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The BBC Propaganda Begins:

The B ritish B rain C ontrol...

One of the companies, Global Net Ventures, is based in the UK. How is the US FTC going to charge them?

Little things like borders have never stopped US authorities before

There are some good questions on Spy Blog:

The questions about whether or not Rackspace's UK subsidiary have acted illegally under United Kingdom law, by intercepting "electronic communications" (including emails), disrupting an electronic communications system, export of personal data outside of the European Union to the USA without permission, breach of copyright etc. still need to be answered.

Without the protection of a properly authorised UK law enforcement warrant, which was obviously not obtained in this case, Rackspace UK could be sued for breach of confidentiality by the >Indymedia systems administrators with whom they have a legal contract.

The contract was with Rackspace UK and Rackspace are a UK limited company... you can look this up with Companies House (UK office hours, they don't leave their mainframe connected to the net when they are not in the office!)... so there must be potential for breach of contract action(s) here...

Check term 10 of Rackspace UK's Master Service Agreement:

"10 Law and Disputes
10.1 This Agreement shall be governed by English law.

I rang Rackspace in the UK today, their Linux managed servers sales section, I asked them if they would host a box for me in the UK and if it could be exempt from UK laws... I didn't get very far... I asked to speak to her boss but she said they were both out... she said only the US company could speak about this matter...

For more background on this see Jebba's blog and also please sign the Indymedia Solidarity Statment!

PS Isn't it time for a Indymedia topic with a nice (((i))) logo... :-)

In July, the CIA pressured the govt of Cyprus to investigate Cyprus Indymedia in July. When the Cyprus govt finally admitted this publicly, it made front page news there.

In August, the US Secret Service harassed NY Indymedia's ISP Calyx during the Republican National Convention, making intimidating requests to the ISP, demanding home contact details of Indymedia server admins, etc.

Now it's the FBI's turn.

What does the US govt plan to do to Indymedia in November, I wonder?

Here's some background on what the Italian govt had in mind when they requested the "assistance" of the US Feds. A federal prosecutor in Italy, Marina Plazzi, has stated that she is investigating Indymedia because of possible "support of terrorism". Apparently this is about supposedly positive postings after an attack on Italian soldiers in the Iraqi city of Nassiriya last November. "We asked the FBI for help alongside the Italian Department of Justice", federal prosecutor Plazzi said. The Italian Minister of Justice, Roberto Castelli, has so far refused to speak out on the proceedings of the FBI.

The parliamentary representatives of the Italian government parties are clearly less reticent. On Sunday, Mario Landolfi, spokesman of the neo-fascist party "Alleanza Nazionale" (AN), announced the seizure of the computers served "the enforcement of the law".
Note that the AN are coalition partners in the current Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, our Partner In The War On Terror(tm).

Last November, 17 AN delegates, including the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, demanded the shut-down of Indymedia in a joint statement. Back then, Paolo Valentino, state secretary in the Italian Department of Justice and also a member of AN, had announced possible cooperation with the USA.

This week's seizure of Indymedia servers appears to be what he was hoping for.

If anyone wants to help out (there are still many IMC sites down) some more mirrors would be good!

You can get in touch with IMC techies via email or via #tech on irc.indymedia.org.

The sites that are easy to mirror are the ones running Mir since this CMS generates static HTML, this includes the global site and the UK site.

Also one of the siezed London servers was the main Blag Linux server and it ran some other Free software mirrors... :-/

And owner of 4/5 of the IMC UK, DNS and mail servers, I'm quite startled to get back from the pub to this. Couple of interesting links: The global view The local view

The RCN stuff was on NYC IMC (and it wasn't posted by Indymedia, most content on IMC sites is posted by the site users just like happens here...), the two servers siezed in London did not host NYC IMC, they hosted a lot of others IMC sites (like Italy and UK) and also some big Free software mirrors and projects, like the Blag Linux distro... :-/

It is not know if the Nantes issue is related to this, perhaps it was enough of an excuse for them and they are after other information, thankfully these servers were set up not to log IP addresses :-)

Or Chile?

Or Haiti and Venezuela?

Or maybe the one of the myriad other countries that have seen similar US interference?

Help me out here, I'm confused ...

On or around Thursday 13th May 2004 Tony Blair's 16 year old daughter Kathryn attempted to commit suicide. She is in the middle of exams, believed to be GCSE's and took an overdose of unknown pills. She was rushed to hospital and a news blackout was requested by the PM's office and adhered to by the British Press. Katherine is believed to be studying at the Sacred Heart school in Hammersmith, West London, a Roman Catholic state secondary school.

