[Peace] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:14794] FBI seizes Indymedia servers

[Alfred Kagan]

Chilling news.

>Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 17:55:35 -0500
>From: Chuck0 <chuck at mutualaid.org>
>Organization: Infoshop News
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>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
>CC: ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom List <alaoif at ala.org>,
>         srrtac-l at ala.org, a-librarians <a-librarians at lists.mutualaid.org>,
>         imc-kc-announce at lists.indymedia.org
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:14794] FBI seizes Indymedia servers
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>
>FBI seizes Global Indymedia Servers. Reasons Unknown.
>
>http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/20764/index.php
>http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/10/07/204217.shtml?tid=153&tid=219
>
>FBI took the hard drives of Global IMC servers in the USA and the 
>UK. It appears that a court order was issued to Rackspace 
>(Indymedia's service provider with offices in the US and in London) 
>to physically remove the hard drives from Global Indymedia servers 
>(backup servers are now in place). Rackspace was given no time to 
>defend against the order before it was acted upon and turned over 
>the hard drives, both in the US and the UK. The servers hosted 
>numerous local IMCs and the reason for the seizure is not known.
>
>The FBI's latest anti-free-press actions began at the beginning of 
>October when they visited Indymedia's ISP demanding the removal of 
>identifying information from photographs of undercover police 
>officers that was posted on the Nantes Indymedia website. When asked 
>what the US government was doing requesting the removal of 
>information from a French-run website that contained information 
>about Swiss police actions, the FBI stated that this was a 
>"courtesy" to the Swiss government. The FBI agents stated that no 
>laws had been broken, and no crimes had been committed. However, 
>because no identifying information was posted on the website in 
>question, it was unclear what actions the FBI was requesting.
>
>The article in question is/was posted here:
>
>http://nantes.indymedia.org/article.php3?id_article=3910
>
>On Tuesday October 5th, Indymedia received the following message 
>from Rackspace:
>
>"I apologize for the delay in responding. I have been trying to get 
>a hold of the FBI agent I spoke with before, but haven't been able 
>to at this time. As the request originated with the Swiss police, I 
>can only speculate on what they saw or what they were concerned 
>about. However, at this time, I have received no further 
>communications from either the FBI or the Swiss authorities, so I 
>feel like we can close this this issue."
>
>Today the FBI seized Global Indymedia servers; however it is unclear 
>if this is related to the Nantes issue or is a second FBI concern 
>within the past week.
>
>(14:20) Rackspace has issued a "no comment" response concerning the 
>FBI's actions.
>
>(15:25) New list of IMCs affected: ambazonia, uruguay, andorra, pl, 
>wester mass, radio, uk, antwerpen, nice, nantes, lille, 
>euskalherria, liege, oost-vlaanderen, belgrade, west-vlaanderen, 
>portugal, prague, marseille, galiza, basque, germany media, italy, 
>and brasil.
>
>(16:10) Rackspace has issued the following comments:
>
>I have been in contact with the regional director responsible for 
>the federal order. He has stated that I can not provide any 
>information regarding the order. I am going to follow up with our 
>law enforcement liason to verify this, however.
>
>Regards,
>
>Jennifer O'Connell
>Rackspace AUP
>
>***
>
>Unfortunately, we have received a federal order to provide your 
>hardware to the requesting agency. We are complying at this time. 
>Our datacenter technicians are building you a new server which will 
>be online as soon as possible. Your account manager will notify you 
>once the new server is online and available.
>
>I apologize for abruptness of this. However, we are required to 
>comply with all federal orders of this nature.
>
>Please let us know if there is anything that we can do to make this 
>easier on you.
>
>Regards,
>
>Jennifer O'Connell
>AUP Administrator
>Rackspace Managed Hosting
>
>***
>
>(16:45) The story has hit slashdot:
>
>http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/10/07/204217.shtml?tid=153&tid=219
>
>(16:55) Original photos are now available here:
>
>http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/mtoups/nantes/copsinnantes.htm
>Related stories on this site:
>indy vs fbi


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu