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FBI Seeks 2 Days Of IndyMedia Traffic Log
john_locke writes: "'On the evening of Saturday, April 21, a day which saw tens of thousands demonstrate against the FTAA in the streets of Quebec City, the Independent Media Center in Seattle was served with a sealed court order by two FBI agents and an agent of the US Secret Service.' indymedia.org is a news center where anyone can be journalist, and a lot of leftist discussions about anti-globalization, etc, take place. The Agents were serving a court order demanding the IP addresses of visitors of the site, and indymedia.org was given a gag order forbidding them to talk about this."
John points to the informative release at IndyMedia's front page as well, which serves to dispel some rumors. Note that contrary to early reports, there was not an FBI "raid" on the center. (Now: Where have you connected in the last 30 days, by what means? Was it from a static IP? What other sites did you visit? How long were you connected? This is a quiz, test to follow.)
If they had just asked for the log information for the exact times of the posts with the stolen documents, it would have made some sense. What they wanted was the information for everyone posting for two days. They appear to have been out for much more than just the two posts they wanted to remove. BTW: The Internet has existed for a longtime before anyone attempted to regulate it. I did not get a sense of anarchy. I think the human race can do just fine without the government intruding upon it. Why is it so many people are looking for someone to tell them what to do?
taking advantage of the mod point screwup and building links that mod up your comments...
...especially if you've got moderator points. Watch your links ... especially those that end with "&op=moderate" within slashdot.
People who want to be anonymous that bad make me wonder what they're hiding, and also annoy the hell out of me, because of all the RFCs they disdainfully break. Want my e-mail address, street address, or phone number? It's on public record in numerous places, including my ICQ profile.
Hey, if privacy bothers you so much, why not add one more place?
Matt Kracht -- (502)245-4353
(posted anonymously because *I* value privacy).
"Want my e-mail address, street address, or phone number? It's on public record in numerous places, including my ICQ profile." well good for you. Want any of my info? Fuck off! just 'cos you don't feel the need to keep info private doesn't mean that other people do. I post to a suicide group. I'd rather not people know about that. I don't know what your opinion on suicide is, but I can be thrown in an institution (with no trial) because I don't feel as happy as everyone else. would *you* want your adress avalible to anti-choice shiny-happys and doctors in that situation? I think not
- Drowning in Fire
It wasn't the FBI it was hoover himself. get it right.
I wasn't quite convinced the first two times you posted it, but the third time clinched it.
A few other points:
"First, let's get one thing straight. What was taken from the police cars were operational contingency plans prepared by Canadian law enforcement to counteract a series of perceived threats to the public peace, including surmised timing information."
I think we should get one thing straight instead. The real disrupters of the peace were the police, and the Quebec violence was conducted largely by the police, in a brutal, random, indiscriminate, repetitive fashion against innocent protesters, tens of thousands of them who had come to protest a document not a single person in the world was allowed to see other than its corporate sponsors.
"In those plans, the Canadian police identified items of intelligence gathered in some manner,"
The items of intelligence were gathered by the police spies infiltrating independent citizen groups and collecting data on its activities, from which they made assumptions.
"potentially compromising those sources of intelligence."
In other words, potentially compromising the work of police spies in innocent civilian groups.
"It could be argued that the publication of those plans rendered those plans less effective as it provides counter-intelligence to the groups involved in disturbing the peace."
Again, lets be absolutely clear here. The people who were disturbing the peace in Quebec were the police, who used an astonishingly inordinate amount of tear gas, and beat and pepper sprayed and clubbed or otherwise assaulted innocent people, some of whom were merely going to lunch.
"How could the United States law enforcement become involved? There was a mention in the plans about intelligence that a group from Oregon was alledged to plan to cross the border"
Please. The key word here is "alleged." The whole police document leaked to the IMC press is filled with "alleged" assumptions and blatent mischaracterizations meant to condemn protesters as "violent".
"and participate in activities illegal on Canadian soil."
Really? Is peaceful protest illegal in Canada?
And if the police said the Oregon contingent was "violent," did they provide any proof in their document for such assumptions?
It's part of America's new guilty until proven innocent policy.
They were only gased after they had thrown rocks at the cops. Any parent who took a baby to a protest, where there have been cases of violence should have the kid taken away.
At least the police in quebec were ready with cameras. The only thugs were the ones who beat up an inocent cop directing traffic, or those who threw rocks at the police line, and smashed shop windows, and vandalized the city.
There was no gas until the violence started. Those who were not being violent were willigly putting themselves into a dangerous situation.
Would it be justified if someone broke into your car to get keys to get into your house to throw rocks and beat you, then vandalize your house.
Which makes the part in the IMC press release which goes ... to be just wrong.
No, it doesn't. it's not Indymedia's job to do the job of the government. Especially when the government is trying to silence them and intimidate its readership.
You are a moron. The order demanded info for an IP that does not belong to IMC. Period. It is not for IMC to second guess the order. The order is defective. Sheeeesh.
When you speak a court of law, you promise with your hand on the bible to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. So when you fake log files, you will be lying in court and awaiting a really nice sentence when they find out. I don't think lying in court is a smart choice.
However, It's nuts anyway, IP spoofing happens, and MAC addresses are not logged at every router (and MAC addresses are not registered to a person, plus can be faked too), so why does anybody trust log files in a court of law at all? Oh, duh... lawyers don't understand technology. I forgot about that for a second...
I guess this is equally difficult as cases of identity theft where the thief commits a crime in your name. Then you suddenly have to prove that it wasn't you.
That's how it works in theory... In practice, you may have to deal with misperceptions of the court:
If the court thinks they have the proof, then it's up to you to prove that what they see as proof is wrong. If you do nothing, you get the blame and go to jail. Simple as that.
Think of cases of identity theft where an identity thief uses your name&identity to commit crimes (for example rent a car used in robbery etc).
The court will be convinced it has proof it was you, because the criminal identified himself as being you. Then the police comes to your door and then you have to proof it wasn't you at all...
It sucks but that's the way it is. Do you know a solution?
You imply that reading your news online is somehow an abuse of our rights to free speech. This is ridiculous and inflamatory. There is a reason Freedom of Speech is held sacred in this country. And lest we forget, it is first and foremost freedom of pollitical speech that is protected by the United States Constitution.
Actually any news feed can track if you've read it, however you're right, from the poster's point of view, they have no way of knowing.
Just wanted to make sure you all realized this--if they're going after you, they can still see what you're downloading.
Even 'rm'ing the files leaves most of the information on the hard disk. You want to use shred.
This slashdot post (from further down the page) seems very relevent. Good luck in the fight.
Thats some pretty funny stuff you got there.
Its amazing that people thing that vandalizing and theift will accomplish anything.
"Vive La Resistance!"
thats just plain funny
"this shows that the cops think in overly hierarchical, militaristic terms."
the protesters were the ones who severly beat a traffic cop, threw bricks at the cops, etc
"Fuck'em! Smash the state on videotape, surrounded by undercovers!"
Its funny that the only people who got fucked by video were the violent protesters.
This is just an example of how immature these people are, and that most do not even understand what they were 'protesting'. Its sad that the real protesters got caught up in this crap and had their voices muffled by the anger and hatred of the violent protesters.
I work in the cargo brokerage business, we are required by law to keep 2 FULL YEARS of records on hand. Every year, the large carts come and take away the records. Two years is a long long time...
This information could be, very easily, correlated with individual sysadmins involved in IMC. They'd see sysadmins logging in from work or school, or home. They'd be able to build some personality profiles of IMCers. That is, they're very hard working, pretty smart, and spend X hours doing IMC.
From this, they'd be able to also figure out which sysadmins are also protesters! How about that? They'd be able to figure out that, aha, sysadmin ZZZ was no longer logging in from his job, but was in the IMC in Quebec (or wherever). Yet another important tidbit to add to the FBI file.
Come the next big protest, a sysadmin might find themselves in jail a lot sooner than expected! YUP. They might become a victim of tactical apprehension of suspicious characters; hit by a preemptive strike against the IMC LAN and webserver. Delete the sysadmin, and the server crashes, and the DSL line stops working.
Whuups.
Basically, I'm saying that, more than anything else, the authorities want more information about the individuals involved in organizing the IMC, operating its infrastructure, and basically making the whole thing operate. If you look on the site and on the mail list archives, it'll become apparent that there are individuals who are key players, but that overall, the organization is decentralized, and there are dozens of important participants. It must be a real bitch trying to figure out who the "Che Guevara" or "Mao Zedong" of this project might be! (Clue - IMC is not Communist.)
(I was there in LA during the DNC when the LAPD issued fake a "bomb threat" to try and evacuate the IMC space during the RATM/Ozomatli concert, where it got teargassed. How bogus was that? The *threat* was a van operated by hippy activists. They found tofu. Can we say "coordinated media blackout?")
Your going to have trouble moving the logs to /dev/null, if you want to pretend to know what your doing you might think about 'rm'.
Please re-read the third paragraph of my post; all i was attempting to say in the first place is that you do not have to request removal of information in order for it to be censorship.
Asking for the posting IP address of the person who broke into the police car would have been relatively reasonable, although i would NOT say it would be sufficient to gain a conviction, since said posting IP address would be incredibly easy for a malicious party-- you know, the kind of person who would break into a police car-- to fake. However, as the government subpoena type thing was FAR, FAR overbroad, it is capable of having the effect of threatening people away from reading or participating in the indymedia site. This is, under the whole chilling effect on free speech doctrine thing, a violation of constitutional rights.
Had the government asked indymedia for the IP address of the poster of the illegal obtained documents and no more, i doubt there would have been much outcry on the part of the rabid slashdotters. Had the government done things that way and allowed indymedia to divulge the details of the court order under which they handed the log over, i doubt there would have been any outcry.
I visited the site multiple times during that time period to get updates on the breaking news in Canada. No ohter sources were covering it from the protesters point of view. And, yes, now I feel intimidated. This is BS. The FBI nor SS have no rights to those logs. I don't care what was posted on that or any other website.
It occurs to me that the FBI or any other U.S. government agency does not have the authority to investigate people inside the U.S. based on a crime which took place outside the U.S. They lack jurisdiction.
Want my e-mail address, street address, or phone number? It's on public record in numerous places, including my ICQ profile
Spoken like someone never persecuted for their beliefs
After reading the comments for this topic for a few hours, I am quite disappointed in the politically correct spinelessness of the general Slashdot populace.
I thought you guys were individualists, thinkers, people who went against the grain and found a better way to do things. It turns out that many of these commenters have so little long-term thinking ability that they probably couldn't foresee the output of "hello world".
The people who visited Indymedia didn't commit a crime, there is no probable cause that they would commit a crime, and there is no justification for the mass log request. If they're looking for one Unabomber, then demand the IP for the one visitor. But everybody who visited the site are not all guilty of anything but independent thinking. But, under this wonderful Bush administration, that is fast becoming a crime.
If this sort of thing (which is getting more commonplace) doesn't frighten the hell out of you, you are morons.
You voted for Bush because you thought he'd help your mutual funds. That is truly shallow and pathetic. How short-sighted. I am ashamed of the selfishness, shallowness, and callousness displayed by the so-called intellectual 'elite' on Slashdot today. I bet RMS doesn't even bother reading Slashdot.
