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Indymedia Seizures Initiated In Europe
daveschroeder continues: "Rackspace's statement reads, 'In the present matter regarding Indymedia, Rackspace Managed Hosting, a U.S. based company with offices in London, is acting in compliance with a court order pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), which establishes procedures for countries to assist each other in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering. Rackspace responded to a Commissioner's subpoena, duly issued under Title 28, United States Code, Section 1782 in an investigation that did not arise in the United States. Rackspace is acting as a good corporate citizen and is cooperating with international law enforcement authorities. The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter.'"
Europe's not perfect! The United States isn't always the bad guy! Panic erupts on Slashdot.
. . . each of Europe and the U.S. gets the other to do the dirty work that would be too hot in each home country. This was a J. Edgar Hoover through the side door.
And half the people on here thought it was all the US/FBI's fault, that we are the bad guys..
Go figure, It just wouldn't make sense to wait for the facts before opening ones mouth, Instead we slashdotters like to shoot from the hip
Personal Website
"as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering." Another blatant misuse of laws! They make 'em for one purpose and then use 'em for another.. go figure!
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
This is the FBI, not the CIA. The FBI is allowed to monitor domestic things, the CIA is not. That is why they CIA might work with another country to get intelligence on its own country. The FBI has no need.
How far does this MLAT extend? I'm wondering whether it would obligate nations to assist in cases where based on their own laws, the suspected crime wouldn't have been a crime at all. This is pretty relevant since the USA has significantly more anal-retentive IP laws right now, and Europe has significantly fewer protections on freedom of speech. Might a country that doesn't have anything like a DMCA be forced to help the FBI take down some infringing code? Would the FBI be forced to help some EU nation take down a website promoting "hate speech"?
I guess I realize why this sort of treaty is useful, but I'm having a hard time understanding how it avoids trampling on the local legal rules of each nation.
from hosting with a large, multinational corporation.
It also serves as a good reminder to consider using encrypted discs for servers where the data should not fall into the hands of law-enforcement.
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Is threatening people with bodily harm protected speech? I don't think so.
Indymedia is overrun with crazies, if they break the law, then this should be investigated. It's not censorship.
The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter.
which court , a US one ? French, Swiss ?
its almost a human rights issue if the suspect has been bound over from discussing the charges or suspected charges with anyone
then again USA and human rights never did get on well
What's really unbelievable is the fact that indymedia still doesn't know why their servers were seized.
This is frigging Europe, not some Banana Republic where you can simply seize someones proberty and get sensitive information without at least telling them with what they are charged, goddammit!
In theory, if /. refered to a project that was supposed to be secret in a foreign coutry the 1st amendment rights of /. can be broached by that country issuing subpeonas via the MLAT thingy? I read the article and it refered to a pic of some Swiss undercover brownshorts getting their cover blown on an Indymedia server as the likely cause of the take down.
Ah, the swiss, in their hollowed out little country. The nice germans, or as they say, "The other white race"
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
Perhaps they should have been hosted in SeaLand?
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Good citizen, this is not last week, we are not at war with oceana, we never were at war with oceana, and in any case last week does not officially exist.
Always *ALWAYS* make backups of everything and distribute many copies abroad.
This is not the first time that governments abuse their powers and surely won't be the last.
...and, as such, had to be served with a subpoena by a US law enforcement entity. That's why the FBI was tangentially involved. The FBI merely acted as a legal conduit under an international legal treaty to which the US, UK, and many other nations are parties.
"Go figure, It just wouldn't make sense to wait for the facts before opening ones mouth, Instead we slashdotters like to shoot from the hip"
...shoot from the lip.
The first ammendment doesn't apply to other countries. If some countries in Europe don't protect speech, complain to them (well, until you're arrested or whatever). Besides, no one even knows if this is about speech. If it's money laundering, or extortion, or a variety of other things, it's illegal.
John Young of Cryptome.org says:
"This is not unprecedented. Some years ago several US ISPs removed material on sites at the request of foreign governments. They acted unilaterally, without court order, merely upon the request of the governments. Some of these incidents were made public, competing ISPs offered to refuse to abide such requests, and customers abandoned those who cooperated with the authorities.
This method can be used against Rackspace. Indeed, it is likely that Rackspace awaits public outcry, and customers leaving, in order to have grounds to resist the thinly justified action in this case.
Recall that the US DoJ is regularly bluffing and faking its attack on alleged terrorist suspects and political dissidents. Other countries are following the US in this vile practice. They cover for each other with these obnoxious mutual assistance treaties, in which fingers are pointed after the dirty deeds are done."
It's here
Those dirty, filthy Europeans are always at the forefront suppressing free speech. America is not safe as long as the Europeans have the ability to reach into our country to suppress our freedom of speech! Fight the fascism, say no to Europe!
</just getting back at the europeans for the endless tirades of how America destroys freedom>
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
* Best deals: Censorship
* Best deals: United States
* Best deals: Your Rights Online
I can somehow understand the United States link (politicians can be bought, as in this story), but the rest of the links are somewhat out of place.
Whine whine whine...
http://cryptome.org/fbi-imc.htm
http://cryptome.org/fbi-imc/fbi-imc-doc.htm
http://cryptome.org/rackspace-axe.htm
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
I can't wait to hear the Bushies defend this one. Let's hear a justification for something like this from the Mighty Whitey Righty. And don't give me that crap about Democrats voted for it, too. All this is happening on YOUR watch and YOU own it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
-b.
You forgot this is slashdot; The US is always evil and Europe is always right.
What's up with that gag order?
I could understand them choosing to refrain from comment for legal reasons (basically a CYA maneuver). But a court order? Does anyone here know what's going on?
I think I speak for many when I ask:
Who the heck is Indymedia and why should we care?
Seriously, what were the involved in that could be alleged to be "illegal"?