News about the suicide attempt was confirmed by Alan Johnson, Labour MP for West Hull and Hessle.

So, was this a sudden pang of concience from the British tabloids over sensitive reporting of the PM's family? Or the establishment press (yes even the tabloids are owned by the establishment) kow-towing to protect the flagging public image of the most disasterous Prime Minister this country has ever seen just before local and European Elections?

In a democracy, the public have a right to know about the family failings of anyone in public office - it enables them to judge whether to vote for that individual or not. When that failing family is the Prime Ministers the press have a duty to inform the public - not to protect politicians' images from public scrutiny.

You can comment on the news blackout here:
Stupid Boy forum
Barfi Culture Forum

So-called open publishing newswire Indymedia have also censored this story - see here
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293456.html

Ethical guidance on the reporting of suicide is here

On or around Thursday 13th May 2004 Tony Blair's 16 year old daughter Kathryn attempted to commit suicide. She is in the middle of exams, believed to be GCSE's and took an overdose of unknown pills. She was rushed to hospital and a news blackout was requested by the PM's office and adhered to by the British Press. Katherine is believed to be studying at the Sacred Heart school in Hammersmith, West London, a Roman Catholic state secondary school.

News about the suicide attempt was confirmed by Alan Johnson, Labour MP for West Hull and Hessle.

So, was this a sudden pang of concience from the British tabloids over sensitive reporting of the PM's family? Or the establishment press (yes even the tabloids are owned by the establishment) kow-towing to protect the flagging public image of the most disasterous Prime Minister this country has ever seen just before local and European Elections?

In a democracy, the public have a right to know about the family failings of anyone in public office - it enables them to judge whether to vote for that individual or not. When that failing family is the Prime Ministers the press have a duty to inform the public - not to protect politicians' images from public scrutiny.

You can comment on the news blackout here:
Stupid Boy forum
Barfi Culture Forum

So-called open publishing newswire Indymedia have also censored this story - see here
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293456.html

Ethical guidance on the reporting of suicide is here

Of course, we in the UK still have a military censor although these days it's now 'voluntary', and one hopes it is now doing what it was set-up for, i.e., "careless talk costs lives" stuff, rather than covering up any embarrassing mistakes...

Here is the original apache video...

And another link.

Good video to watch when feeling too positive about the future of humanity.

Read the law, or at least read a few websites. Legally, copyright is theft.

I agree it's not the kind of theft that leaves the original owner without use of it. But if you take money from someone, it's theft. When you copy a song illegally, you've taken money from someone. Argue all you want that you wouldn't have purchased it anyway, but the end result is you have a copy of it. Having that copy without paying the artist/label/writer/whatever, according to the law, means you stole it.

Oh wait... is it murder if you shoot an injured unarmed Iraqi from a chopper 2 clicks out at night? Does that person deserve to die too?
What if that Iraqi's child had been killed by an American bomb?

Seems the problem is more complicated. Surprise surprise!

And in more important news:

The Free Software Movement - Anarchism in Action

And in other news:

The Free Software Movement - Anarchism in Action

of course ! 'Oil On Mars' Probe Creates Worries That The VP Really Is THAT Fucking Stupid

WSIS might sound like a boring bureaucratic exercise, but there's a strong chance that governments are going to walk away from it with new international agreements in their pockets to pass laws in their own countries restricting the free flow of information.

Quoting the "WSIS? We Seize!" press release:

'While the official agenda of this UN/ITU Summit talks about "free access to information", "the digital divide" and "equality of opportunities", in reality its doors are closed, its discussions exclusive and the agendas of those who attend it concealed. What's more, the right to demonstrate and protest has been suspended in Geneva at this time, as the usual parade of despots and tyrants fly in to Switzerland to define policy for their own citizens, and the rest of the world, based on the agendas of corporate multinationals, media conglomerates and infrastructure owners.

Geneva03 is a temporary network of groups and individuals set up to carry out agitational, educational and communications work during both the G8 and the WSIS. Geneva03 considers it critical to show, during such a display of media power and control, that independent groups and people have the ability to create their own media, to share media, self publish, build networks and communicate freely and autonomously. That's why we've titled our events during this time WSIS? WE SEIZE! We do not consider that negotiation and supplication before the altar of the UN will produce information autonomy for all. Instead, we are taking our autonomy now, using the means and technologies at our disposal: the Internet, peer to peer networks, Free and Open Source Software, community wireless infrastructures, pirate television and radio and streamed media. Beyond questions of communications technology, We Seize! seeks to open a wide-ranging discussion on the new social conditions that constitute today's world about which the WSIS has little or nothing to say: media concentration, expansive intellectual property regimes, casualised and immaterial labour and migration.

