Hosting Provider Shut Down By FBI

An Anonymous Reader writes: "An 80-strong U.S. FBI agents raided the Texas-based host of Arabic Web sites, including that of the Arab world's leading independent news channel, prompting charges on Thursday of an 'anti-Muslim witchhunt.'" The Reuters story is at Yahoo! as well. Did you know there was a North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force, or that it would be shutting down ISPs?

Comments

Re:They were *NOT* shut down.

[Patrick13]

Actually, I think that if you read the Yahoo article carefully, it says

"...many of the sites were able to start up again on other servers, while the task force continued to copy computerized information on Thursday. The office remained sealed off by FBI agents."

Starting up on another server is not nearly the same as "coming back online, fair and square".

Quick news hunt.

[BrookHarty]

Found some news clips.

Anti-terrorism agents raid Texas Internet business

FBI Raids Muslim Businesses, Charity Organizations

FBI Raids Dallas-Area Web Business

local news links

[Emrys]

Since people are mentioning lack of real detail on the "why" of the raid, and I live down here in Dallas, I guess I'll be a karma whore:

http://www.wfaa.com/wfaa/articledisplay/0,1002,310 13,00.html
http://www.wfaa.com/wfaa/articledisplay/0,1002,311 20,00.html

Deja Vu All Over Again

[1alpha7]

This reminds me so much of the Steve Jackson Games raid of a decade ago. Yes, the warrant was valid. And sealed. The effect was to nearly silence a voice the SS didn't like.

1Alpha7

Some big differences

[L-Train8]

The Hindu Unity website incident is a very different situation. The site had some strong anti-Muslim views, particularly towards Muslims in India. Stuff that could be interpereted as a call for violence against Muslims in India (the current home page has a cartoon of Muslims stabbing to death a Hindu mother). And people complained to the ISP, who told the organization to take their business elsewhere. Here is an article.

The case of the ISP in Texas involves the government shutting down, albeit temporarily and as an incidental consequence of searching for evidence, lots of websites without explanation, only a sealed warrant. This includes one of the most prominent sites news of the middle east that is not controlled by a government of the region.

People get up in arms about controversial websites, like porn sites, hate sites, spammer sites, radical anti-abortion sites, etc, all the time. And sometimes, complaints to the ISP are effective in forcing the site to move to an ISP that is less concerned about complaints from the public. That isn't really news.

The government shutting down 500 mostly arab-related websites without explanation should be considered more newsworthy.