Pretty much solves that problem...
i on -HOWTO/Encryption-HOWTO-4.html
Using an encrypted device, e.g.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/docs/HOWTO/Encrypt
And use AFS on top of that in order to provide global redundancy.
http://www.openafs.org/
Deleted
You cannot have a war on an inanimate object. Let me say that again: You cannot have a war on an inanimate object. That goes for drugs. Additionally: You cannot have a war against a tactic. "Terrorism" (of the sort seen in Iraq today) is a tactic which would have previously been covered by the adjective "guerilla" fighting.
Great how we let 3,000 people dying in a country of 260,000,000 eliminate some of our liberty that we're certain to never get back.
The concentration of power has been a society-destroying force in every major historic society. Think Roman Empire.
I think i'd prefer it if there WAS some "oceania" out there we could be at perpetual war with: at least it has borders which are easily defined. Terror is an excuse to use the military worldwide without checks and then to come after the citizens of your own country when they question the government's efforts to fight the terror.
The bottom line here, for what it's worth, is that the US (or political agents within the US) had absolutely nothing to do with Indymedia's drives being seized, even though that's what 90% of the posters in the original article immediately assumed. And, on top of that, the ONLY reason the FBI was involved was because Rackspace, Indymedia's host, is a US company. However, the FBI itself did not do any of the seizing. MLAT complicates the issue, but the fact is that if they had hosted in the UK with, say, a UK company as opposed to a US company, there would have been ZERO US involvement, and the US involvement in this is merely a tertiary formality of MLAT. The FBI was obligated to pass on the request to Rackspace under MLAT, but in fact performed no enforcement duty, according to Rackspace itself and Indymedia.org's own report.
No doubt conspiracy theorists will still think it was some kind of US/Bush/GOP attempt to silence critics, when in reality Europe has no further to look than its own doorsteps - Italy and Switzerland - for the seizure requests...
...of opposing Slashdot groupthink. Your punishment is to be rated troll. May CmdrTaco have mercy on your soul.
The funny thing here is that the sort of "everyone is judged by the standards of the least free country" treaties that turn out to have resulted in this shutdown are the exact sort of thing that the Indymedia crowd has been trying to oppose with their "anti-globalization" tirades all along.
Now it turns out they're the first to be targetted by these treaties.
Go figure.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
How is this on topic? The fact of the matter is that in this instance, the US had nothing to do with it. Also, FBI != CIA.
Encrypted disks just makes the disk by itself useless. Next time, law enforcement will just take the whole machine.
The only thing encrypted disks get you on a public webserver is protecting those who access your site, but honestly, all that info is easily accessible with a ethernet tap and sniffer, or automatically via the fancier managed switches- and if you are concerned about protecting the privacy of your users, don't log their IPs in the first place.
Please help metamoderate.
Any enforcement was done by the UK Metropolitan Police IN the UK, not by the FBI. Sorry to disappoint.
Hello,
s html
Living in switzerland, I could hear quite often the news concerning this article.
At least concerning the Switzerland, I cannot say for Italie, the problem was that Indymedia was publishing some pictures of swiss cops under cover with 1 name, addresses from both cops.
From this point of view I can understand that it's quite dangerous for them to be exposed in such way.
here is an article (in french) http://www.edicom.ch/news/suisse/041009160849.sa.
if you want to read it by yourself!
LG
I'm a bit clueless here... What information, besides the names of RNC Delegates, did Indymedia have? What do they do? I'm looking around but I can't find a concise summary. Sorry if I'm lazy. :)
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
...which is exclusively where the seizures took place. The FBI was involved in the chain of the request because Rackspace itself is a US corporation. Nice invocation of the PATRIOT Act, though, when it's not involved in this in any way. The responsibility for this rests squarely on the office of the UK Home Secretary, not the US or FBI.
Not loading at all. Cos it is /.ed, not a seizure too, right?
I notice under the "Related Links" section, it says, "Best deals: Your Rights Online". Is this where our government has been selling off our civil rights for the last decade or so?
Adrian
"Rackspace may be a US company but Rackspace in London is subject to UK law not US law. If they took down and handed over Indymedia's servers simply on the basis of a US subpoena communicated to them this would not be lawful in the UK.
However it seems more likely that the US subpoena was the subject of a request for mutual legal assistance from the US Attorney General to the UK Home Secretary under the MLA Treaty. It would for the Metropolitan Police, probably accompanied by the FBI, to enforce the request and take possession of the servers.
This begs the questions: Why did the Home Office agree? What grounds did the USA give for the seizure of the servers? Were these grounds of a "political" nature? Has the Home Office requested that the servers be returned? What does this action say about freedom of expression and freedom of the press?
A trail that started in Switzerland and Italy has now ended fairly and squarely in the lap of the UK Home Secretary to justify."
Heres a quite interesting story on the power of mlats and what we will have to look forward to with the COE treaty :
A cop car was broken into in Quebec and a security doc relating to measures for the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit protests was stolen and posted in the net in Seattle. At the behest of the RCMP, a magistrate judge issued an order to grab the records from a Seattle web site called the 'independent media center' using the US/CAN mlat. They were then visited by the FBI/Secret Service. They then had a gag order on this for several days before it was released today.
Great precedent. I wonder if when my car gets broken into again, I can use the cybercrime treaty to find my stereo again...
The Honorable and Omnipotent Ruler Iron, dictator of Irony, has issued a dictate calling for the right hands of the administrators of Rackspace. Thus far the international community has failed to cooperate with this legally issued order.
You mean "Extended the war on drugs" with "The war of terror... "
It doesn't matter whether the war is against a country, an inanimate object, or a tactic. It doesn't matter whether it's real or imagined. All that matters is that the citizens of the state are kept fearful of and distracted by the target of the war. It also gives the state a pretext to deal with "troublesome" citizens. That was the point Orwell was making. It doesn't matter whether the war can be won or not, because it's merely a tool of distraction.
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
The only way to keep your civil liberties at this point are to protect them. Sadly, as far as protecting your host is concerned, that probably means hosting as far away from the Western world as possible right now... better yet, decentralize. As far as all the calls for encryption on the disks, etc, I doubt it would help. I suspect the primary goal of the seizure was to take the site down for as long as possible. Hope someone made a backup. The other possibility is that someone is trying to retrieve user info and access logs. Unfortunately, I'm sure many people involved with the project were not paranoid enough to protect their identities from IndyMedia.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
WTF is going on here - the FBI shouldn't be helping foreign agents deny freedom of the press in the United States.
I say, the FBI should be arresting any foreign agents for even attempting to shut up an American media outlet - even if it is a bunch of "no-good hippie tree huggers" like Indymedia.
My original comment stands: fuck them all to hell.
"Hip" is not quite the anatomical location I was thinking most slashdotters speak from, but you're in the vicinity.
A very crude outline of a solution:
:)
Encrypted disks are a great idea, but you need a server-oriented solution, not a desktop solution.
Each server has an unencrypted boot partition and an encrypted data partition. Upon boot, the server sends a decrypt-request with a hash of unique system data (CPUID, MAC address(es), kernel compile date, etc.) to a pool of authentication servers. If the server grants decrypt permission, a key is exchanged and the server comes online. This process is repeated every 10 minutes. If a cycle fails, the decrypt keys are removed from system memory and the server removed from service until it can get decrypt authorization.
Servers are distributed among several data centers. Decrypt servers are also distributed among data centers.
Alternately, if you want to ensure that a photo is available on the internet forever, send it over to fark for a photoshop contest.
to governments repeatedly going after Indymedia sites; Israel took down Israel Indymedia.
Hell, you can't pay for advertisment of this sort. I've never bothered reading these university-treehugger websites, since I can just turn on National Public Radio and get my entire fill of treehugger for the season. I guess I'll be looking around IRC for Indymedia stuff. There'll be a torrent and an aMule link for it, shortly.
Someone might as well start printing Indymedia t-shirts. They'll probably start selling like crazy.
I guess make a little iPod carrier with the Indymedia logo on it too, so everyone can take their iPods to whatever protest happens to be scheduled for that particular day and promote Indymedia, too.
Google for offshore dedicated servers
Placing the servers offshore gives you that extra protection you need especially from big brother monitoring and being able to shut down your site. Of course, you have to do your homework to see which ones are REALLY offshore. Any "offshore" company with a US address or US telephone number or any ties to the US simply isn't 100% offshore. Also find one with 24 hour support, as when we at midday they are at midnight, so it becomes crucial they are around to assist you. Try emailing them or calling them before you sign up and see how responsive they are.
And remember to choose one that has been around a while and is stable, as there seem to be many fly-by-night offshore providers, and many that keep getting disconnected and with flaky connections and crap bandwidth. Got burned once... so be careful which one you choose.
**FREE** Track and view your phone's via CellID and/or WIFI and/or GPS
Does anybody know of a torrent of the questionable data? If there's a torrent, it would be pretty impossible to track down and sieze...
I don't respond to AC's.
The other day the FBI was accused of instigating a raid (in the UK). Does this mean that, in fact, the FBI did NOT instigate that raid? I'm sorry their servers have been seiged, but it would be nice to get facts, rather than impressions.
Key to running a media source is ensuring its integrity. If indy can't check the facts concerning whether the FBI -- er -- CIA -- er -- Italian Government has been shutting them down, then why are they printing it?
I sure hope their misreporting of the facts [in this particular case] does not [in general] represent their quality of journalism. I still have some faith in them, though.
Anyhow, if they want to safeguard against bullying they could use something like freenet.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
And I said that in the story I submitted. But the ONLY reason they were there in attendance was because a US subpoena was served on a US company. But the seizure was executed by UK authorities (since the FBI has no jurisdiction in the UK), and the only reason the US had a subpoena was because of a legal request under treaty by Italian and Swiss authorities. IF Rackspace was, say, a UK company instead of US, the same seizure would have taken place without the FBI acting as even a conduit, or any US involvement whatsoever. The FBI and US's involvement here was minimal and compulsory, and only because it was required for dealing with a US-based company. None of the request for action was initiated in any way within the US, the seizure was not conducted by the US, and the seizure did not happen in the US. You're going to have to find other places to lay blame. To repeat: the ONLY reason ANY US agency was involved is because Rackspace is a US company.
This is one more example of why it is imperative to have current backups and to have redundant servers located in diverse areas. It is also a good argument for keeping as little data as possible located on hosted servers.
Huh?
Even if we don't know the EXACT reason the hard drives were seized, I think a logical, sane person can conclude that the governments of Switzerland and Italy - the nations from which the seizure requests initiated - have NOTHING to do with Diebold or the RNC delegates.
But even if they were totally irrelevant, the fact is that they've had legal action taken against them and are unable to determine the parties or reasons for the legal action. That's honest-to-god police state stuff, and we should be asking our elected officials tough questions about it.
Then, for this particular issue, you'd better be asking in Europe about it, since the US had nothing to do with initiating the request (Italy and Switzerland), nor seizing the hard drives (UK authorities). The only reason ANY US entity was involved is because Rackspace is a US company.
I literally can't believe that, after Indymedia itself said the request did NOT originate within the US, and drives were only seized in the UK (NOT by the FBI, since the FBI has no jurisdiction in the UK, and only served Rackspace with a subpoena via a request made under treaty), you're spouting off about Diebold and the RNC delegates.
And, yes, something like this can be bad for a company or web site. But this seems to go a little too far:Don't these people have backups? And they should at least be able to get the text/html portions of their data back up on line very quickly.
...the facts in front of you.
The Authority to act against Saddam was granted by the U.N. during HIS '90 unprovoked aggressive action against a foreign sovereignty. His total lack of cooperation with compliance of the terms of the cease fire (important point that: the world was still at war with Iraq, but only a few countries were bearing the expense of that), his total callousness towards his people (building what was it, 14 palaces? While his people were starving and dying), and his constant games regarding inspection and verification of the disarmament agreement were all grounds enough to remove him from power. Regardless of WsMD or not.
Please also forget that when there is a majore foreign tragedy, that it is the Americans you love to bash that are the first and largest foreign providers of assistance (Somalia, Kobe, et. al.)
Please continue in the ignorance of the facts in front of you. I'd hate to upset your blissful existance.
Where is it you come from, anyway? I'm wondering how much aid the U.S. has given your country through the years.
If anyone wants to help out (there are still many IMC sites down) some more mirrors would be good!
You can get in touch with IMC techies via email or via #tech on irc.indymedia.org.
The sites that are easy to mirror are the ones running Mir since this CMS generates static HTML, this includes the global site and the UK site.
Also one of the siezed London servers was the main Blag Linux server and it ran some other Free software mirrors... :-/
... to keep your stuff backed up somwhere they can't get to it so you can restore it when the feds come in and fuck you over.
buy new equipment and sue them for losses later.
Encrypted filesystems wouldn't help here. The point of seizing a public web server isn't to find out what's on the hard drive. The government(s) in question already know what's on that server. The point is to keep people from visiting the site and downloading whatever "dangerous" information was hosted there.
Hosting servers in a place where the local authorities wouldn't cooperate with European spies would be a much better use of their time.
0 1 - just my two bits
This is clear prior restraint and a First Amendment violation. No treaty can override that. Remember, the Patriot Act gag order provisions were ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court last week. Further use of those provisions by the Government is questionable and may be illegal.
From article at site:
"By taking down 2 servers more than 20 Indymedia sites were affected in different countries globally as well as several unrelated
projects. Indymedia considers this extremely invasive operation a serious threat to the Freedom of Speech worldwide."
"Indymedia insists that the servers are returned because each day they are inoperable and Indymedia's irreplaceable data is unaccessible means greater material damages to the Indymedia operation worldwide."
From comment at site:
I'm chortling that you Reds apparently haven't learned the concept of off-site backups.
Me:
I agree with the comment from the indymedia site that off-site backups should now be replacing the two confiscated servers. Why aren't they? NO BACKUPS???? If so, they have only themselves to blame that the impact of this is as bad as it is.
How is it on topic?
The American Government was thought to be doing its usually dick self, as highlighted by the parent (I'd also like to add the american government also supported otehr dictators like the Shah of Iran, the current regieme in Saudi Arabia, and many others).
If fucking blew our socks off that the American government isnt the 'bad guys' in this case is very much *on topic*, oh isn't it?
The way to deal with an overextended empire, as you write that the USA is becoming, is to get it bogged down in highly symbolic but strategically worthless wars that comsume all of its energy and resources.
Naturally, no one in their right mind would want to take on the empire directly. But it might be worthwhile to provoke some of one's annoying hot-headed neighbors to do so. That way you keep your neighbors too busy fighting the empire to bother you.
This world is not really a good place to run a totalitarian empire. There is a giant surplus of young people without jobs who can be easily convinced that all their troubles are caused by the empire, and that some god will solve all of their troubles if they just kill enough of the empire's citizens and solders. The empire spends billions each year on high tech weapons but only has a million or so solders up against two billion young people willing to fight it. Globally they get spread pretty thin.
The USA is in deep debt. Each year its government spends far more than it takes in through taxes. It finances itself by issuing bonds. People outside the USA buy its bonds because they believe that the USA will always make good on its bonds. The USA believes that whenever its bonds come due it can cover them by just selling more bonds. The empire finances itself not through looting and pillage but with a giant Ponzi scheme.
Want to stop the growth of the empire. Stop buying its government bonds. Today the largest buyer of USA government bonds is the government of People's Republic of China. Fifteen years ago it was the the various banks of Japan. Thirty years ago it was Saudi Arabia.
It's best for everyone if the empire occupies itself with endless expensive wars in worthless little hellholes. Let's hope that they continue to do so and leave the rest of us alone.
Then who is doing the coordination???
Privacy is terrorism.
As an aside, didn't liberals and conservatives alike berate the government for the different law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies not being able to and/or refusing to cooperate before 9/11?
Undercover cops whose names are known by everyone aren't in any danger - they're just unable to ever take part in more undercover operations. Undercover cops whose names are only known by a few non-police (as they must have already been, if Indymedia was about to "out" them in the first place) may be in great danger.
I think that some of the non-IndyMedia-affiliated groups whose data was affected by this need to file complaints with the relevant courts/agencies about their data being confiscated without a valid warrant, and file legal action against Rackspace for having turned over their data without a valid warrant for their data being presented. Don't bring IndyMedia into it, don't let the FBI or Rackspace bring them in, make the authorities explain in public why they're seizing the property of people not named in the warrants.
American democracy is when the sheep has a bazooka.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Bourne's back on the grid!
The world is a safe place.
investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering.
Which of the three does publishing news stories fall under?
________________________________________________
suwain_2
... we'd better agree on what's constitutional and acceptable on a freedom & rights perspective. I've got the nagging feeling that some italian (I'm one, so I speak for my own county's perspective) office really wanted to do something that our own apparatus wouldn't allow without painstaking authorizations and outrage so, given the chance, they turned to a more "liberal" establishment (US) to get the job done without too many hassles. It stinks, as far as I'm concerned the responsibility rests in our turf for having done something we ourselves legislated to disallow (and it doesn't matter if it's business as usual for the US... everyone responds to himself... and that applies to nations too)
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
No, not Indymedia, but the ones who seazed their servers.
From what I've read, Indymedia is assumed to be innocent = A VERY GOOD THING . However, the problem I have with what I've read is that there is an assumed guilt on the part of the ones doing the seazures. They too should be extended the same curtesy Indymedia so much would use to their own advantage and cause. Do we really know if they are innocent or guilty? Or if there is an actual, dare I say, reasonable law that has been broken by Indymedia? From what's written you would be hard pressed to think they were less than innocent. (It's still OK to presume they are.)
Let's see if they'll continue to cry foul, foul , FOUL! Or if they'll be calm and collected in the confidence and peace actual, real guiltlessness affords the innocent.
8 Sep 2004: Indymedianates publishes an article with photos of at least 1 (maybe 2?) undercover swiss police. Google cache of another site with pictures here. Translation of original Indymedia post.
Unknown date: FBI asks the post to be removed, but admitted no laws were violated: "The FBI agents told me that they were not concerned with the photos, but with the identifying information. There never was any such identifying information, and even if there was, it would likely be protected by the first amendment if it was obtained legally. (There was a recent case here in Washington that you may be familiar with on this very issue). But, even assuming it is illegal to post identifying information (which it is not), there WAS NO SUCH info. The FBI agents freely admitted to me that individuals have a right to take photographs of agents in public places and post those photos on the internet."
7 Oct 2004: Two Indymedia servers hosted by Rackspace (a US Company) but physically located in LONDON are taken. FBI agents are present at the seizure. No information is given other than the servers were taken. The order was issued to Rackspace (not Indymedia) and Rackspace was apparently barred from talking about it.
8 Oct 2004: Rackspace publishes that they turned over the servers in response to an order under MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty).
8 Oct 2004: The AFP states that the request for the seizure originated with the Italian and Switzerland governments.
But I'm sure that the people who run Indymedia do know the reasons behind the seizure.
I work with the pittsburgh indymedia center and to the best of my knowlege the court papaers were served to the _ISP_ and not to indymedia directly. Of course, you did read the article.
-- john
Has it occurred to you and everyone who keeps bringing up the backups, that they might not have money to buy more servers ?
Fact is, someone taking your servers affects your business in a pretty critical way, so if you're not suspected there should be other ways to get at the data without lifting them offsite.
The amount of data generated by indymedia is really quite impressive. That coupled with a quite limited budget is a major part of the problem. Some peole do mirror sites to their home computers. Of courseif there are off site backups, why would you come out and say "hey i've got a backup" only to have your computer confiscated.
-- john
I'm not sure what part of this architecture you're describing as not being 'very secure.' If data was served via SSL from the website, it would be less available to packet sniffers and would thereby be pretty secure end-to-end. Also, even though the server is at a hosting company, they could have been running it as a dedicated server, which would give IndyMedia 100% control over reboots, etc. Worst case scenario, it's a shared host. Indymedia could have kept their sensitive data on an encrypted partition that they would have to ssh into the box to mount themselves.
Of course, these are all hypotheticals as the specific details of this case haven't been revealed.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
A lot of mourning over an organization that made Fox News look like it was completely unbiased. Good riddance to them.
/. is that "biased" is mostly defined as any opinion you don't agree with. Courts ruled a way you didn't like? Obviously they were biased because they were bought off (in some fashion never actually explained). Don't like the way a news story was written? Must have been the work of the evil Corporations/Americans/Israelis/Europeans/Arabs!
/.'ers who have this problem, but alas, I suspect it is far more than that.
I know this comment's a karma burner, but to hell with it. I'm sick of people who bitch about CNN being biased, and then point to IndyNews as the "accurate" source of information.
One of the most important life lessons I've learned on
Get a grip. It's impossible to report truth, because the facts lend themselves to any number of truths if you arrange them properly. And, no matter what you do, you MUST arrange the facts in order to report a story.
What's worse is that Europeans have been steadily conditioned by their news media to believe that they are somehow less susceptible to media bias, or that their media doesn't have any. I don't know what's scarier anymore: the obviously biased US news sources, or the more subtly biased European news sources. I pray that it is only European
In summary: shut up. You are not unbiased in any way, shape, or form. Your news sources are not unbiased in any way, shape, or form. You will need to use your head to discern facts from the truth that is given to you, and then use these facts to reconstruct a more likely truth about the situation. What's worse is that you will need to consider that other people can do this, yet come up with a different truth than you.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
How can it be PRIOR restraint when the information in question had already been published on Indymedia's site? Prior restraint would be preventing the publishing of the information by shutting them down beforehand.
You can argue that it was an unlawful restraint, but I can't see how it was a prior restraint.
Unless you're saying that taking down the server prevents the publishing of some yet unknown material.
But that's a bit like me taking some lady to task for not going out with me as it would interfere with the rights of our as yet unconcieved children.
Operation Ajax (1953) (officially TP-AJAX) was an Anglo-American covert operation to overthrow the freely elected democratic Government of Iran"
Many Europeans bash the U.S. for restricting freedom of speech, yet Slashdot is live and well in the U.S. dispite regular anti-government posts. Not to mention that Slashdot will likely be illegal in many parts of Europe for containing hate messages (for examples, try viewing the posts at -1 level).
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
I'm the tech who had the contract with Rackspace. My blog has info about this, including copies of the rackspace trouble tickets:
http://jebba.blagblagblag.org
I'd like to clarify a few misconceptions I see in some slashdot comments (imagine that!):
daveschroeder wrote in comments (he also submitted this story to slashdot):
The bottom line here, for what it's worth, is that the US (or political agents within the US) had absolutely nothing to do with Indymedia's drives being seized, even though that's what 90% of the posters in the original article immediately assumed.
It is believed that it is the US State Department that had the drives (servers?) seized. You say the US had absolutely nothing to do with it? How about the Federal Order? Do you have info I don't have? Sounds very much like US agents are involved...
We do not know for certain whether it is related to Italy or Switzerland or somewhere else. It is a good guess, but still a guess. All we know is that it was a Federal Order from the U. S. of A.
ptitvert wrote in comments:
Indymedia was publishing some pictures of swiss cops under cover with 1 name, addresses from both cops.
Really? Did you ever see the post? I never saw a single name or address of a cop. There was just a newswire submission (very similar to a slashdot comment, except that it's multimedia enabled). See my blog and trouble tickets with rackspace for more info about this issue.
Also, folks write things like:
It could be a story they ran about the Swiss undercover police
Indymedia has feature articles and a newswire. Indymedia "ran a story about undercover cops" in the same way that CmdrTaco ran a story about your comments. Get it? FREE POSTING TO ANYONE WITH A FREAKING MODEM (npi).
