BREAKING NEWS: US Authorities Seize Indy Media Servers! (Update 5:17 p.m. - EST)
By Special Report
Oct 8, 2004, 14:47
Scroll down for new reports of suppression of free speech by the U.S. government!
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Editorial Comment: To all readers, internationally and in the United States - The criminal U.S. government is violating the core principles of democracy and freedom of speech with a new level of belligerence. Outside U.S. jurisdiction, your hard drive can be taken and servers seized by U.S. authorities with the complicity of those in power in your country. The U.S. government oppresses freedom of speech and assembly in the United States by attacking first the most vulnerable - minorities and those without full citizenship. They have begun their despotic move on free speech on the Internet by attacking Indymedia in other sovereign nations. The following messages were received by Axis of Logic via e-mail. We feel compelled to warn that this may be only the beginning. We will keep readers informed as this story continues to develop. We must stand together against those who are silencing voices of dissent! Join us at the national protest on October 17 when the anti-war movement moves on Washington D.C. with the Million Worker March! -- Axis of Logic
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"The most effectual engines for [controlling public opinion] are the public papers. [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of new writers who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the minister.
This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper."
- Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van
Hogendorp, Oct. 13,1785*.
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UK imcista, 07.10.2004 21:43
On 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 including one covering the European Social Forum in London, BLAG (linux distro), and a handful of miscellanous things.
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.
It is ironic that that this happens now, just days before Indymedia is due to participate in the European Forum on Communications Rights being held alongside the European Social Forum and several other days of discussions about electronic civil liberties and community media. For more information on these events see www.efcr2004.net
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.
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