[Imc] Three WBAI Broadcasters Websites shut down

[Jason Pitzl]

This is a little something someone else fwd to me:
http://www.wbai.net/sites_shutdown9-27-01.html

Apologies if this has already made the rounds on this list,

Jason Pitzl-Waters
MythWorks
A pagan political perspective
http://www.wildhunt.org/myth/

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Three WBAI Broadcasters Websites shut down
9-27-01

The Repression has already begun
Three WBAI Broadcasters Websites shut down
by Threat of New Broad Anti-Terrorist order
RADIO FREE EIREANN
WBAI RADIO
120 WALL STREET
NEW YORK, NY 1005

For Immediate Release
RADIO FREE EIREANN WEB SITE CLOSED BY THREATS
TO SEIZE ASSETS OF SERVICE PROVIDER

http://www.IRARADIO.COM, the web site which archives all Radio Free Eireann 
broadcasts, has been taken down because the web service provider was 
threatened with seizure of their assets if they continued to host 
"terrorist" radio programs. Travis E. Towle, the Founder and CEO of Cosmic 
Entertainment Company, which put up IRARADIO.COM, was told by their internet 
service provider, Hypervine, that they had been "strongly advised" to take 
the web site down.

A Hypervine representative read Mr. Towle a statement that, under an 
Executive Order recently signed by President Bush, the newly created Office 
of Homeland Security can seize all assets "without any notice and/or any 
real un-reasonable evidence of any company or person that helps, supports, 
or does anything that can be called or labeled terrorism or is found to be 
connected to terrorism in any way or means possible."

Hypervine is a subsidiary of the New York based Skynet. These threats have 
also caused Cosmic Entertainment to close the web sites archiving two other 
WBAI radio programs, "Our Americas" and "Grandpa Al Lewis Live." "Our 
Americas," hosted by Mario Morillo, is an acclaimed news magazine covering 
Latin America. "Grandpa Al Lewis Live" features commentary by the actor and 
political activist who starred in "The Munsters" and "Car 54 Where Are You." 
Radio Free Eireann, which broadcasts Saturday afternoons at 1:30 p.m. on 
WBAI 99.5 FM has covered the conflict in Northern Ireland for over twenty 
years. Guests have included Bernadette Sands, the sister of IRA hunger 
striker Bobby Sands; Rauri O'Bradaigh, the President of Republican Sinn 
Fein; Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness and Irish Prime Minister 
Bertie Ahern.

------------------------

Frank on the goodlight board:

Terrorist Financing Executive Order Fri Sep 28 16:56:21 2001

Search whitehouse.gov by keyword http://www.whitehouse.gov/search
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010924-2.html
Fact Sheet on Terrorist Financing Executive Order September 24, 2001

"We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them against each other, rout 
them out of their safe hiding places, and bring them to justice."

President George W. Bush September 24, 2001

The President has directed the first strike on the global terror network 
today by issuing an Executive Order to starve terrorists of their support 
funds. The Order expands the Treasury Department's power to target the 
support structure of terrorist organizations, freeze the U.S. assets and 
block the U.S. transactions of terrorists and those that support them, and 
increases our ability to block U.S. assets of, and deny access to U.S. 
markets to, foreign banks who refuse to cooperate with U.S. authorities to 
identify and freeze terrorist assets abroad.

Disrupting the Financial Infrastructure of Terrorism

Targets all individuals and institutions linked to global terrorism. Allows 
the Treasury Department to freeze U.S. assets and block U.S. transactions of 
any person or institution associated with terrorists or terrorist 
organizations. Names specific individuals and organizations whose assets and 
transactions are to be blocked. Identifies charitable organizations that 
secretly funnel money to al-Qaeda. Provides donors information about 
charitable groups who fund terrorist organizations. States the President's 
intent to punish those financial institutions at home and abroad that 
continue to provide resources and/or services to terrorist organizations.

Authorities Broadened The new Executive order broadens existing authority in 
three principal ways:

It expands the coverage of existing Executive orders from terrorism in the 
Middle East to global terrorism; The Order expands the class of targeted 
groups to include all those who are "associated with" designated terrorist 
groups; and Establishes our ability to block the U.S. assets of, and deny 
access to U.S. markets to, those foreign banks that refuse to freeze 
terrorist assets.