Anyway, no one really knows what is going on, and that's the spooky part. I mean, the Feds just yanked the servers and never even contacted us once. And they still haven't. (Um, not that I'm inviting them over for coffee or anything...)
Look! They're just grabbing servers, no comments. This sucks folks, even if you loathe indymedia.
I know there is a lot of noise/spam/junk on indymedia, but there is on slashdot too... Since ANYONE can post, the posts are of greatly varying quality. But Indymedia has some of the best (if not the best) coverage from the street, especially at demonstrations. It does break news which is found no where else. It is extremely valuable for this alone.
Let's say there is a Swiss pharmaceutical company in Ohio that does something the Mexican cops don't like. Do the Swiss cops raid? The Mexicans? It seems we really have Team America: World Police.
The rockin' EFF has volunteered to represent me/indymedia pro bono. Very nice. :)
Have fun,
-Jeff
AC - "Huh? Nazis were on the extreme right, and rose to power in Germany as a reaction to Communism on the left." Uh, no they're not pal. Common misconception. Left and right refer to economics, not social policy. As the Nazis were National Socialists, they belong far on the left. They didn't rise as a reaction to communism, but in sympathy with it. Germany's economy was in disarray after the first war, and a strong leader who could rebuild the economy was wanted. The nazis opposed communism because they threatened the power of the Reich, not on principle.
US Intelligence Service
Calling Nazi's "left wing" or "right wing" doesn't make sense the context of the US. American politics don't really mesh with European politics in that sense: in most European countries, for instance, the leftists are the hawks and the right wingers want to end military spending.
Naziism was socialist in fact, not just in name, in that the state controlled most of the means of production. So in that sense, they were leftist. Naziism gets associated with the right in America because their rhetoric of traditional blue-collar values as against the elitist urban bourgeois matches a lot of right-wing American rhetoric ... the closest match to naziism in a lot of policies was the American Populist movement: people like Huey P. Long. Even then, it doesn't quite work because the Populists didn't rely so heavily on ceremony and ritual as a means of political control.
All's true that is mistrusted
there's a well known but not much publicised or admitted-to option Israel has, and that is to take down all the capitals in europe and the US with nukes if it looks like they will be over-run in another general war. The obvious reference is from Samson taking down the pillars and collapsing the temple on himself, but getting all his foes as well.
I don't agree with it, and I think it was a boneheaded move to re establish that state there artifically, but thems the facts and realities now-they got hundreds of nukes, enough to pulverise all the middle eastern capitals and also europe and some of the US if push comes to genocidal shove for them. Basically blackmail, and it sucketh. I personally don't consider their political state as being frinedly to the US, nor any of the other middle eastern states, it's just relationships of convenience more than anything else right now. They've never signed the nuclear non proliferation treaty, and as such should be under embargo from the US by our general law, but they are specifically excluded and ignored on that point. Some say it's because of the Samson option, but to back that up-and this is speculation as well but well founded-they have so many US lawmakers in their pockets from potential blackmail threats and from bribery that they get what they want almost all the time, and will continue to do so.
I see almost zero chance of any peace in the middle east, and almost a 100% chance of a major war being fought there eventually, including all forms of WMD. It might happen within this decade, too, for that matter.
Armageddon if you will.
Websites seize... OMG, WTF?! Didn't Warsaw pact dissolve in early 1990's?
Learn history, idiot. National "Socialism" was capitalism par excellence. Especially the war industry was organized similar to today's war industry in the US.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Rackspace may be a US company but Rackspace in London is subject to UK law not US law. If they took down and handed over Indymedia's servers simply on the basis of a US subpoena communicated to them this would not be lawful in the UK.
Ok, so whose fault is that? Not the FBI's. Rackspace said it was being a "good corporate citizen" and helping international law enforcement entities.
This was NOT an FBI (or US) operation. No. Really. It wasn't.
However it seems more likely that the US subpoena was the subject of a request for mutual legal assistance from the US Attorney General to the UK Home Secretary under the MLA Treaty.
OK, and? The reason the US received the request was because the hosting provider was a US company, albeit doing business in the UK. There were probably more MLA requests; in fact, there were probably MLA requests from Italy and Switzerland to the US, and possibly even the UK, and between the US and the UK.
It would for the Metropolitan Police, probably accompanied by the FBI, to enforce the request and take possession of the servers.
Indeed. "Metropolitan Police" not being a US law enforcement entity. I understand how that could be confusing. And "probably" accompanied by the FBI? They don't even know that for sure; they just know that the subpoena ORIGINATED from the FBI; for all we know, US FBI agents weren't even there. But since the request stemmed from an FBI subpoena, it's a hell of a lot more interesting to say that the "FBI" seized the hard drives, isn't it? Rather than waiting to find out the actual story, which is that Switzerland and Italy asked for assistance compelling a US company operating in a third nation to cease from publishing dangerous materials - i.e., the photos and identification of Swiss undercover police officers. I'm not saying it's right, just that that's what happened.
This begs the questions: Why did the Home Office agree?
Who knows. But that has nothing to do with the US.
What grounds did the USA give for the seizure of the servers?
Probably that it received a request for assistance from the Italian and Swiss governments.
Were these grounds of a "political" nature?
*Sigh* I suppose you can argue that EVERYTHING in government is "political", to some extent.
Has the Home Office requested that the servers be returned?
Who knows. But, again, that has nothing to do with the US.
What does this action say about freedom of expression and freedom of the press?
That you'd better now reveal the identities of undercover law enforcement officers, with thinly veiled threats? (And yes, that goes for Valerie Plame, too, since some retard will surely bring it up, but Plame has NOTHING to do with this instance or Indymedia, or the fact that Italy and Switzerland were who initiated the Indymedia requests, not the US or the FBI.)
A trail that started in Switzerland and Italy has now ended fairly and squarely in the lap of the UK Home Secretary to justify.
Indeed. The "UK Home Secretary" not being the "US" or the "FBI".