We insist that this urge to speak, to hear and be heard, is irrepressible. The Geneva03 group returns to Geneva following major attempts at repression during the G8 this year, in which the group were targetted by police whilst running an independent media centre. No charges were brought against the group, because - whatever the establishment would like us to believe - it is still lawful to freely express ourselves. We must, however, continue to exercise this ability, to expand and test it in diverse situations, if we are not to lose the freedom and potential that defines us as people.

Communication, language and information are essential to understanding both control and liberation in this new millenium. They are simultaneously the site of the most repressive and totalitarian suppression and disciplining we have seen since the 1950s and, we believe, the basis of a powerful, growing autonomous movement. Ultimately this movement must cut to the very heart of communication: for what we are able to articulate, we are able to create. We must speak of a new world without fear, and with all the creativity, energy and commitment we can find.'
(end quote)

If you want to know more, here are some useful links:

Good background article on Indymedia Global

WSIS? We Seize!

The World Forum on Communication Rights

Polimedia Lab

Civil Society news centre for the WSIS

Indymedia UK WSIS 2003 section

This summit is a betrayal of it's original ideals, and especially of the World's poor. Various groups are intending to strongly oppose this travesty; there is more information and here.

I am only responding because you are *SO* clueless about CCTV cameras that you somehow fail to notice. Your statements that "I don't see them so they aren't there" and "78 million isn't very much money" are sad.

Please research this for yourself. The facts are - at least tens of thousands of monitored cameras - at least tens millions of pounds spent on using the cameras each year.

CCTV in Cambridge - note: estimated that each Londoner is watched by 300 cameras each day. Cambridge alone has 127 camera and spends 1/3 million per year. Nationally, 20 million+ per year for the last decade.

Wired article "British authorities have placed great faith in CCTV as a crime control device, installing an estimated 1.5 million police cameras along the country's streets, buildings and mass transport systems. Still shots taken from video feed are used to identify protesters and hooligans."

78 million pounds for 250 new CCTV monitored systems
40 million per year is currently spent on CCTV
In Jan 2000 a further 40 million was allocated to 218 public CCTV schemes.
At present, there are well over 750 local public closed circuit tv surveillance systems in operation in the UK.
Search Parliament for CCTV spending yourself

(Oh, BTW your officials are now selling footage of your cameras to the highest bidder)

Sources at:

Indymedia: Rather sarcastic and somehow a flamebait, but still worth a read.

David Ickle's website: Independent scientific evidence repeatedly showing up over the past 50 years reveals that fluoride allegedly shortens our life span, promotes cancer and various mental disturbances, accelerates osteoporosis and broken hips in old folks, and makes us stupid, docile, and subservient, all in one package.

Another piece: Fluoride is intoxicating. Another here: Do I need to quote some more stuff?

Out finde more about the EU IPR Enforcement directive here or here.

From the article:
AT&T plans to retire 270 legacy systems across the world by the end of 2005. Approximately 130 legacy systems were retired over the past 18 months, with another 140 systems slated for phase out over the next two years.

The article didn't define exactly what "legacy systems" were (switches? entire local networks?), but that sure sounds like a lot of high technology that's heading for the dustbin. We're talking technology that's currently in use creating a mobile communications system that would have been unimaginable just 15 years ago.

Will it all be scrapped out? Will barges full of misc parts be shipped to third-world scavenging companies to recover the precious metals? Or is there some way to move the equipment to areas that need it -- Afghanistan and Iraq come to mind right away, but I'd think that under-served (and under-reported) countries like Somalia and the rest of Africa could make use of this supposedly outdated hardware.

Of course, we're back to the same old question -- when it costs more to recycle than to dump, how do you justify doing the Right Thing to shareholders whose only interest is in doing the Profitable Thing?

Gillette was listed as an attendee. This is the same gillette who took photos of customers purchasing their products using an rfid-triggered cameras.

well... there's gilette mach iii razor blades (source is here). apparently that's been canned because of the outcry. but early adopters always have a tough time of it..

This is what you will want to remove to get a special for the blades once they retract from their pullout.

That goes to the great slashdot troll investigation post. It had something like 500 mods. Indymedia did an article on it, even.