FBI Raids Indymedia

[Eric Cordian]

According to http://www.indymedia.it/, the FBI seized Indymedia's servers 
from their host, Rackspace.

> Thursday Oct 7 2004, at 6 PM, FBI issued an order to Rackspace in the US 
> (Indymedia's provider with offices in the US and London) to remove 
> physically two of our servers. The order was so short term that 
> Rackspace had to give away our hard drives in the UK. The servers 
> hosted numerous local IMCs, including italy.indymedia.org. If you find 
> a site is down: that might be the reason The reason why the hard drives 
> were taken are unknown.

And at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/08/1097089554894.html

-----

The FBI has issued an order to hosting provider Rackspace in the US, 
ordering it to turn over two of the servers hosting the Independent Media 
Centre's websites in the UK, a statement from the group says.

Rackspace has offices in the US and the UK. Independent Media Center, 
which is better known as Indymedia, was set up in 1999 to provide 
grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) protests in 
Seattle.

Rackspace complied with the FBI order, without first notifying Indymedia, 
and turned over Indymedia's server in the UK. This affects over 20 
Indymedia sites worldwide, the group said.

Indymedia said it did not know why the order had been issued as it was 
issued to Rackspace. Rackspace told some of the group's volunteers "they 
cannot provide Indymedia with any information regarding the order." ISPs 
have received gag orders in similar situations which prevent them from 
updating the parties involved on what is happening.

Indymedia said a second server was taken down at Rackspace. This provided 
streaming radio to several radio stations, BLAG (a Linux distribution), 
and a handful of miscellanous things.

In August the US 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 get IP logs from an ISP in the US and the 
Netherlands.

Last month the US Federal Communications Commission shut down community 
radio stations around the US. Two weeks ago the FBI asked Indymedia to 
remove 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.

Indymedia said the list of local media collectives affected included 
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.

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"