The FBI was minimally and tangentially involved here. It did not initiate the request. It did not perform the seizure. No seizure took place within the US. The only relationship anyone in the US has with this is due to the fact that Rackspace was a US company. If it were not, we wouldn't be talking about the FBI right now (though conspiracy theorists would still believe that it was someone in the US with political motivations who was responsible...they just can't fathom the US not being intentionally involved for malevolent reasons).
Pal, you have *no* idea what you're talking about.
The Nazis were backed by corporate interests and were good Fascists. The Socialist tag was just a bit of Orwellian Newspeak thrown in to confuse the common worker who thought socialism was probably a Good Idea given how the Weimar Republic had worked them over.
Classifying them as leftist is buying into their Newspeak. Like all Fascist regimes, the name tag on their politics have little or nothing to do with their actual politics - which was pretty ordinary Corporate/Statist Fascism. Now, both the extreme Right and the Extreme left converge on dictatorships, but that doesn't mean that all dictatorships are extreme left.
Your assumptions are blinding you to the effect of Corporate Fascism and right-wing rethoric though, which is the point from the PoV of the current NewSpeak propagandists. I think a little rechecking of your assumptions might be in order.
"They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs.. The same God who rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them."
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
"Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home, including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving service."
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
"There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if [the Jews] will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them."
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
"The nobler cause [rather than a national home] would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French."
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
"Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home."
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs."
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
"But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
"This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews."
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
"I have no doubt that [the Jews] are going about things the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun."
M. K. Gandhi, Nov. 1938
Disclaimer-- I think Wilhelm Reich takes this argument too far regarding a fairly Freudian analysis of symbols such as the Swastica. I do, think, however, he has a valid point here...
Reich (see "Mass Psychology of Fascism") argued that a principle means by which dictators control the people is to enforce a strong concept of sexual morality. I think that this does come into play when we look at the way that the fascist elements of the right are interested in arguing against gay marriage, their versions of family values, etc.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I mean, right? lol.
talks about the G8 conference in Evian, taking place at the beginning of june 20030 03_g8_ summit/summary_program.html
http://www.g8.fr/evian/english/navigation/2
Evian is in France, at the lake of Geneva and Switzerland was involved in the security, there were demonstrations in Geneva.
Not NY
Hey, WTF!! I submitted this story 4 days ago and it was rejected!! Suddenly NOW its PC to talk about Rackslut?
"...I'm sorry to say that you're completely fucking gullible."
I'm sorry to say. I didn't bring enough popcorn.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
So much for "you can't police/censor the Internet - it's international, it's impossible, we'll just route around it". The FBI has figured out how to handle that, at least when it means stomping out troublsome independent media. Until all content is available through URIs that, unlike URLs, are not coupled to a single physical location, but rather in a distributed, redundant, semantic space, physical access to the machines will still trump any security regime.
--
make install -not war
The bitching and moaning isn't about Indymedia in particular, but that an independent news site got raided by the FBI. Now, they might have deserved some sort of punishment for outing an undercover operative, but getting raided by the FBI? Even Robert Novak hasn't gotten that sort of attention for outing the CIA overseas operative.
Makes you wonder why some sorts of disclosures are okay, and some are not...
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Sigh, I remember watching this film:
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/ (There audio plus a transcript of the interview that inspired it available.)
I remember some guy in it saying how hard it would be to have a war over oil because all it takes is five pound of plastic explosive and a camel to blow up an oil rig.
Now I'm thinking how hard it is to fight for our freedoms. It seems to take so little for the U.S. Gubment to do something really atrocious like this. All it takes is a couple of guys with airplane tickets and a few phone calls.
At least blatant strawmEn are alive and modded +5. Yet does that ole Slashdot heart beat!
The AP may have (finally) picked up this story. Here is a report from WOAI in San Antonio:p x?content_ id=F406EF7A-15E6-405D-8954-CB2686A7D82A
- 09-indym edia_x.htm
7 204,11 037236%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html
. cfm
y /0,3604,132 4244,00.html
W hoTookAhims a
i splay/126509/i ndex.php
9 59
i ones/2004/1004 /0910/noticias091004/noticias091004-2.htm
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.as
A little coverage now in USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-10
Here is a more recent article from AFP:
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,
Server theft is on the radar of the WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW:
http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/aut100804
UK guardian coverage:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/stor
Answering questions and clarifying the situation around Ahimsa (the confiscated IMC web servers):
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/
English translation of a French article indicating the Italian government may have wanted IMC Italy shut down permanently:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/d
Article (in Italian) pointing to Italy's role in IMC shutdown:
http://punto-informatico.it/p.asp?i=49
Another article (in Spanish) on the Indymedia shutdown. Unfortunately, it contains little new information:
http://www.noticiasdot.com/publicac
You can get a poor translation of the above articles here:
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
Just plug in the URL above and be sure to select Spanish->English option.
Hearing about these seizures gives me seizures.
The term "leftist" is what the American Right uses when they want to define their opposition as some lunar group of wannabe terrorist guerillas.
An english translation of a Swiss news report which identifies the Swiss prosecutor who requested the seizure of Indymedia's servers. Someone should sue this free-speech-hating thug. The claim that the name and address of the police officers pictured had been posted on Nantes IMC is a flat-out lie. Anyone can check the original article in Google's cache from nantes IMC and see that no personal information was posted there: only pictures of the undercover Swiss pigs.