You probably aren't even industrious enough to use Linux. You're probably sucking on Bill's teat with your Win2000 boxes, praising how easy the online registration is.
Toe the line, cowards, code those NSA backdoors in, do what the government tells you, because you're worthless little dogs fighting for a scrap from the master's table.
Good fucking riddance.
So pretty much we are already living in the novel 1984, where you are not allowed to discuss ideas that conflict with official government(Or more like secret society's) agenda's.
Safeweb.com is funded and partially owned by the Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital company Incutel, to the tune of $1 million. Put two and two together. The government combines secretly acquired information from multiple fronts to create comprehensive profiles of the online patterns of American citizens. Try SilentSurf.com for a non-CIA owned alternative.
Since when was Slashdot anything other than an overglorified webboard? The only original content here is "We had to delete some AC's post", "We refused to delete some AC's post when Microsoft asked us to", and "We are all whiny bitches who, decades later, haven't gotten over the fact that we simply weren't cool in high school"
If the FBI doesn't like it, they can bite my ....
I WOULD have a problem with people knowing that I regularly read Slashdot ... thus the AC...
In the tiny tiny chance that you actually mean what you are saying, and aren't just trying to get a bunch of posts pissed off at your usage of the words "illegal content", let me clear a few things for you: No one is saying indymedia did the wrong thing. NOBODY is going to fault you for anything you do when faced with a court order telling you to do something. The issue to be raised is whether the government had the right to order them to do what they did. This is to be asked in context of first amendment issues, the legality of a gag order of what they did, and (as they say) "It is not clear whether federal law allows the Attorney General ever to approve such an investigation of US press entities to facilitate a foreign investigation", or whether they had any particular thing they were investigating.. I would also raise some fifth amendment issues, but we all know the fifth amendment is dead.
What the government did to indymedia-- demanding the logs-- was censorship, not some "better alternative", even if that made sense. Read the damn release, they explain it better than i do. Ever hear of the "chilling effect" clause? I.e. (at least according to the supreme courts of the last 40 years or so) a law does not actively have to "censor" in a direct way. If it can indirectly scare you into not saying something in the first place, that is constitutionally as bad as if you had said it and the government had arrested you. If it places a "prior restraint" against your speech-- you want to participate in the spreading of expression, but you have the fear that if you do so it will open you up to government scrutiny and perhaps harrassment (for example, let's say there's an online newspaper that the government seems to have an interest in coming in and attempting to track everyone who posts or reads anything there)-- then that is a violation of your constitutional rights. This is not a wild-eyed FSF "things ought to be this way" type rant. This is a simple statement of the way the law works, or worked in the past, and the proper working of the most simple and precious of american values. (I must say though, i've no idea waht would happen if this went to court. The current supreme court seems a bit unpredictable, to be honest.)
Your next to last paragraph is literal nonsense, and shame on anyone who responds to it in any way.
(1) directing that INDEPENDENT MEDIA, and any other provider of electronic communications service and their agents and employees, not disclose to the user of said electronic communication service, nor to any other person, the existence of this Application and Order or the existence of this investigation unless and until otherwise ordered by the Court;
[other sections omitted...]
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 5(b), that INDEPENDENT MEDIA, and their agents and employees, shall not disclose to the user of electronic communication service, nor to any other person, the existence of this Application or Order, or the existence of this investigation, unless and until otherwise ordered by the Court; and
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, pursuant to Title 28, United States Code, Section 1651 that this Order and the Application be sealed until otherwise ordered by the Court.
DATED this 24 day of April 2001.
STEPHEN C SCHROEDER
Assistant United States Attorney
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY
Seafirst Fifth Avenue Plaza Building
800 Fifth Avenue, Suite 3600
Seattle, Washington 98104
(206) 553-7970
ATTACHMENT A
All user connection logs for 216.213.32.98 for the time period beginning April 20, 2001, to the date of this Order for any connections to or from that IP address.
User connection logs should contain the following:
1. Connection time and date;
2. Disconnect time and date;
3. Method of connection to system (e.g., SLIP, PPP, Shell);
4. Data transfer volume (e.g., bytes);
5. Connection information for other systems to which user connected via , including:
a. Connection destination;
b. Connection time and date;
c. Disconnect time and date;
d. Method of connection to/from system (e.g., telnet, ftp, http);
e. Data transfer volume (e.g., bytes);
Please Note that the name, professional address, and phone number of United states attorney is given in the court order as given on the site.
I am sure that sending your opinion on a post card would be useful.
"The order stated that this was part of an "ongoing criminal investigation" into acts that could constitute violations of Canadian law, specifically theft and mischief." I'm sorry, "theft and mischief?" We are to believe that the _Secret Service_, along with the FBI, are simply upset because people connected with the IMC have been in some way "mischevious?" Frat boys are michevious. This is COINTELPRO. For example, the SS has stated that "the IMC itself was not suspected of criminal activity.", as Indymedia is not the threat itself; it is the vehicle for the threat. It enables the successful organization of events such as the Seattle WTO potests, the DC IMF/WB protests, and most recently, the Quebec FTAA protests. These events are subversive; and we would be foolish to think that (now armed with Carnivore), the FBI and SS are not actively engaged in counterintelligence. The agencies claim that the actions agains the IMC were in response to posts on IMC about stolen documents containing Bush's travel plans. However the posts they refer to only contain "documents detailing police strategies for hindering protesters' mass action". The beuracracy is clamping down here; we need people to be vocal about this and not let this kind of shit slide.
Secondly, What the government did to IndyMedia WAS NOT censorship. The FBI did not request that ANYTHING be removed from IndyMedia's website. They were looking for information on an individual who allegedly stole sensitive documents from a police cruiser, and posted their text to the site
Two options exist that the FBI did not excercise: issue a more specific warrant or issue a warrant stating that all logs must be kept in escrow until a more specific warrant can be issued. Instead the FBI and Secret Service have decided to undertake activities that will result in hundreds of thousands of law abiding citizens wondering if they will be subject to harasment and illegal search and seizure as a result perfectly legal activites.
What where the documents stolen from the police car? Evidence of unjust behavior by the authorities? The authorities engage in activities to limit the expression of the public against the behavior government, someone get evidence of the unjustified nature of thos activities, and then the FBI issues a warrant to find the identities of people speaking out against the government in the name of finding the person who initial stole evidence of bad activities.
The issuance of this warrant under these circumstances creates an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty amoung law-abiding citizens how have expressed displeasure at the behavior of their governments. The fear is the fear of harassment and illegal search and seizure. The uncertainty is the not knowing what activities, legal or otherwise, might result in the feared punishment, and the not knowing who will be randomly selected for this punishiment.
This is an old secret police tactic. Make everyone think your watching them all the time. Make everyone think they could be arrested for doing nothing but disagreeing with the authorities. It's the terrorism of authority.
It's not a specific statute, but it can make your defense much harder (though not impossible). If something illegal is traced back to your computer, that's normally evidence that you committed a crime. However, if you run a proxy server and have logs to show that somebody else committed that crime through your proxy, you have an alibi. If you just run a proxy but don't log, this alibi is much more shaky; you could just be running the proxy to cover for crimes that you're actually committing from that computer.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
However, I would point out that you seem to utterly miss the real issue.
The issue here is not whether the protesters are right or wrong, but whether they will be allowed to protest at all. And, in turn, whether anyone who has a strong opinion will be allowed to effectively voice that opinion (as opposed to just writing useless messages in comment sections like this).
This is a serious attack on free speach. The powers that be do not imprison these leftists (generally), but harass them at every turn. The way pepper spray and other non-lethal deterents have been used is simply torture -- more than once police have applied a pepper spray to the eyes of handcuffed or chained, nonviolent protesters with Q-tips.
During protests hundreds of people are arrested, but actual trials have been on the order of one or two per demonstration, generally with no convictions. This is obviously an abuse of the system, and systematic unjustified arrests.
These are the issues at hand. Now the FBI wants to find out who more of these protesters and dissidents are -- it is unlikely that this is because they have any intention of seeking conviction of anyone. The FBI has consistently shown itself to have no respect for basic civil rights, and is commonly used to sabotage and harass dissidents in the United States. COINTELPRO is largest such project by the FBI, continuing over more than a decade. It is well documented, and to my knowlege no one has ever been disciplined at all over this illegal and immoral operation.
It should also be noted that the FBI and other government institutions have often used agent provacateurs -- government agents and informants that incite dissident groups to violent, and usually self-destructive actions. I would be surprised if this has not been the source of at least some of the (relatively minor) violence.
These are the issues at hand. And you just seem to side with the thugs, ignoring their immoral behavior.
Bah.
The only way to assult a position is to be heavily armed and strike with overwhelming force.
The BATF didn't do those things at Waco and look what happened to them...dead agents and a standoff that made martyrs out of very heavily armed nutjobs with a penchant for pedophilia and the Bible.
Ruby Ridge was also a bad case, but look what happened with the fools in Montana...Heavily armed FBI in huge numbers surround them and there is a peaceful resolution.
People here sometimes get it in thier head that FBI=BoogieMan . It's not true, they are just doing thier job in this case. If I had a website linked with the Seattle WTO riots and now the FTAA riots, I'd be expecting the FBI or Secret Service (don't call them the SS...that's just rude). If your site was involved with something like this and you didn't expect the FBI to send you a court order...you're an idiot.
People here sometimes get it in thier head that FBI=BoogieMan . It's not true, they are just doing thier job in this case. If I had a website linked with the Seattle WTO riots and now the FTAA riots, I'd be expecting the FBI or Secret Service (don't call them the SS...that's just rude). If your site was involved with something like this and you didn't expect the FBI to send you court order...you're an idiot.
Is that something like "just following orders"? Keep in mind that the KGB and Stasi were just doing their jobs also. For that matter, so were the people who's organization shared the same initials as the secret service.
Let's face it, a great many law enforcement agencies at all levels have a history of operating outside of the laws they are expected to uphold. They also have a history of doing phenominally stupid things hoping for the bust of the century when a little legwork would have revealed that no illegal activities were taking place. In these cases, they also have a history of NEVER even saying they are sorry after the fact, much less making any sort of restitution.
That would be why people come to believe that FBI == BoogieMan.
If your site was involved with something like this and you didn't expect the FBI to send you a court order....You believe that the Constitution is more than a bunch of gobblety goop written by a bunch of old, dead doodz.
As if for one second it makes it any better that it was only J. Edgar Hoover that was committing these civil rights violations. A man that not only ran the FBI for decades but one for whom the FBI headquarters is named after! Bunch of scum bags the FBI is for not ripping the horrific name down off their headquarters. They wear it like a badge of honor.
Python
Python
Regardless, this is the first I've ever heard of it.
Python
Python
And, as far as I can tell, IMC Seattle didn't break any law, and if they did break some censorship law governing "born secret" content, those laws have been ruled unconstitutional in the past (the H-Bomb article case) and they should be ruled unconstitutional in the future.
Doesn't it bother anyone that the FBI is purportedly asking for a "readers list" for a media outlet? This is akin to the FBI, if the allegations concerning what the FBI is after are true, walking into the NY Times and demanding a copy of their readership list.
Not to start down a slippery slope, but again, if the FBI is essentially building a list of all the IPs that connected to IMC Seattle over a period of days, and the documents those IPs accessed, how is this any different from any LEA walking into a library or a video rental store and demanding a list of all the books and videos check out over a period days and the persons that checked them out?
I'm sorry, but the burden of proof lies with the FBI to prove that this was not only absolutely necessary but that it also was the least invasive means of conducting this investigation - and finally to prove that the law(s) that gave them the imperative to conduct this investigation (witch-hunt?) are really good laws. Any law that requires the creation of a police state, or the functional equivalent to it, is not a good law.
Again, all of this is really dependent on what the FBI is really getting in its investigation. If the FBI is not asking for web server logs and list of all documents accessed over a period of days, and is instead asking for information about who gave them the document in question, then we are talking about apples and oranges here. But, its not like the Federal LEAs have a track record of overstepping their bounds and snatching up any and every piece of electronic information (and hardware in some cases) without any concern for the rights of the people involved. Some I think its only fair to assume that the FBI is asking for more than they are entitled to. Afterall, who is going to stop them from taking it? Its only after the fact in court that someone can that information thrown out, but that doesn't change the fact that the Federal Government now has it - and unfortunately the US government doesn't have a great track record with respecting the rights of its citizens, especially the FBI. Need I remind anyone of the massive collection of secret files the FBI used to keep on private citizens under J. Edgar Hoover?
The bottom line is that the FBI should have no right to ask for a list of IPs that accessed the document(s) that allegedly are illegal, and certainly has no right to demand a list of IPs that accessed the IMC Seattle website over a period of days. If they are not asking for this, then we must ensure that they don't get it - and that if a law does not exist specifically forbidding this, then we need to push for one - because sooner or later, some LEA will push for this sort of information. And that is a clear violation of the fourth amendment. The readers of IMC Seattle, or any news site, have committed no crime by reading that website, even if the website contains "illegal" content, and should not be treated to an unreasonable search (and cataloging) of their reading habits.
Python
Python
IIRC, cryptome.org regularly purges its logs to avoid such requests...
An example to follow?
Everybody go visit indymedia.org as often and as many times, IP's etc as you can.
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
There are troublemakers who call themselves anarchists, but they're still just troublemakers. See The Anarchist FAQ if you want to know what peaceful anarchists mean by the word. Personally I don't buy into the philosophy but I recognise that anarchists have been misrepresented.
Anti globalization is one of the FEW things that people on both the far left and far right agree on
It's worth remembering that another point of agreement is on the need to send "enemies of the state" to concentration camps....
Mainstream media can still be biased, in that they may not report stories if it is against some agenda that they have.
That is complete bullshit.
On the first day gas was first used when the fence came down, which was before stones were thrown. The second day they gassed everyone and anyone, as soon as enough people were in a crowd.
It didn't matter what anyone were doing, they gassed the whole city. Even to the point where it made it up to the conference area.
It also didn't matter what anyone was doing when police were shooting at protesters and passer-bys alike at their heads. People who expected a peacefull march down the street were more of a target then the more militant protesters. It is the militants who showed courage in their determination and lack of fear.
Stop being such an apologist for the state.
New worlds are not born in the vacuum of abstract
New worlds are not born in the vacuum of abstract
ideas, but in the fight for daily bread --Rudolf Rocke
Anti globalization is one of the FEW things that people on both the far left and far right agree on.
When Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader agree on the same issue, maybe we should take a second look to see if just maybe they're right.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
First, has the information been deemed illegal to view or say? There are laws protecting us from having, say, blockbuster release information about what video's we watch, why should a website need to release information about who's reading their content? If the information's "illegal" then it should be removed, but it hardly seems right that they have the right to request who's been reading what and who's been saying what... at least on a grand scale... If there's an "illegal" post, then it should be removed and perhaps the IP of the actual poster can be handed over, but not the IP's of everyone that actually read the information as well...
Indymedia is an excellent example of what groupthink is. Mostly unsubstantiated, poorly written crap that is so badly biased that it is impossible to take anything seriousl
That sounds just like a description of CNN.
publishing classified material is not protected
Yes it is, the first amendment is apparently more expansive than you believe it to be.
It is the government's responsibility to keep secrets secret. If the new york times gets classified information that is of interest to the public, it is completely within their rights to publish it (and they have numerous times, and have won before the supreme court).
If this wasn't so, the government could simply label everything "classified" and *poof* instant state-controlled media.
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
ok, well that does not mean that leaking information, or obtaining it through break and enter is alright, and they have evey right to find out who did that
That's right, they can investigate all they want to find out who leaked the documents, that's their job. But that ability to investigate DOES NOT extend to the ability to force the Times to reveal anonymous sources (again, depending on the actual information and its value to the public versus its importance to the state).
As well, if classified information was published leading to the death of an american, the times would be walking through very dangerous legal ground
What, like the PDF file with names "blacked out" that they published, only to find out later that you could easily turn off the annotations and find out the names of active US spies? No one got in trouble (fortunately no one got hurt either -- that the Govt has admitted, anyways).
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I have no knowledge of Indymedia, the Canadian protests, etc. But I also have no knowledge of these "unharassed" protests that you mention. I am aware of many in which the harassment is at a marketly lower level, and possibly if the government (i.e., whoever was controlling the particular police involved) actually approved of the goals of the protest, then such a thing could happen. Maybe. But I have strong doubts.
The police have been trained and conditioned to react in certain ways to large groups of people. Some of these ways are legal. Some of them aren't, but are relatively safe (i.e., they're unlikely to get caught). These generally don't require any special approval from higher ups (at least not very far up). And one of the ways that police have been conditioned is to distrust any large group of people who aren't seated. They don't even like sports events (guess why!).
The basic form of police conditioning is respect for authority, and the opposite for those who evince disrespect for authority. Laws come into this as a signal of the wished of authority, but they appear to be of secondary importance.
Is this good? Is this bad? I don't know, it's probably a mix. But it appears to be acutal.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Actually I can't, I can only go by what some fellows at my school went through for running such a proxy and not keeping logs. Perhaps it's not law that you can't do it, but if you can't prove it wasn't you, they consider you to have done it.
Because if you run a gateway of any sort (in the US) and you don't log, you're held liable for the actions of anyone using the gateway. That means, in the eyes of the government, if someone threatents the president from your anonymizer, and you don't keep logs, it's just as though *you* threatened the president from your own machine.
Actually, if the evidence of an actual crime points to you, then you ARE guilty until you can redirect the guilt by finger-pointing. When national security is at stake, the Secret Service is less likely to beat around the bush or be diplomatic. They (TM)Take Charge(/TM). That's their job. 'sides, if I was the president, I'd do the same thing. If a threat of bodily harm is proven to come from your computer, I'd pray I still had the logs to prove it was someone else. Would you take the fall for the sake of anonymity? I don't think I could serve 10-20 for an Anonymous Coward.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
I'm assuming that your post is sincere and not a troll, so :
Anarchy, while appealing to many anti-establishment open-source types is not very practical for a community as large as the Internet has become
What exactly is it that you mean by anarchy? Do you mean the populist politically slanted meaning of complete disorder and chaos or do you mean the more historically accurate and precise meaning of a voluntary association of individuals agreeing to work together by rules that maximize their personal freedom?
Why would you assume that there is need for the FBI to have access to the identity of individuals engaged in political discussion in order to protect you from being hax0red?
we need to have some sort of legal barrier to protect 'us' from 'them',
Agreed, except that I think that you and I disagree about the identities of "us" and "them". To me "them" is the FBI/police/CIA/politicians/businesses and "us" is the people.
As regards the net "degenerating" into a cesspool of pr0n, I think that's subjective. My main worry is that it degenarates into a cesspool of business-oriented, low-brow, consumerist boredom in which interesting information is hidden in a layer of spam-dross
I see that I've been moderated as "flamebait" for the above. Well I don't think it was. However, here's what I was trying to say:
If you allow the excuse that 'someone' posted information and that in order to find that person you must know about 'everyone' to be coupled with a suspiciously lame story about the President's itinerary being stolen then before you know it the FBI are posting low-level security documents to *any* and *every* forum. Nice easy way to find out whose using them, eh? Sort of like being able to plant evidence in a house *before* you bust down the door. The "text" was supposed to look like a lame, ignorant policeman's viewpoint of what an "anarchist" might write. Now, I ask you, is THAT flamebait?
Hey everyone, I just done stolen sum docyuments from a poleez cruzer. They is very important detailz bout the prezidument's secret skedule.
Signed - A dangerous anarchist rioter
In the light of this information I'd like to have complete access to anything YOU ever said or did, especially information about you're political opinions. Naturally as you have nothing to hide you'll co-operate.
Moderate me down only because I've overstepped the moderation guidelines, not because you personally happen to disagree with my--admittedly unpopular--viewpoint.
Unfortunately your holding of this opinion doesn't make you part of a minority. Censorship can be achieved through the crude, obvious methods of banning publication of particular material, or it can be achieved through harrassing those that express opinions that are deemed undesirable. I don't believe that the FBI thought that they were going to be succesful. They're just trying to intimidate. You are playing along with them. Same as all the other complacent folk that don't know what democracy looks like.
SafeWeb
Of course this does not solve all of the problems since the government could order SafeWeb to release their logs and do a little sluthing... but it creates a little more trouble for them.
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
I see... you know what's really going on, because you saw a sci-fi flick.
Yeah, that whole "innocent until proven guilty" schtick has been a thorn in law enforcement's side for a long time now, huh?
If I thought for a minute that there was any government on Earth that wouldn't do the same thing given the motive and opportunity, I'd move there tomorrow.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Guess I get into the habit of typing RAID. That's like how I can't type the word "serve" without typing "server" first and then deleting the "r".
The indy machine looks neat... it's all black and locked up with a sticker on the front that says, "Resist Corporate Greed".
Sorry, this is hardly relevant.
"Your next to last paragraph is literal nonsense, and shame on anyone who responds to it in any way."
Prior restraint!!! Prior restraint!!!
the cost of prescription drugs and drug advertising. A few hypocondriacs out there are going to spend about 20% of the total tax money spent on drugs because their TV told them they might have a disease. A very rare disease that few people have, however, their doctors won't fight them and will sign the prescription. So now your insurance is paying a premium for an unneeded but stunningly marketed drug. Simple answer, you shouldn't promote hard-core drugs on TV. But would you get that from an industry that was paid over $2B (US) by these drug companies that have seen 100% growth in demand for the drugs they can now advertise on TV. (cover story) Anyway, you asked for an example, and this is kinda-on topic...so there.
--
+&x
the issue really isn't the high cost of drugs (that's just part of it). The real story is the huge increase in demand that has followed the legalizing of public advertisements. People diagnose themselves based on a 30 second ad, then tell their doctors what they need. This puts the doctors in a tough place. Take the time (and money) to do a thorough check and prescribe the correct drug, or sign a prescription. From the article.."Of those who asked for a specific drug by name, nearly half were given a prescription for it; 21 percent were recommended a different drug."
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+&x
The logs were taken in an attempt to trace the authors of the documents, much like phone records might be used.
No logs were taken at all so I've got to wonder about the reliability of your information on why the FBI wanted to take them.
The indymedia situation, on the otherhand, is almost MORE alarming, in that the court order was taken under an order of silence, and that indymedia decided to remain in operation. While to a great degree, their hands were tied, I feel they need to reconsider what steps they take to protect their sources. Remaining in operation in essence made them part of an sting operation against their posters, something I doubt they would stand for.
How? They didn't provide the FBI with the logs they requested. Since the server that the FBI wanted logs for doesn't appear to exist, however, I guess they didn't have much option.
Many of the people who fear the FBI are heaviy armed and are breaking dozens of U.S. laws. Which group would you rather have storm your house?
A group of Neo Nazis who think you're cause of all the problems in the country (or world)... or
A group of well-trained, regulated professionals who are easily accountable to the U.S. DOJ, if not the court of public opinion.
I'd rather have the professionals storm my house, personally. At least I have a small chance of surviving the encounter.
I don't want either group, or anyone else storming my house thank you very much. Nor do I feel any need to make a choice. Are you seriously suggesting that anyone should have the right to storm my house provided there's a conceivable worse group who could be doing it instead?
Is this really any different than obtaining a record that shows what numbers called someone? That is and has been common practice for quite a while without too many people complaining.
If it's common practice to obtain records of phone numbers called from or by a person against their wishes when that person is not being accused of any crime then there is something seriously wrong. I suspect that the reason that nobody is complaining is because this is not happening. If it is then the reason is most likely that people don't know about it.
As I understand it, Indymedia are not being accused of any crimes. Lists of who they talk to whether by telephone or internet are not something that the police are entitled to. If they want details to help in an investigation of specific crimes then that's diferent, but they have to be able to narrow it down a lot more than just everyone who accessed a particular media organisation.
I diagree. Court orders are not something to be taken lightly. Getting the contents right is crucial. Typos in court orders that change the object of the order only arise from incompetence. In this case the judge signed an order requiring information from an IP address that the FBI had not presented any evidence of needing information on. That also was incompetence. There was no justification for the issue of the court order as prepared and signed, taht undermines the whole system.
Pecision in a court order is essential. A judge cannot afford to grant a warrant to seize information from the wrong source. This is fundamental to the system. Everyone makes mistakes. In many situations that doesn't matter. When preparing and authorising a court order you make sure there are enough checks to spot the errors. You cannot afford to make errors that impact upon fundamental rights, that's what happens if you sign an incorrect warrant.
o wait...i know her...look like my ex-...nevermind...what's doing on your HP?:)
--zmooc
0x or or snor perron?!
This is from the "I-want-to-disturb-any-conference-I-want-to-withou t-any-governing-powers-looking-over-my-shoulder-wh ile-I-do-it" department.
f fect-700-million-people-without-letting-even-1-of- those-people-see-it-beforehand" department.
Or maybe the "protesting-the-drafting-of-a-document-meant-to-a
Nah. Couldn't be. Those protesters were just kiddies and pinkos. My democratically-elected government knows best. They'd never do anything not in my best interest. Never.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Why should the IMC be required to turn over _all_ of the logs for _all_ accesses to the site, when:
- There are only 2 posts alleged to contain illegally obtained material
- The two law enforcement agencies were unable to provide URLs for these posts
- The two law enforcement agencies were unable to provide a clear description of the allegedly illegal posts
- What was given in terms of a description of the allegedly illegal posts matched none of the actual posts (notable the GWB itinerary)
Indymedia did act correctly in not releasing an overbroad collection of logs which would relate only very tenuously to two allegedly illegal posts which the law enforcement agencies were unable to demonstrate the presence of.
This is amazing; the FBI seems to be trying to correlate internet news activity with criminal actions. Besides being illogical, it's got to be unconstitutional -- especially the part of the order where they ordered the IMC not to divulge the existence of the order. That's prior restraint, and it's a big no-no.
Besides that, what did the FBI seriously hope to gain from this? Is it just scare tactics, or are they honestly going to track down users by IPs?
Because Indymedia is likely to get DOS'd, attacked, and abused by various users. Presumably, they'd like to be able to keep track of that sort of thing.
However, the order not to tell readers about the FBI's court order WAS censorship. It was a writ of prior restraint.
Unfortunately, such a law has no chance of even making it to the floor until someone rich and powerful like a Supreme Court nominee's surfing habits are made public.
I run a couple proxy servers around the net and they all log to /dev/null. Don't track a thing. All of my web servers are the same for hit counting... after a half hour, the IPs are all gone. Why can't people who are going to taunt the FBI learn something and just NOT LOG A DAMN THING?
I got it. And i thought it was FUNNY, too. Somebody please up both of these.
From the court order:
/. is just another commercially run site, and Rob and company no longer care about anything other than page impressions and banner revenues. Implementing policies to protect slashdot posters was possible when the site was Taco's and Hemos' pet, but now its just another business.
All user connection logs for 216.213.32.98 for the time period beginning April 20, 2001, to the date of this Order for any connections to or from that IP address.
User connection logs should contain the following:
1. Connection time and date;
2. Disconnect time and date;
3. Method of connection to system (e.g., SLIP, PPP, Shell);
4. Data transfer volume (e.g., bytes);
5. Connection information for other systems to which user connected via , including:
a. Connection destination;
b. Connection time and date;
c. Disconnect time and date;
d. Method of connection to/from system (e.g., telnet, ftp, http);
e. Data transfer volume (e.g., bytes);
If you are running a site with controversial material, the logs will always be of interest by people who wish to do evil. Whether crackers or rogue FBI agents, your logs will always be a weapon in the wrong hands. Because of this fact, any controversial site should have a clearly stated policy of destroying logs on a regular basis. By stating this policy in advance and clearly posting it, it leaves little room for a legal charge of destroying evidence if and when the law shows up. What happens to IndyMedia when they hand over the logs the FBI discover most of that information is not logged? Will they face additional criminal charges, even if apache just doesn't log things like connection method?
On the down side, by regularly destroying logs, or never logging sensitive info to begin with, it makes it difficult to counter cracking/defacement/troll attempts, but that might be the price a controversial site like IndyMedia has to pay to protect the value of free speech.
Slashdot and other legitimate news sites will always hand over logs whenever the slightest demand is made. But if slashdot truely wanted to protect its posters, it would destroy the connection information on a regular basis, to thwart law enforcement or civil persecution. But since the acquisition by bendover,
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
You troll! You do not have to spell something correctly to know what it means.
------
Uh huh.
In this case the judge signed an order requiring information from an IP address that the FBI had not presented any evidence of needing information on. That also was incompetence.
That is one of
of the most stupid
things I have ever
seen.
Despite your claims of "incompetence", many people will have read the previous sentence as "That is one of the most stupid things I have ever seen.", rather than "That is one of of the most stupid things I have ever seen." ("of" written twice). Your brain is a patern-recognition engine, and it will often miss details. Does that make you incompetent? Of course not.
------
Your going to have trouble moving the logs to /dev/null, if you want to pretend to know what your doing you might think about 'rm'.
/dev/null".
Yeah, haha. I know it won't work. Read it as "move logging to
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The only reason that paranoid Slashdotters fear the FBI so much is because they themselves are less knowledgeable and organized.
... Plus, the FBI, etc. is heaviliy armed and tends to use overwhelming force to achieve its goals when attacking, and have no visible accountability. Or are those not real reasons?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
People here sometimes get it in thier head that FBI=BoogieMan
How do you think that happened?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
So, right after running the log analysis -- hourly! -- wipe the logs. And in your stats reports, leave out the "most common visitor" kind of stats.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Then why - if what you say is really true - doesn't "Indy"media call itself "Leftymedia" and start living up to its own standards?
Do I think they were right to aid and abet someone's posting of classified information? Fuck, no.
Do I think the Feebs were right to use that posting as an excuse to dredge the logs for "everyone who might have visited the site" (and in all probability, to enable them, or their successors, to cross-reference those logs with third-party data sources in order to create a list of unreliable elements for future monitoring and extermination?) Fuck, no again.
But until the wacko left gets off its high horse and stops polluting neutral terms like "Independent" with its own particular brand of bias, please allow me to call you a hypocrite. Angry Toad is right - IMC isn't "independent" media any more than CNN isn't an arm of the Democratic Party, nor FOX an arm of the Republicans.
Amen, bro. I may have flamed your arse off on the inconsistency of your "Well, the left doesn't pretend to be neutral", versus the left's [and right's] pollution of words like "Independent" in an effort to claim the middle ground, but we're in complete agreement here.
The thing that most disturbs me about the Feebs' log-fishing is that for every 1000 hits, they may well "catch" 900 "3vil l3fti$t r4d1k@lz" for future surveillance, but they may also catch 100 average joes who just want to read both the left and right-wing versions of the story and sort out the facts for themselves.
Of course, the 100 average joes who don't have a political axe to grind, but are just interested in What Really Happened (i.e. people who want to get their news from reporters as opposed to journalists), are probably "just as bad" in the eyes of the Feebs. They're thinking for themselves. Gotta be dangerous. Hell, nail them first.
Funny, I am a complacent, lazy citizen.
I'm more worried about some of my posts where I take jabs at the "Feebs" and the "SS" making me look like an anarchist than I really am!
Of course, your average Feeb reading this is likely to categorize this post as "just part of my cover".
I was gonna end that line with a smiley, but then I realized I'd hit the nail on the head -- any degree of surveillance above "none at all" but below "total surveillance" is bound to introduce inaccuracies in the data -- my wisecrack up there is the Catch-22 of living in a surveillance state.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
Unless the Court is willing to provide a time machine, if those thing aren't logged it ain't a-gonna get them.
The problem being if the order originates with a judge who has delusions of godhood, as sometimes happens. In which case the worst that would happen is that the judge in a fit of pique might jail someone until an appeals court containing a sentient jurist is contacted.
There is nobody out to get you. There is no "THEM". There is nobody trying to frame you for accidentally clicking on obscene porn links.
Get a life, people. This isn't the X Files.
Usenet is not supposed to be anonymous, and I find attempts to make it anonymous really annoying. Every time you falsely modify your Usenet headers, you're breaking several RFCs.
Why not just start using illegal TCP packets, modify your IRC client to send false info, and, in general, make life hell for everyone else on the internet?
People who want to be anonymous that bad make me wonder what they're hiding, and also annoy the hell out of me, because of all the RFCs they disdainfully break.
Want my e-mail address, street address, or phone number? It's on public record in numerous places, including my ICQ profile.
I suppose you know all about my life.
Hey, you're not one of THEM are you??
You value privacy, but you relish posting other people's information? Doesn't that make you a bit of a... hypocrit? Why, yes, I think it does.
Shrug. I don't care if you post my phone number. I think it's in extremely poor taste to go around posting other people's phone numbers on web sites that don't ever delete messages, though.
It's nice knowing that the sort of people I'm arguing with are a lot less moral than I am, though.
How can I possibly be intimidated by the CIA or FBI if I think they are basically a bunch of clueless government workers with a remarkably small percentage of incredibly talented people?
I'm not falling into anyone's trap, becoming intimidated by anyone, etc. Pushing your paranoid theories on the populace only creates unnecessary panic. Who's doing more harm? Me or you?
I'm nowhere near complacent. If the government was keeping detailed records on me, they'd probably have some idea that I'm more of an anarchist than a complacent, lazy citizen.
Watch the movie Cube. It's quite good, and it might open your paranoid eyes.
Their bias is in mostly not what they cover but in what they are unwilling to cover.
You have to realize of course that I could simply substitute Indymedia for CNN, NBC, ABC, or FOX News into your post, and it would make just as much sense.
User connection logs should contain the following:
1. Connection time and date;
2. Disconnect time and date;
3. Method of connection to system (e.g., SLIP, PPP, Shell);
4. Data transfer volume (e.g., bytes);
5. Connection information for other systems to which user connected via , including:
a. Connection destination;
b. Connection time and date;
c. Disconnect time and date;
d. Method of connection to/from system (e.g.,
telnet, ftp, http);
e. Data transfer volume (e.g., bytes);
I don't know about your web server, but mine certainly don't log all that stuff. It especially doesn't log other web site visits other than my own (Some info like that might leak into the Referrer: header, though.)
They only need the IP addresses for the people who posted. If the agents can't present IndyMedia with URLs to the specific posts they are investigating, they should be given nothing.
The bottom line is, after reading this, did you visit IndyMedia.org? You can guess my answer. I'm on a static.
Thankfully, sunbird posted this RealAudio of the Press Conference, so I could get more information about this without exposing my IP to a potentially misguided and overreaching law enforcement exercise.
Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
At first when I read the headline and blurb, I thought "Oh no! The bastards!" but then after reading up on the issue, came to another conclusion. Aparently, President Bush's itinary is claimed to have been posted to the web site. Obviously, if it is genuine, this is a very serious security breach of the Secret Service, whose job is, among other things, the protection of the President. They're trying to track the leak to the leaker to prevent it from happening again. Althouhg most of us probablly don't think too highly of George "What industry am I NOT in bed with" W. Bush, he still is the President of the United States and needs to be protected. So, at the risk of being labeled a troll, I've got to side with the G-men on this one.
Presumably, if the IMC people are knowledgeable enough to do a nslookup on this IP, then they should also be capable of noticing how similar it is to their own server's, right?
Yeah, but thats where the idea of "getting off on a technicality" comes from. It's up to the government to sweat the details, and it's certainly not IMC's responsibility to fix a typo in the court order they were given.
Or they could have just given them an empty text file:
"here ya go! a list of all the connections to and from 216.213.32.98. anything else i can help you with, officer?"
I don't know if the court will buy IM's argument that it's reporters are the same as TV or news reporters and that they deserve the same protection. The organization itself conducts itself in a fairly organized manner. But they let ANYONE be a reporter. You can literally walk in off the street and become "press", with a badge and everything. Or if you've taken some cool picture, you go to the IM center and turn it in, become press instantly (although I doubt retroactively to the moment you took the photo). IM also state that it's ok with them for their reporters to engage in protest activities; this is a big journalistic no-no. I think this is IM's biggest challenge that they will face in court: do their reporters deserve the freedom of press shield?
several newspapers in the area have done their own recounts, and bush still turned out the winner, and these included all the ballots, using the same rules the democrats wanted for a revote
If this were to be applied in the case of the IMC, the FBI court order captures, oh, about 1.25 million too many IP addresses. It seeks "user connection logs" for a 48 hour period, despite the fact that all they (supposedly) want is the IP addresses for two folks who posted some classifed documents (located here and here).
The IMC will be challenging the order even with regards to these two addresses. The posts themselves were not illegal under Candadian law. Furthermore, the US attorney has admitted that there are NO violations of US law, by either the people who posted the information, or by the IMC.
The original order did contain a typo, 216.213.32.98, instead of 216.231 etc. This actually makes the whole order unenforceable. But, unfortunately, they discovered their mistake and will be filing a motion to amend next week with the correct IP address.
I am one of a team of people coordinating the legal response to this. The Seattle IMC has not turned over any logs and plans to fight in court for our right not to turn over even 1 log entry. And while we haven't found any posts with the President's travel info, we did find two posts with classified info, see here and here. These were the posts the agents were referring to. Their reference to the president's travel information was just plain wrong -- we have looked carefully on all IMC sites and have failed to find any such post. The agents were either lying (likely) or very stupid (also a possibility).
The alleged crimes here are theft and mischief. Mischief is not one of the listed crimes, so there is no jurisdiction for it. However, it is unclear whether theft is or is not. We are currently looking into the scope of the treaty. We have also asked the US attorney to clarify the basis of his jurisdiction. Not surprisingly, he has not responded.
We did have a press conference on Friday, you can listen to the statement, plus some good q&a with our attorney, Dave Burman. The whole thing is right here.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE
N0. GS 01-184
ORDER VACATING ORDER OF NONDISCLOSURE
This court having considered the motion by Independent Media Center to vacate that portion of its order in this case entered on April 21, 2001, which forbids independent Media Center, and its agents and employees, to disclose to any person the existence of the order, or of the application for that order, or of the existence of the investigation which prompted that application.
It is hereby ordered that the portion of the order in this case entered on April 21, 2001, which forbids Independent Media Center, and its agents and employees, to disclose to any person the existence of the order, or of the application for that order, or of the existence of the investigation which prompted that application, is vacated.
Dated this 26 day of April, 2001.
Monica Benton
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
As an advocate and producer of Independent Media, I feel compelled to reply.
> 1. 'Independent' people dislike 'globalization' and dislike 'free trade'.
True. We dislike the current undemocratic trend of globalization that is continuing to exacerbate poverty around the world while making a few rich, while at the same time leading to a race to the bottom in environmental and labor rights regulation.
> 2. 'Independent' people feel a need to 'reclaim > the streets' on a regular basis.
Because we have learned, just as the corporate media will not create space for our points of view (hence indymedia site in the first place), institutions of power (political and economical) will not create spaces to share power, especially with those who are most disaffected by trends like globalization. Taking the streets is a way to force them to listen -- and it's fun!
> 3. 'Independent' people are really psyched up > for May 1 or "Mayday: a festival of labor, > paganism, anarchist ideas, and action! "
May 1 is historically a day of radical action, so active radicals get excited. What's so suprising or wrong about that?
> 4. 'Independent' people aren't too worried > about sweatshops this year. (That was all the > rage last year)
As someone who is still highly active in the anti-sweatshop movement and watching it grow daily, I must dispute your claim as false.
> The 'Independent Media Center' is little more > than a bunch of spoiled, bored college kids who > are good at complaining, but incapable of > taking any action outside of taking to the > streets. The indymedia people are classic > suburban > activists. The stand against a good many > things, but stand for nothing.
Your caricature does not fit me well, at all. I am not a college student. I am not "suburban." I take action in many ways beyond the streets -- I serve on local committees, support good politicians, organize educational events, social events, rallies, parades, celebrations, letter-writing campaigns, petition campaigns. I produce independent media, covering issues that get short shrift. I live a life that embodies my ideals: cooperative, healthy and active. And, while I stand against the many unjust and destructive forces and institutions that surround our lives, I also stand for a just and fair world, that empowers people to live freely, healthily to their full potential, free of exploitation. And if taking the streets may be a way to reach those goals (and I think it is), then I'll take to the streets, too. And one more thing, if there is one thing that I am not, it is bored.
points to this being a cooperative effort between the US and Canada, with the FBI coordinating the US aspect.
From the order:
"IT APPEARING that there is an ongoing criminal investigation into acts which would constitute violations of Sections 322 (theft) and 430 (mischief) of the Criminal Code of Canada, and that one or more of the subjects of said investigation are unknown,..."
The interesting part, appealing heavily to those conspiracy-theory types is the fact that there has been little or no media on the subject (Quebec City/ conference of the Americas) since last week. And potentially disturbing is the total lack of ANY media reports concerning this specific incident with the court order.
-Legion
In Talley v California (1960), three of the justices said "I stand second to none in supporting Talley's right of free speech -- but not his freedom of anonymity. The Constitution says nothing about freedom of anonymous speech. "
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Free Mac Mini
These are the same people that always attack new technologies that could affect the environment regardless of whether they will or not. They also attack all power sources with the word nuclear in their name, but their alternatives like fossil fuel plants and hydro-electric dams are far worse for the environment than nuclear power. These are the people stupid enough to think that nuclear fusion is a dangerous technology and could ruin our environment completely because they assume all nuclear reactions require critical mass to be achieved (which fusion does NOT). They are the ones that instead of protesting the non-existance of massive federal tax credits for early adopters of clean energy and the funding of research into said technologies, they call for restrictions on what is here and now. They are so quick to attack the symptoms, but when it comes to the environmental issues they haven't enough balls between the entire mainstream of the environmental movement to push for truly effective measures.
Remember too that these people are the ones that think that only the rich are corporate stockholders and thus the rich only stand to gain from free(er) trade. Well kiddywinks, hate to break it to y'all, but there are almost 50 million americans that are corporate stockholders. That means that you are affecting the futures of almost 50 million americans. But of course those luddite loony leftists are too caught up fighting for the dictatorship of the proletariate to see that the workers are not a large majority of our population anymore. Guess what, white collar workers account for a significant percentage of american jobs now. That's what we call progress. As for me while I'm a moderate libertarian, y'all can expect my votes to go to the LP.
Libraries / Librarians are not going to blithley "give over" their users' reading logs.
The American Library Association (ALA) is right in the front lines saying to "them" (LEAs, etc) back off man, nobody gets to see that.
The only way to connect a book to a reader is if the reader still has a book checked out or owes a fine on it for returning it late. (Note to those iniclined - return your books on time and/or pay your late fines or risk having "them" know what you read)
The only historical data kept is statistical, a librarian can merely say "S/he has checked out X million books" or "that book went out X trillion times" All major database vendors for library circulation systems have effectivly been told - we don't want this logged. If it can be logged, we won't buy it.
Kinda like zero-knowledge technically we *could* track it, but we don't.
Your complaints about being offended offend me.
We all got quite a kick out of the fact that the feds managed to list the wrong IP address on the court order. Reminds me of speeding tickets that are invalidated because of the wrong date or license plate number. On the other hand, they could be writing up these court orders to trick us into thinking their operatives haven't already infiltrated the imc tech collective...
Kind of like the mainstream corporate media, isn't it? Indymedia doesn't qualify as groupthink. Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when people assume the beliefs and thought processes of the group (organization) they belong to (usually from birth). Reporters for IMC are generally people who have abandoned the mainstream because they did not subject themselves to the common mythology of the culture. For them, the beliefs preceded the affiliation with the "group." Groupthink requires the inverse.
Besides that, IMC hardly qualifies as a group, anyway. There is no real membership to speak of. People who have something interesting to send in do so, and that's that. No secret handshake required.
Red-baiting asside, nobody has attempted to say so. The "independent" in IMC is in reference to the fact that it is independent of corporate control, not independent of bias. Some semantic context would be in order here.
Want Joe Paycheck to read the material? Provide balanced, insightful coverage that kowtows to Nobody and that's good enough to start getting picked up by mainstream media once in a while.
