[SlugBug] FBI Seizes Indymedia Servers in the UK

[Bill Best]

Hope this isn't too OT but this list has traditionally been largely 
supportive of activist endeavours.

More on Slashdot: 
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/07/204217&tid=153&tid=219

Press Release

7 October 2004

FBI Seizes Indymedia Servers in the UK

Thursday morning, US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace
ordering them to hand over information hosted on Indymedia web servers
to the FBI. Rackspace, which provides hosting services for more that 20
Indymedia sites at its London facility, complied by turning over two
Indymedia servers to federal authorities, effectively removing those
sites from the internet.

Indymedia, a global network of independent non-corporate media
organizations, had been asked last month by the FBI to remove a story
about Swiss undercover police from one of the websites hosted at
Rackspace. It is not known, however, whether Thursday's order is related
to that incident since the order was issued to Rackspace and not to
Indymedia. According to Rackspace, they "cannot provide Indymedia with
any information regarding the order." ISP's have received gag orders in
similar situations which prevent them from informing concerned parties
about what is happening.

It is unclear to Indymedia how and why a server that is outside US
jurisdiction can be seized by US authorities.

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 New York City Independent Media Center
before the Republican National Convention by trying to obtain their IP
logs from ISP's in the US and the Netherlands. Also, in the past month,
the FCC shut down community radio stations throughout the US. Despite
these setbacks, Indymedia and other independent media organizations have
enjoyed recent victories against Diebold and the Patriot Act.

The list of local media collectives affected by the FBI seizure includes
Ambazonia, Uruguay, Andorra, Poland, Western Massachusetts, Nice,
Nantes, Lilles, Marseille, Euskal Herria (Basque Country), Liege, East
and West Vlaanderen, Antwerpen (all Belgium), Belgrade, Portugal,
Prague, Galiza, Italy, Brazil, UK, and Germany. Additionally, several
streaming radio stations, a Linux distribution site, and other services
hosted on those servers were also affected.

For more information, please contact Hep at 415-867-9472 or email
press at indymediaSTOPSPAM.org. Additional information about Indymedia is
available at http://www.indymedia.org/.