[News] FBI Seizes IndyMedia Servers in the UK

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FBI Seizes IMC Servers in the UK

Indy Media - Oct 7, 2004

http://www.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/111999.shtml

Thursday morning, US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace
ordering them to hand over Indymedia web servers to the requesting agency.
Rackspace, which provides hosting services for more that 20 Indymedia
sites at its London facility, complied and turned over the requested
servers, effectively removing those sites from the internet.

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 an additional 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.





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