Joe Paycheck doesn't care about balance, he cares about being entertained. Granted, most left-leaning news is pretty dry, but at least it has content. PBS and NPR have about the best news you can get out of the mainstream media, and Joe Paycheck isn't watching or listening to those, either. Insight has nothing to do with it -- shock value is all that matters to most people.
BTW, I am an extreme lefty type, in case you didn't notice. I am perfectly able to disagree with other leftists on a wide range of issues, and frequently do so. Nobody other than extreme righties seems to think that is remarkable. Now let's see how many right-leaning moderators this post infuriates.
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"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 clearly applies here. (That's the one that got the Secret Service in big trouble in the Steve Jackson Games case.) This order looks like it's outside DOJ's own guidelines, too.
"I'd rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother in the FBI." Securities Commissioner Tom Krebs, discussing the heavyhanded Ineptitude of the FBI 20 years ago. Apparently, some things never change.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
I always get a chuckle when this is suggested. It assumes that the U.S. government will idly sit on their collective hands because the information the want is in another country.
The Feds, at various points tried or have done the following:
1) Kidnap Manuel Noriega. Yup, being the President of Panama had little to do with his "forced extradition." In fact, if the U.S. wants you badly enough, they will kidnap you. They've done it before, they'll do it again. Osama Bin Laden, you listening?
2) Attempt to steal bank records from offshore banks. Yup. We really want to know who is hiding their undeclared assets offshore where we can't tax then. Who cares if we are breaking the laws of Antigua, Isle of Man, Luxembourg, what-have-you. We're talking tax evasion here!
3)Break into foreign computers to obtain evidence to aid in the arrest and prosecution of criminals. Wait a minute, wasn't this covered in: this?
Please, the U.S. is dead serious about enforcing their laws. Other countries laws, who gives a damn. We got the bomb!
The problem with most moderation systems is that they homogenize and get rid of the extremes. What they really need instead of basic moderation (where everyone polices each other and where articles are judged by how often folks agree with them) is some sort of trust metric that is seeded from the people that have the reputations of being the most knowledgable and reliable.
(While I agree that the "inbred ideas" thing is a problem with groupthink, that isn't the point with indymedia. The whole point is that indymedia is the alternative to the mainstream media. And it's supposed to be more of a news site where they report on happenings that normally go unsupported, rather than a purely editorial/philosophy site where everyone pats each other on the back.)
But they've got a lot of articles that are really frustrating... for instance, articles that might show some good insight about Palestinian hardships, but that then devolve into some really nasty anti-Semitism. Aside from an example like that being offensive, it's also just a shame because it's a good example of how it undermines its own potential. The site often feels like it demonstrates the stereotype that the protesting population is just continually disorganized and falling off message. It is also confusing that indymedia is just as much populated by anarchists as it is by the nonviolent "peaceful" protestors. There's a lot of infighting going on there, and their aims are very often contradictory.
But overall I like it better than most protest sites because the motivation behind it is constructive - it's not inteded to be a big "insert-vent-here" like a lot of other left-wing and right-wing sites. And some of their efforts are extremely impressive, like during the election - they had live audio webcasts witnessing Nader's difficulties getting into the presidential debates, for instance, which showed a lot of detail that wasn't in the news. It was very cool. I don't visit often, though - I think I'm holding out for a future version when there is that trust metric and where the discussions are more like sourceforge; where there are political "project managers" visualizing actual goals and mileposts and benchmarks and putting together virtual teams to actually accomplish changes in a methodical constructive way.
tune
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
I flush my logs at least twice a day...
How do we know that this hasn't happened already? Perhaps all US bases anonymizers have already been served with such orders (perhaps months ago). How would we know?
Are there any good anonymizers in other countries. I don't mind paying for one if it has a reasonable chance of being secure.
Thought: Would it be possible to construct some sort of mutual peer-to-peer anonymizer system. I'm thinking of something a little like FreeNet.
Heh, on Slashdot? It sure does.
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And Timothy, ignoramus-kudos to you for posting this under Censorship. This isn't from the "thinking-of-the-children" department. This is from the "I-want-to-disturb-any-conference-I-want-to-withou t-any-governing-powers-looking-over-my-shoulder-wh ile-I-do-it" department.
(Moderate me down only because I've overstepped the moderation guidelines, not because you personally happen to disagree with my--admittedly unpopular--viewpoint.)
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Interestingly, this becomes a grey issue with the Internet. Where does Internet crime really occur when international borders are involved? Take for example a case where the FBI became involved in a NASA computer systems penetration. The attacker was in Canada but broke into a US system. Did the crime occur in the US or Canada? (Cool personal note - I've personally met and spoken to one of the people involved in the investigation.)
"Population 1,656"
At least the Indymedia people don't have the $cientologists at their throats...
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
It would seem we need something akin to the (Video Privacy Protection Act for internet traffic.
Unfortunatley in this case that would do no good. Following the link you provided, look under B-2-C (Sorry if that isn't the proper format for a reference) where it states:
B-3 does say the following, but it seems that it provides little extra protection:
It doesn't seem like a similar law for internet traffic would do much good, (At least in this case) unless all this information is "unreasonably voluminous in nature" or providing it is an "unreasonable burden" on the site.
Sounds like deleting logs is the way to go...
IANAL and what not, but the Video Privacy Protection Act that I mentioned above says that the authorities must notify the one person whose records they're seeking and then seek just that one person's records. They can't ask the store to turn over a list of all their cutomers and what each of them rented.
Hopefully, a similar law can be worked out for net traffic. If the host/ISP cannot return records subpoenaed for just one user, then they should not be made to return overly broad records. Unfortunately, the inevitable law will probably be just the opposite.
Of course, IANAL, but that's the part I meant. The FBI should have to first inform everyone who visited IMC that they would be going after the records. The search should be seen not as one of IMC, but as one of each visitor to the site. If the FBI can't justify searching all of those people, then they shouldn't be able to subpoena the entire logs.
It's similar to carnivore: they can't read everyone's email and say they're throwing away all but the criminals'. They have to be held to stricter protections against unlawful search and seizure.
And of course, the inevitable law will probably not protect the people, but the ease of the FBI's search.
This does not seem reasonable. In their statement the IMC makes a good point that turning over the entire log(s) would expose more IP addresses than just the lawbreaker's. This could be seen as intimidating people from visiting their site just to read it.
It would seem we need something akin to the Video Privacy Protection Act for internet traffic.
http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/straw.htm
n .html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-ma
http://www.google.com/search?q=straw+man+fallacy
The indymedia people are classic suburban activists. The stand against a good many things, but stand for nothing.
I looked at the number of Indymedia sites, including the albany, buffalo, vermont, arizona and boston sites and found a number of things:
1. 'Independent' people dislike 'globalization' and dislike 'free trade'.
2. 'Independent' people feel a need to 'reclaim the streets' on a regular basis.
3. 'Independent' people are really psyched up for May 1 or "Mayday: a festival of labor, paganism, anarchist ideas, and action! "
4. 'Independent' people aren't too worried about sweatshops this year. (That was all the rage last year)
The 'Independent Media Center' is little more than a bunch of spoiled, bored college kids who are good at complaining, but incapable of taking any action outside of taking to the streets.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
There isn't anyone out to get me- then why are there cameras on the streetlights? so they can capture my face or my license plate?
Why are there cameras at the sporting events? so they can photograph my face?
There's no one out to get me, or trying to frame me by my following links- until they try to do it. Employees get fired daily for clicking inappropriate links. Government targets people for sex crimes by what's on their hard drive browser cache.
The FBI requesting server logs is a step in the wrong direction.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
I very often find myself taken to sites I had no intention of going to (disguised goatse links, anyone?) and don't want to be subject to inquisition by the FBI or other services for those clicks.
While I admit that I am responsible for my own actions, I submit that clicking on links is as risky as changing channels on a television- You never know what content you'll get unless you've targetted that channel before. If I pass over the sex channel or local-cable access showing paranoid survivalists, should I be held accountable because TiVo shows that I requested that channel for a few minutes before becoming bored and moving on?
I say that this is an imposition that we shouldn't have to suffer.
(donning flamesuit now to be ready for the replies)
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Ok, I've read the links, I've read about 1/2 of the comments so far, but I have to take exception to some (but not all) of the assumptions and interpretations of the facts behind this Anonymous Coward's post.
First, let's get one thing straight. What was taken from the police cars were operational contingency plans prepared by Canadian law enforcement to counteract a series of perceived threats to the public peace, including surmised timing information. In those plans, the Canadian police identified items of intelligence gathered in some manner, potentially compromising those sources of intelligence. It could be argued that the publication of those plans rendered those plans less effective as it provides counter-intelligence to the groups involved in disturbing the peace.
How could the United States law enforcement become involved? There was a mention in the plans about intelligence that a group from Oregon was alledged to plan to cross the border and participate in activities illegal on Canadian soil. Further, the server used to post this information against the wishes of the Canadian police exists on US soil.
Not unreasonable, for the FBI to be asked to help and for the FBI to grant the request to identify the source of the information.
Where the FBI, in my opinion, went over the line was with the overbroad search warrant demanding the identity of not only the perps that posted the message but every single person who might have had access -- readers as well as writers. It follows that the FBI [wrongly] assumes that anyone reading those pages are involved in the criminal actions in our Neighbor to the North. Typical LE thinking.
The analogy would be that if those papers had been printed in The Police Gazette that every single subscriber to the magazine would be implicated in the crimes that followed, as well as everyone who visited the library to peruse the issue in question. The IMC is clearly a PUBLICATION, apparently with a wide readership, and with readers that hold many differing views.
The Pentagon Papers they ain't.
> I can verify the validity of the material
> presented here because I saw people obtain
> this information on Friday.
> ...where people were trashing two CBC vans. Across
> form the CBC van's was an unmarked cruiser and
> van discuised as a commercial vehicle. We didn't
> know this until some members of the crowd
> smashed the windows and began pulling out...
I'm a Canadian taxpayer, and I'm deeply wary of the half baked stuff the WTO and FTAA and all the other globalization efforts. I was shocked at how close we dodged the bullet with the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (read the apropriate chapter of Maude Barlow's "The fight of my life" for an eye opener), and I fully support the views of the Council of Canadians.
HOWEVER, I'm all for identifying the vandals and criminals who destroyed those three vehicles. I'd like to see them personally pay for the damage. It's acts like these that keep many of the common people from delving further into the subject and discovering what there is to oppose, because they can write it all off as the acts of some hippies and vandals.
Don't get me wrong, I'm clearly aware of the capabilities of law enforcement to go horribly awry, and I wish the authorities in this case had been much more specific in their warrant. It disappoints me to have to support the fight against turning over such a broad sweep of information. They should ask for specifically what they need, as opposed to grabbing everything. It reminds me of the situations where the police confiscate $5000 of your personal computer equipment and don't return it for 12-18 months, until they're "finished" determining that you didn't do anything wrong. Except since this is "just information", they feel like they can ask for the moon.
So, what's my wish? I wish the DA would get a clue and re-do the request such that it doesn't result in slurping up information on what tens of thousands of law abiding people were doing, but rather just focuses in on identifying the witnesses who can identify the criminals they are (supposedly) looking for.