Blocking Terrorist Assets

The Order prohibits U.S. transactions with those terrorist organizations, 
leaders, and corporate and charitable fronts listed in the Annex. Eleven 
terrorist organizations are listed in the Order, including organizations 
that make up the al-Qaeda network. A dozen terrorist leaders are listed, 
including Osama bin Ladin and his chief lieutenants, three charitable 
organizations, and one corporate front organization are identified as well. 
The Order authorizes the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the 
Treasury to make additional terrorist designations in the coming weeks and 
months.

Other Actions in War on Terrorist Financing This Executive Order is part of 
a broader strategy that we have developed for suppressing terrorist 
financing:

A Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center (FTAT) is up and running. The FTAT 
is a multi-agency task force that will identify the network of terrorist 
funding and freeze assets before new acts of terrorism take place. The 
President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State and others 
are working with our allies around the world to tackle the financial 
underpinnings of terrorism. We are working through the G-8 and the United 
Nations. Already, several of our allies, including Switzerland and Britain, 
have frozen accounts of suspected terrorists.

---------------------

Radio Free Eireann
Down but not out
Wed Oct 3 21:09:50 2001

Republican radio website removed


© 2001 Irish Echo Newspaper Corp.
September 26-October 2, 2001
By Stephen McKinley

The website for the weekly radio show "Radio Free Eireann" was removed from 
the Internet last Thursday, allegedly because it was perceived to support 
terrorism. The site, iraradio.com, was the repository for the archives of 
"Radio Free Eireann," dating back to 1995. It was hosted on the servers of a 
Kansas City company, Cosmic Entertainment, which in turn takes its server 
space from a company called Hypervine, a subsidiary of telecommunications 
company Skynet.

A holding page has replaced the original site informing listeners of the 
removal, and suggesting that Cosmic's server space suppliers at Hypervine 
may be indulging in censorship. A Hypervine representative, according to 
Cosmic's founder Travis E. Towle, told him and his lawyer that iraradio.com 
and two other radio archive websites, "Al Lewis Live" and "Our Americas," 
"had to go," after the company had been "strongly advised" to take them down 
by the Office of Homeland Security because the sites were perceived to be 
supporting terrorism.

All of the radio shows are broadcast by WBAI out of their Wall Street 
offices. The Homeland Security office was created by President Bush in the 
wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on Sept. 1, and will be 
headed up by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. According to a message 
posted on the iraradio.com site, the Office of Homeland Security can seize 
all assets "with or without notice and/or any real or unreasonable evidence 
of any company or person that helps, supports or does anything that can be 
called or labeled terrorism or is found to be connected to terrorism in any 
way or means possible."

However, the Office of Homeland Security has only this week acquired office 
space in the west wing of the White House, and the task of marshalling more 
than 40 government agencies under a single umbrella has yet to begin.

Indeed, according to sources in Washington, D.C., Ridge will not take up his 
new post until Oct. 8, and the precise nature of the new department is still 
the subject of intense debate on Capitol Hill -- nor does it yet have a 
telephone number.

Saturday's "Radio Free Eireann" show went ahead as normal, according to host 
John McDonagh. The subject of debate was the hunger strikes in Turkey and 
also the free speech issues involved in the predicament facing the show and 
its website. "Radio Free Eireann," originally called "Behind the Green 
Curtain," has been broadcasting since 1980.

"We got into the topic of why the site went down," McDonagh said. "Cosmic 
Entertainment's lawyer got a call from Hypervine, telling them that the 
sites had to go." McDonagh speculated that there was a degree of 
self-censorship going on after the Sept. 11 attacks, perhaps among employees 
of Hypervine and its parent company, Skytel, and suggested that the 
likelihood of the order coming from the Office of Homeland Security was 
slim. Neither Hypervine nor Skytel representatives were available for 
comment to the Echo and did not return telephone messages.

Towle of Cosmic Entertainment acknowledged that he had received hundreds of 
emails since Sept. 11 condemning his company for "supporting terrorism," and 
he said that Hypervine had received emails and telephone messages to the 
same effect. Towle said that "Radio Free Eireann" was "25 percent of my 
business."

"I would put the site back up again, but I need guarantees that someone 
won't come after me again," he said.

Towle has posted one of the emails that he received at the iraradio.com 
website, which apparently came from Sweden.

"To my astonishment you are advertising a radio station promoting terrorism 
with a thinly veiled disguise statement, which states the occupied six 
counties of Northern Ireland by the British." "After the recent terror 
tragedies that have happened in the country that you are based in, that is a 
disgrace that you are promoting such a hateful and inaccurate, talk show 
site 'IRA Radio Free Eireann.' "

"We're a news-gathering service," McDonagh said in response. "We have voices 
on our show that our government and other people don't necessarily like to 
hear."




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