http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/08/fbi_indymedia_raids/
Feds seize Indymedia servers
By John Leyden
Published Friday 8th October 2004 18:44Â GMT The FBI yesterday seized a pair
of UK servers used by Indymedia, the independent newsgathering collective,
after serving a subpoena in the US on Indymedia's hosting firm, Rackspace.
Why or how remains unclear.
Rackspace UK complied with a legal order and handed over hard disks without
first notifying Indymedia. It's unclear if the raid was executed under
extra-territorial provisions of US legislation or the UK's Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Provisions of RIPA make it a criminal
offence to discuss warrants, so Rackspace would not be able to discuss the
action with its customer Indymedia, or with the media.
Rackspace US has issued a statement which says that the investigation "did
not arise in the United States", but which sheds very little light on the
whys and the wherefores.
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The seizure of Indymedia's servers affects more than 20 Indymedia sites
worldwide. The list of affected local media collectives includes Uruguay,
Andorra, Poland, Nice, several French groups, Euskal Herria (Basque
Country), multiple Belgian sites, Serbia, Portugal, the Czech Republic,
Italy, Brazil, the UK, part of the Germany site, and the global Indymedia
Radio site. One of the servers taken down at Rackspace provided streaming
radio to several radio stations and served files related to the Blag Linux
distribution, among other purposes.
While Indymedia is not exactly sure what prompted the action, the group does
have one strong idea. A French Indymedia site last month posted photos of
what it believed to be undercover Swiss police officers photographing
protesters at a French event. Indymedia received a request from the FBI to
pull those photos down, as they "revealed personal information" about the
undercover police, said Indymedia press officer Hep Sano.
Rackspace appeared to confirm that the photos were an issue with the FBI.
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Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