A few months ago, indymedia tried a moderation system out, but shortly got rid of it, because it was making the site run too slow. Indymedia has only been around for about a year and a half, but I believe that in time it will grow and gain the resources to implement more advanced moderation devices. Sites grow and evolve, for example, check out /.'s turbulent history of moderation systems. There's some brillant people working IMC and I am sure that it is just a matter of time before an awsome moderation system exists.
So quick with fear you tiny fools!
There are two schools of Anti-Globalization. The 50-60,000 in the streets of quebec, for the most part, favor the promotion of jobs around the world, and the ending of xenophobia. There is a great feeling of solidarity between the kids and union members in the streets and the repressed in the third world. The IMF/WTO/WB/FTAA school of "globalization" favors the lowering of labor standards, enviormental regulations, and is frighteningly anti-democratic. Globalization is a term synonomous with exploitation among the contemporary left.
The buchannan-ites' opposition to "globalization" has roots in racism and extreme nationalism, and buchannan gives us no reason to believe any of his positions have the welfare of the majority of the world's population in mind.
Contrary to how the pundits on tv would have us think, the overwhelming majority of anti-globaization activists are not just afraid of losing US jobs, but are fighting for jobs with justice and dignity for the third world. Maybe "anti-globalization" isn't the best word to use, but it's easier and farther reaching to use than "anti-neo-liberalism" and less alienating than "anti-total-corporate-destruction-of-the-world-ya- basta!-ism". I think that reactionaries are trying to lump the two together, which is visible in the mainstream media's failure to report upon 50,000 marching for fair jobs in Quebec City, and the bulk of their reporting being on the 1,000 black-clad anarchists (and disguised police adjitators) who were throwing stuff at the riot cops. Thus, the importance of independant media (like IMC) in the movement is paramount.
So quick with fear you tiny fools!
Whenever I see a story like this (or napster etc) I always wonder why people dont think of hosting the servers in some other country.
Unfortunately America whilst having a laudable set of ideals in their constitution also seems to be a country where if you piss off someone in power (political or corporate) you will be slapped into the ground pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong this is not a jibe at America as you would encounter similar difficulties in a lot of "free" "democratic" countries worldwide.
Now the question is what is a country that actually gives a crap about peoples right to say what they like?
no sig.
Another thing to keep in mind with the mainstream American media is what they mean by both sides. Watching the Fox News Channel and hearing their "liberal" on the show (Hannity & Colmes I believe) say "Obviously we're all for free trade" does enormous damage (you can find more moderated examples of this in most mainstream coverage, Fox is just the most blatant example). Not only does this not actually give both "sides" (and we must be careful here, there are always more than two sides) but it makes the viewer think they have heard both sides, thus shaping the terms of the debate such that any funamental questioning or alternatives are totally absent, and presumed not to exist at all. I'd suggest you head over to Znet if you want an example of good alternative journalism. Sorry for the length and all the parentheticals, but this is a topic worthy of books worth of discussion.
As to the whole rich vs. everyone else syndrome, you have to remember that they are typically working, even if unaware of it, from the Marxist analysis of class strugle. On the other hand, if you look at the mainstream media, they work from the assumption that the CEO and the factory worker have the same interests. Both views are overly simplistic. Then again, most good alternative media tends to have more complex sociological analyses than rich v. poor, so you do get a more honest attempt to actually analyze what the major causes of problems are, albeit from a progressive slant.
Well, on that ambiguous note, I will once again reiterate that the best thing to do is read everything (books from the sociology and political science section of your bookstore are great background material), and come to your own conclusions. Just don't assume that any one source is giving you the whole story, because they never are.
Sites like indymedia recognize that most of the mainstream media acts as a mouthpiece for the interests of the companies that own them, and yet pretend to be objective. The lefties at least admit their biases and say outright that their news is aimed towards progressive social change. Does this mean falsifying information? No, it means highlighting those things ignored or distorted by the major media, and adding your own perspective to the issue.
They allow anyone to submit a story because they realize that everyone will have a slightly different slant. If we listen to everyone, or as near to everyone as is reasonably possible we have a better chance of coming to understand exactly what is happening and, just as important, what it means. The ultimate point of information is not an avalanche of disconected facts, but the usefullness of those facts in forming a better understanding of the world. Since meaning is subjective, pretending to objectivity when covering the type of events they tend to cover is just silly.
The ultimate point of all this? Listen to all the various sources, but remember their biases, and examine your own.
I know I'm asking for it,but...
People one slashdot should be technically capable enough to realise that by going to a site, they run the risk of people noticing. Furthermore you guys should realise that the other end of the connection will, out of good admin practice, log your connection.
I don't see how you could possibly have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such circumstances.
Heres a handy tip for your brain to digest: there are many completely legal and justifiable reasons to insist that anonymity be a feature of using the Internet; you are automatically assuming that the only reason someone might want to remain anonymous is if they are breaking the law.
Secondly, What the government did to IndyMedia WAS NOT censorship. The FBI did not request that ANYTHING be removed from IndyMedia's website. They were looking for information on an individual who allegedly stole sensitive documents from a police cruiser, and posted their text to the site. I'd rather see a site provide the FBI with the information they are asking for, and let the poster of the content deal with the consequenses, than see IndyMedia remove content at the FBI's request. Removing content, would invalidate IndyMedia's "common carrier" status and set a nasty precedent for future occurances of this situation.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Bush didn't, the court did.
Why? Because there had alread been a machine recount. Florida law makes no provisions for a hand recond. So if the vote had come out with gore on top there would be a real problem and no clear solution.
Bush won, it was fair, now stop being a poor loser. The dumbest people are those who believe the stupid jokes, the only difference is the Bush knows when he doesn't understand something, Gore thinks he knows it all, something far more dangerous.
The system is designed to allow for both rep by pop and rep by region, and is perfectly fair.
Please don't moderate me down because you disagree with me, that is far more censorship than what is happening with indymedia.
I found that the globe spent more time concentrating on the actual protest, with far to little time spent on the underlying issues. It was unbiased, but I remember thinking 'I could get this on fox news'. I am very close to canceling my subsription to the paper, and if I hear many more of their terrible advertisements showing their editorail bias I will.
I'm not usually a fan of CBC news, but they did do an excellent job of covering both the meetings and the protests, but supprisingly CNN did a better job of providing the views of different groups.
The best coverage I had was my local southam paper which covered the actual issue far better, both globalization and the history of the FTAA were covered very well, including essays from both sides. They also tended to editorialize it far less than the globe. For what people say about Conrad Black his papers did an excellent, unbiased job.
I find that the more alternitive you get, the more simplistic the opinions get. This is just a side effect of appealing to a smaller, more focused audience.
Without thinking about it, I clicked on the link to read the court order and then noticed that it was posted on IndyMedia. Now my door is going to be kicked in by federal agents. Thanks a bunch, SlashDot.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
you can't fake proxy files. NO WAY.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
On all the servers I run, I don't keep the log files for more than one week. :-)
I run Webalizer with the "increment" option and the log file are rotated and deleted if they are more that one week old.
I realize that the option to backtrack problems are limited using this method, but those webserver logs just takes up too much space
--------
Still, they could just have not pointed that out in the press release. Their release just makes it sound like the FBI was not competent enough to know that some IP number was not the IMC's. When in fact, they just made a simple typo. So it is a lie by omission.
The IMC reported that the FBI (presumably out of incompetence) requested logs from an IP that's not theirs. Well, in one level it is right, but crucially, in another level, both the intent of the FBI's request and the minimal nature of the mistake were obvious. The IMC, by sunbird's own admission in this thread, were aware of this, which makes their public statement about it a clear lie by omission.
The rational thing to do would have been *not* to report it, and to try to make use of the mistake in court.
However, the circumstances of the case and the kind of error in question are such that the intent of the order is beyond doubt.
You've still missed the point of my post. My point was not really a legal one, but a *journalistic* one-- the IMC *lied* in their press release, and gratuituously implied in a public statement that the FBI's error was orders of magnitude beyond what it really was. I don't see what they gain *legally* by telling the whole world "The FBI requested the wrong IP", and leaving out the crucial detail, "because they made a simple typo".
And, more importantly, what they do in their press releases can be orthogonal to whatever they do in court. They could just have stayed quiet about the typo in public and bring it up in court.
Your post assumes that the IMC handed out the logs. They haven't. Nor have they admitted to there having ever been such a post as the Secret Service and the FBI claimed, that is, a post containing classified info on President Bush's travel itinerary.
Again, this doesn't look like they're going after server logs at all, but rather they're trying to track people who used the IP in question (216.213.32.98) as a dialup connection point.
$ nslookup www.indymedia.org
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: stallman.indymedia.org
Address: 216.231.32.98
Aliases: www.indymedia.org
Looks like the order simply has a typo ("213" instead of "231"), and that they are going after the IMC web server indeed.
The weird requests (SLIP, PPP, etc.) could be explained away by just assuming the FBI has some boilerplate host logs request document. Somebody just grabbed that, plugged in a mistyped IP, and sent it off.
Which makes the part in the IMC press release which goes
to be just wrong. Presumably, if the IMC people are knowledgeable enough to do a nslookup on this IP, then they should also be capable of noticing how similar it is to their own server's, right?I don't think that this situation is comperable to the Slashdot/CoS situation. What Indymedia posted was people's descriptions of various illegal acts which they had done (admist a HUGE amount of other reports surrounding the FTAA conference.) These post themselves were not illegal; they were instead evidence related to illegal actions. The logs were taken in an attempt to trace the authors of the documents, much like phone records might be used.
The Slashdot/Church of Scientology situation was different though. A poster placed documents that were copyrighted trade secrets on slashdot itself. The very act of posting these documents, and Slashdot allowing them to remain was illegal. The Church of Scientology has been known to rabid in its desire to prosecute for copyright infringement, even under marginal pretenses, and here its case would have been quite a bit stronger. I feel Slashdot's handling of the situation was reasonable. While the desire to protect speech is strong, its hard to justify a protracted, expensive, and dubiously successful legal battle to protect something that wasn't even free speech. CoS texts are widely available elsewere on the internet, and Slashdot's removal of them had little or no effect on the overall availability of these documents. The indymedia situation, on the otherhand, is almost MORE alarming, in that the court order was taken under an order of silence, and that indymedia decided to remain in operation. While to a great degree, their hands were tied, I feel they need to reconsider what steps they take to protect their sources. Remaining in operation in essence made them part of an sting operation against their posters, something I doubt they would stand for./* This post not warrantied for mission critical applications. */
The FBI wants YOUR log files ( insert unlce same here )
So why don't we give them to them? How would things stand if slashdot and 20 other websites just voluntarily submitted their log files to a few select members at the DOJ. Say, one email per page-view, you know, just 'cause they were so interested in seeing them.
This would give a new meaning to the word slashdot effect.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
I think your missing the point.
You should so sure of yourself that it seems that your being naive.
This might work for you, and thats your choice, but I wouldnt want people to know what I didnt want to tell them. Indy has people visting it that are likely to want to stay under wraps. Even if you dont like it, dont stop it, its the last free thing we can do. That is once we pay to get online...
Are you on the Sfglj (SF-Goth EMail Junkies List) ?
