FBI Seizes Indymedia Servers in the UK : Melbourne Indymedia

Thursday morning, US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace ordering them to hand over information hosted on Indymedia web servers to the FBI. Rackspace, which provides hosting services for more that 20 Indymedia sites at its London facility, complied by turning over two Indymedia servers to federal authorities, effectively removing those sites from the internet.

Indymedia, a global network of independent non-corporate media organzations, had been asked last month by the FBI to remove a story about Swiss undercover police from one of the websites hosted at Rackspace. It is not known whether Thursday's order is related to that incident, however, since the order was issued to Rackspace and not to Indymedia. According to Rackspace, they "cannot provide Indymedia with any information regarding the order." ISPs have received gag orders in similar situations which prevent them from informing concerned parties about what is happening.

It is unclear to Indymedia how and why a server that is outside US jurisdiction can be seized by US authorities.

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 New York City Independent Media Center before the Republican National Convention by trying to obtain their IP logs from ISPs in the US and the Netherlands. Also, in the past month, the FCC shut down community radio stations throughout the US. Despite these setbacks, Indymedia and other independent media organizations have enjoyed recent victories against Diebold and the Patriot Act. US authorities, however, have now upped the ante by shutting down IMC sites across the globe.

The list of affected local media collectives includes Ambazonia, Uruguay, Andorra, Poland, Western Massachusetts, Nice, Nantes, Lilles, Marseille, Euskal Herria (Basque Country), Liege, East and West Vlaanderen, Antwerpen (all Belgium), Belgrade, Portugal, Prague, Galiza, Italy, Brazil, UK, and Germany. Additionally, several streaming radio stations, a Linux distribution site, and other services hosted on those servers were also affected.

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Further Information:

(16:55) Original photos are now available here:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/mtoups/nantes/copsinnantes.htm
(I suggest this page is duplicated and republished as much as possible - Takver)

FBI seizes Global Indymedia Servers. Reasons Unknown
http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/126066/index.php

FBI took the hard drives of IMC servers in the UK
07 Oct 2004 18:10 GMT
http://www.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/111987.shtml

Slashdot: Indymedia Server Raided by FBI
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/10/07/204217.shtml?tid=153&tid=219

FBI seizes Global Indymedia Servers. Reasons Unknown. Background Info:
http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/20764/index.php

excerpt from notification of compliance with the Federal Order from Rackspace:
"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." ....

"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."