<nettime> indymedia servers in UK seized by FBI

[matthew fuller <fuller@xs4all.nl>]

   http://www.indymedia.org/ servers seized by FBI

   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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