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
What happened was the FBI got a warrant for the fellow who owns the indymedia domain name. I was closely following the Quebec protests on indymedia.org (as i had friends there), listening to the quebec indymedia 'net radio show, and a couple people called in to discuss this. The guy who owns the domain lives in seattle (as indymedia was started to cover the seattle protests 2 years ago).
Anyways, the reason they went after this guy is that someone had posted something to indymedia.org with an implied threat to george dubya (if i ever get the chance, he's got a chocolate milk with his name on it, see Stockwell Day). Therefore, the FBI went after the owner of the domain name (apparently propogating someone elses threat is illegal).
Kinda scary what this means for free information sites on the 'net. Since DNS is essentially American controlled, what does this mean for anyone who has an opinion that someone doesn't like?
-MR
-Michael Roy Some people are like Slinkies. Not really useful, but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down
If the FBI wants to have the type of commection used by this person and also the connections FROM that server to OTHER servers I think the FBI is not really interested in posts of this person.
How about a hacker?
He would use several defferent connection types (ftp-, telnet-, ssh-stuff) to install scripts and hack other systems from that computer.
Suddenly it also becomes clear why they're "forbidding them to talk about this".
---
Privacy is terrorism.
Looks like mundane Crowd Control plans to me, not sinister Attack Plans.
Actually, I worked for a very large dialup pool who provided leased access to large companies (AOL, MSN, Juno, etc.). We never kept any logs in the slightest, and if some agency wanted any info, personally, I wouldn't know how I could help them. We simply provided IP addresses to software (industry standard protocols or not), and users could send anything over the network they wanted. It is against the law to backup, transmit, or monitor any communications of any ISP user, on any network (unless the network is private -- the Internet is NOT private). Of course an ISP can't intercept any of your mail, for any purposes, or monitor your browsing habits or any other information at all. The telecommunications act of 1988 prohibits this as well as most other logging methods, even if you have permission from the user.
Due to the high number of sessions (this is a free dialup), the only logs we kept were those of system failure and some security logs.
This is why in large networks, especially global, where IP addresses are distributed very broadly, and 3rd party services are common, it's almost impossible to get real names (HOW??? Please tell me!).
Now, if you're on, say, a campus network, which is PRIVATE, you are essentially bound to whatever agreement they have set for you. And I'm sure they log all activity quite heavily.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
The order did not specify what acts were being investigated, and the Secret Service agent acknowledged that the IMC itself was not suspected of criminal activity. ....
;-).
Responding to questions from IMC volunteers, the agents claimed that their investigation concerned the source of either one or two postings which, they said, had been posted to an IMC newswire early Saturday morning. These posts, according to the agents, contained documents stolen from a Canadian government agency, including classified information related to the travel itinerary of George W. Bush (who was at that time in Quebec City, participating in Summit of the Americas meetings). Agents claimed that the Secret Service was notified of the existence of such posts by a tip from an (unnamed) major commercial news network.
This only means one thing: they're looking for someone based on their IP address. I'll explain not only why this is difficult, but vary rarely leads to any substansial information.
The thing I don't get is why they wanted IP addresses. They're just numbers. They MEAN nothing. In order to match IP addresses to names or even usernames, you're going to need yet another court order sent to the network who own's the netblock (in most cases) of the IP in question. You have to have substansial reason and evidence, just like all orders asking for private information. You can't just say "We think it's...".
IP address logs aren't helpful if you're looking for a particular person -- which address is theirs? Most dial-up and cable networks assign IP addresses (static or otherwise) from a national or global pool, so you don't know if IP addresses differing in only a few minor digits represent someone across the country or right next door. To do so requires access to ISP network information, and in the case of free dial-ups this is almost impossible. Most don't keep the route logs for *EACH* and every user session, in fact, most keep no record of sessions at all beyond that for technical purposes.
As an example, Juno, the largest free online service, uses 3rd party networks (UUNET, etc.) to connect their users. They use the same log-in information for each and every user (minus a challenge password provided by the Juno software), so you would need info from them -- and they don't even have the information on where their user's are really based (unless they were truthful when they signed up
Many other users use proxy, so you will need to evaluate those cases and then request logs from whatever proxy server they're using. This means, quite possibily, dealing with foreign governments. You also need to know when an IP address has been forged, which is an investigation in itself.
I can't think of any reason why IP address logs, hostnames, or other connection info would be useful in the slightest. System administrators use it to provide traffic statictics and to spot possible script kiddies and filter them out, but this is all at the IP level, and you never need the real identity of someone. Matching someones real identity to an IP address is hard, and can be made very hard if they're using some sort of method to hide themself (as in the case of criminal activity).
This is another case of federal stupidity.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
are here for indymedia: http://logs.indymedia.org/
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
You're not paranoid. You're preserving your freedom.
Is their approach more secure than SafeWeb?
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/04/25/ 010425hntreaty.xml?p=br&s=7
http://www.idg.net/ic_521511_1794_9-10000.html
360 degrees of Karma
(read full article here)
I wonder how many people visit the site using proxies, and if IP addresses are going to be used, I hope Indy Media know how circumstantial thay shit is. I wonder if it can be fought with in court with a demonstration of Packet Replays and Packet Injections, to show how just how shitty using IP addresses as identification can be.
And people think I'm paranoid about using daisy chaining proxies along with Safeweb
Well for those here who need it (I doubt there's many) here are my privacy links.
360 degrees of Karma
well, not everyone agrees that G.W. Bush is the legitimate "president" of the U.S. Perhaps the FBI and the D.O.J. should investigate the violations of the Voting Rights Act, alledged to have occurred in Florida. Recount all the votes, as the Florida Supreme Court ordered, and the US Supreme Court stopped.
...).
The breach of security occurred on the part of the Canadians, not the US, anyway. And no such information regarding G.W. Bush's itinerary could be found on Indymedia, either. So, it really appears to be a ploy to get at IMC's logs and records, not an honest investigation.
The G-men have made several mistakes, and are trying to make IMC pay the price for those mistakes (not that this would be unusual
Hmm... I always thought that this WAS the redeeming content of the internet that we so value.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Oh PLEASE! Have you ever actually dealt with the extreme lefty types that typically get involved in this kind of thing? Think university "student government". On average they're about as ideologically flexible as the Red Guard or the NKVD.
On balance I approve of the idea of purely independent media, but that does NOT instantly translate into "Communist/Anarchist Mouthpiece Media". As long as they continue to act as if it does they will remain powerless and insignificant.
Want Joe Paycheck to read the material? Provide balanced, insightful coverage that kowtows to Nobody and that's good enough to start getting picked up by mainstream media once in a while.
Honestly I'm in agreement with you for the most part. The objectives you state are those which should be pursued.
Here's the problem: unless you're prepared to presume that there is an actual Dark Corporate Room in which the Proper Spin is regularly decided upon (the Protocols of the Elders of Exxon?), then the biases inherent in the mainstream media are the rather complex emergent properties of a vast set of interlocking interests. The news media people I've known, on the whole, really do try to be objective and to present things in as balanced a manner as they can. Which is not to say that they always succeed. Or even that they can.
Joe Paycheck is for the most part not stupid. When he comes across a typical news report and compares it to something he's read which tries to "highlite" the "alternative" side of the matter, he is instantly struck by the contrast between the mainstream report which at least acknowledges that there may be two sides to the matter, and the alternative report which typically involves a restricted set of themes (not that they are not valid ones) and which will predictably involve demonization of one power group or another.
What is he to think? The alternative media as it exists presents a predictable viewpoint and thus does NOT appear as balanced as the mainstream media (example: Mainstream = "protesters worried about threats to democracy from free trade" AND "George Bush assures us that free trade promotes prosperity" Alternative = "Bush is a corporate tool who wants to take away your rights. Everything he says is a lie". Anyone whose views on something can be predicted before they open their mouth tends to be relegated to crank status.
Most people recognize that the many many problems inherent in the system are much more complex and difficult than just "bad rich guys" versus everyone else. Insofar as the alternative media keeps hammering stories into this mold, it's unlikely to go beyone fringe status.
That is one of the many reasons why centralized web-based services are not such a good idea. In fact, we have a perfectly good service for distributing information widely without the ability for anyone to identify readers: USENET. For better or for worse (I think for worse, actually), it is even permanently archived and searchable now. And USENET offers a choice of jurisdiction of where the identity of a poster is protected.
Well,
The easiest way to circumvent the offence is to use a proxy server. Then you can not determine who did it.
*Headline News* censorship shuts down the Internet! More at 6PM!
Why don't ISPs just delete their logs after a set period of time and make it known to the public so stunts like this can't be pulled of by big buisness/lawyers/feds? or pipe the logs off to some secret location every night and delete the server ones?
Yeah sure, just couple of weeks ago Horowitz proved how "tolerant" and "open" leftists are.
The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're not liberals.
It is not about opinions. These were threats and such are forbidden.
The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're not liberals.
"To me "them" is the FBI/police/CIA/politicians/businesses and "us" is the people."
FBI/police/CIA ARE the people.
BTW.
You live in a free country, enjoy it.
Belive me, compared to what's out there US is a heaven and definition of freedom.
The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're not liberals.
500 years of imperialism ? ...
I assume you refer to capitalism
I will ask again, do you know any other system that offers better standard of living end, frankly more personal freedom ?
BTW.
Everybody had their chance, it is not that Europe somehow had some special treatment from the Gods...
The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're not liberals.
You know what ?
... I am in my 30s now and , while I do remember 10 years ago I was a bit more extreme in my beliefs than now, I completely fail to understand what is this fuss about.
I am all for "infiltrating" groups like these protesting in Canada.
I pay taxes for the police to keep my nice, well-persevered little world from being assaulted and destroyed by people who don't know any better.
BTW.
I not 20 years old anymore
When you hit 30 you will know what I was talking about.
The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're not liberals.
"But if you prefer to live in a society that conducts its most important international meetings in walled-off fortresses, going over documents that even our elected representatives were not allowed to see, that's your problem, isn't it? "
...
Sure we elected Bush precisely to take care of issues like that.
You are not talking about direct democracy , are you ?
"Unfortunately mindless young people like you are going to bring the planet to ruin. "
Where are the facts ? I am yet to see credible report about planet being "ruined"
All I encounter are pseudo-news designed to scare people into supporting leftist ( or environmental) cause.
I get tons of requests for support them financially with their letters citing all kinds of disasters that will befall upon us UNLESS we will take action now and send $50 bucks to some place.
Despite the fact that I am not professionally involved in these issues even I was able to completely disprove some of these "facts" cited in these letters.
The only reason these groups can prosper is because of complete ignorance and lack of interest of most Americans who allow themselves to be scared into submission.
"what is going on today, right now, in your supposedly democratic country. "
Funny how native Americans are so quick to decry their own Democracy.
I spent large part of my life living in different country and, for one, I do think US is a great democracy as compared to most of the world.
The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're not liberals.
...all your log files are belong to us.
Not de jure censorship, but an FBI request for the IP address of users at large sets a precedent for de facto censorship. Sites that attract that "dangerous element" (read: independent journalists and their readers) may fairly or unfairly attract those who would do real damage, but the consequences of such a court order chill the atmosphere in which independent journalism must thrive.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
https://www.safeweb.com
If you don't want to be tracked, make it hard to be tracked
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
...or Slashdot...