at that time we established that seizing entire servers because of a claim about some pieces of information on them is blatantly illegal and improper. It appears the government forgot this basic rule, and we will need to remind them."
EFF will take legal action to find out what really happened to Indymedia's servers and ensure that Internet media are protected from egregious First Amendment violations like this in the future.
Should you be surpised (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a pointless post. (Score:5, Insightful)
But the more I read about stuff like this, the more that I realise that we need to change the way our governments operate. They have TOO much power, and the do things that sould be illegal under the guise of saftey
I truely think that there needs to be a shift in world power, I think that if given enough room to breathe people would make the right decision, and if we (americans) would quit putting our nose where it doesn't belong, that 9/11 would not have happened.
Re:This is a pointless post. (Score:2)
Are you really that naive to absolve Miliant Islam and believe the US should feel guilty for 9/11 instead?
Re:This is a pointless post. (Score:5, Insightful)
But militant movements dont evolve in a vacuum. We need to ask "What happened, by whom, how and when that caused these people to want us harm?". I mean, why the US/allies and not , say, china.
And that is what has not been asked. And THAT is the danger.
Unfortunately we do know the source of the frusturations.... foreign interference. If your neighbor came over and kept punching you everyime you had a fight with your partner or something , you might just feel compelled to go and smash his windows in with a brick after a while.
Re:This is a pointless post. (Score:4, Insightful)
Islamic militants may be to blame for 9/11, but US foreign policy deserves a lot of blame for creating the islamic militants to begin with. Or, at the very least, for fanning the flames of their hatred.
Re:This is a pointless post. (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, the most important issue is that US foreign policy is creating excuses. If someone wants to carry out a terrorist attack and needs to attract volunteers to carry out the attacks, it's a damn lot easier when the country is widely despised for it's support someone most of your target audience considers enemies.
THAT is wha
You know what: (Score:3, Insightful)
Silly AC, politics are for the rich. (Score:3)
This is largely our
Can they trust Rackspace anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Can they trust Rackspace anymore? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can they trust Rackspace anymore? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have sympathy for RackSpace, and realize that this put them in a tough spot. But the fact remains that as far as we can tell they just rolled over, and didn't do anything to even try to protect their customer's privacy. Something to consider when next you are looking for a host.
You rate your business the way you rate yours. (I notice, however, that you didn't name it.) Possibly if they were one of several different colocation providers that I used, I'd still trust them to maintain a mirror. If they were 10% cheaper than the competition. For a primary host they'd need to be 30-40% cheaper. (I haven't decided yet...much information about this is still missing, so even that's a rough estimate.)
I don't consider laws to me more important than ethics or morals. Laws have become what one obeys because it's too dangerous to do otherwise. Morals and ethics are what one does because it's proper. Laws seem to rarely have anything to do with morals or ethics any more.
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this scare anyone else?
Could firms use this precident setting situation & other crazy recent laws (DMCA for example) to force hosting companies to turn over servers located in other countries?
Wasn't there a law passed not too long ago that gave the government the power to request information contained within many types of corporate databases (banking, insurance, car loan, etc)? Leverage that law with this case, and the current level of internationalization of many firms, and the government can get information about anyone, from just about anywhere.
Or perhapps I am wearing the tinfoil hat too tightly...
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scary (Score:5, Informative)
In return, we spy on Canada's, England's, Australia, and New Zealand's citizens, and turn the information over to them.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Rackspace are not trustworthy.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Rackspace have come out of this with egg on their faces and I seriously hope that it hurts their business big-time. I also hope that they will be compensating indymedia and all the other sites hosted on those servers for the lost time, aggrivation and general shittyness of the whole thing.
Re:Rackspace are not trustworthy.... (Score:3)
British Home Secretary Questions (Score:3, Informative)
The Register covers this in more detail [theregister.co.uk], stating that parliamentary questions have been tabled asking "what recent discussions [The Home Secretary] has had with US law enforcement agencies concerning the seizure of material from UK-based internet hosting providers; and if he will make a statement."
I'd expect we'll see his evasion^h^h^h^h^h^h^hanswer appearing on the excellent theyworkforyou.com [theyworkforyou.com]
I've just written to my MP... (Score:3, Informative)
It will be interesting to see whether I get a reply, and if so what reply I get. The more MPs are asking questions of the Home Office on this issue, the better, so if you're a UK voter, write to your MP. Obviously, don't copy my letter exactly, because the objective is to get them to understand a lot of different people are upset about this one.
Re:Artificial Intelligence.... (Score:2)
Re:Indy Media Watch (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:America is less safe today (Score:3, Insightful)
(too chicken-hearted to post with a proper account? Well.)
"leftist" and "liberal" seem to be bad values for you per se, and your "way of life" as we've seen it in the past couple of decades has made the world a worse place to begin with. You are about 4% of the world population, and you are using more than 25% of the world's energy resources. Simply because you can (like the dog who licks its balls, ya know) by using your sheer power. From large parts of the remaining 96% of the worl