9 .sa
Translation of Swiss news report at:
http://www.edicom.ch/news/suisse/04100916084
Indymedia site closed by the FBI - investigation open in Geneva
GENEVA - the server which hosts Indymedia's local antiglobalization web sites was closed by the FBI on request of Italy and Switzerland. The Geneva prosecutor opened an investigation after the identities of police appeared on the web sites sites. "I opened an investigation but I will not say any to you more", declared prosecutor Daniel Zappelli on Saturday. Wednesday, the two Genevese police in charge of investigating the G8 riots in 2003 had their photographs posted anonymously, including the address and the name of one of them, on the French site Indymedia-Nantes. The Attorney General of Geneva did not want to confirm if the FBI had acted with its request. The American ISP which hosts several local Indymedia web sites was closed by persons in charge of the American ministry of justice at the request of Italy and of Switzerland, an FBI spokesman declared Friday. "It is not an FBI operation. The assignment was made in the name of third country (Italy and Switzerland) by persons in charge for the American ministry for justice against an ISP, Rackspace, which provides of space to Indymedia", added the spokesman. On its side, the international Federation of journalists (FIJ) required an investigation into the operation carried out against the site. It claims the seizure appears to be an attempt "at intimidation", it indicated on its Internet site. The FIJ, whose seat is in Brussels, calls for "an investigation into the police operation carried out in Great Britain in co-operation with other agencies, which involved the temporary closing of 21 of some 140 Internet sites of Indymedia in the world".
© ATS
The rest of the world is so jealous of the U.S. Send them to hell I say! Just because the rest of the world runs back-assward doesn't mean U.S. needs to. We help so many countries and the whole world gives us crap about everything we do so I say screw off world and God Bless the U.S.A.!!
We have enough imported crap stock piled here to last us a long freaking time. We could cut off all imports and watch the world's economies tumble and do everything ourselves no problem.
In July, the CIA pressured the govt of Cyprus to investigate Cyprus Indymedia in July. When the Cyprus govt finally admitted this publicly, it made front page news there.
In August, the US Secret Service harassed NY Indymedia's ISP Calyx during the Republican National Convention, making intimidating requests to the ISP, demanding home contact details of Indymedia server admins, etc.
Now it's the FBI's turn.
What does the US govt plan to do to Indymedia in November, I wonder?
Here's some background on what the Italian govt had in mind when they requested the "assistance" of the US Feds. A federal prosecutor in Italy, Marina Plazzi, has stated that she is investigating Indymedia because of possible "support of terrorism". Apparently this is about supposedly positive postings after an attack on Italian soldiers in the Iraqi city of Nassiriya last November. "We asked the FBI for help alongside the Italian Department of Justice", federal prosecutor Plazzi said. The Italian Minister of Justice, Roberto Castelli, has so far refused to speak out on the proceedings of the FBI.
The parliamentary representatives of the Italian government parties are clearly less reticent. On Sunday, Mario Landolfi, spokesman of the neo-fascist party "Alleanza Nazionale" (AN), announced the seizure of the computers served "the enforcement of the law".
Note that the AN are coalition partners in the current Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, our Partner In The War On Terror(tm).
Last November, 17 AN delegates, including the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, demanded the shut-down of Indymedia in a joint statement. Back then, Paolo Valentino, state secretary in the Italian Department of Justice and also a member of AN, had announced possible cooperation with the USA.
This week's seizure of Indymedia servers appears to be what he was hoping for.
I would seldom call a religious extremist a real christian. The extreamist bit tends to cloud out the religious bit. Real education tends to make people less extreamist.
Why is this offtopic but all of the debates about the Bush administration aren't?
We get COUPONS?!?!?!?
Sign me up!
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
It's not that simple.
In the very early days (before they became known as National Socialists, Nazis, or the NSDAP), they were the German Workers' Party with about 50-60 members and were considered to be on the left.
Soon after WWI, one A.Hitler was sitting in Munich with not much to do, still under military orders (there was not much work or food or anything in Germany given onerous reparations after WWI) when he was spotted as a charismtic speaker by officers who, at the time, were infiltrating political groups for various reasons (and there were a lot of disparate political parties given the circumstances).
Hitler was asked to go along to the German Workers' Party (curiously, he went reluctantly) and eventually ended up heading the party. Apart from its anti-semitic and virulent nationalist bent, many joined (including Goebbels) specifically because they considered the NSDAP to be a workers' party and essentially socialist.
It was not until the late 1920s, when the party was in danger of being split as a result of Hitler's directly opposing views to the socialist wing that the NSDAP became (effectively) Hitler's party in his own image. One of the reasons that Hitler opposed the socialist wing (besides his own convictions) was because he was being bankrolled by militaristic corporate owners. Does this ring any alarm bells?
Did he inhale?
I would only add that the term "religious extremist" seems to get used, not to label those who hold their beliefs dearly and clearly, but to those who are willing to twist religious sentiment to justify just about anything they want to accomplish. In that sense, you and the parent poster are both right.
----
Not to be confused with Col.
Whether they are biased or not is not the issue. At issue is whether it's OK for the 'powers that be' to raid journalist sites and confiscate material. I don't think Indymedia is unbiased either, nor do I think most people that read Indymedia think Indymedia is unbiased. It's just a group of amateur journalists reporting on what they choose to report on.
Your comment really missed the point.
What's amazing to me is how they've managed to piss so many people off just by reporting on things that most media outlets ignore. They're not particularly revolutionary in their reportage, nor are they very good reporters. They come accross as very amateurish and sometimes naive. The fact they've managed to piss off someone enough to get their hardware seized just points out how easy it is to piss 'the powers that be' off. Which just further illustrates how thin their veil of power is. If a bunch of ragtag amateur journalists can ignite this kind of reaction from the government then how much longer can 'the powers that be' keep this facade going?
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
Since the less acceptable part of the USA is largely about money and corporation (the founding fathers had some concerns about this, too), I've started (last year) to boycott anything/everything USA major corporation connected.
It isn't really practical at 100% but I'm making an effort. Another thought that an expatriate American friend had (I live in the UK and France) is to go for one big thing like Coca-Cola. It doesn't serve any purpose anyway and does a lot of damage to teeth, gums and general health. Water is pretty nice and we're lucky to have it, many humans don't.
This is a non-violent and constructive way for everyone to disagree with all this. There's some good lists at: http://www.boycottusa.org/
Up to now, governments can't force you to drink a cold Coke. However, watch this space...
On y va, qui mal y pense!
I do not get one thing: why FBI(USA) was involved in first place.
My understanging about applicable law is as follows: persons (companies too) must follow the laws of the country it is operating notwithstanding the place on incorporation. (If company is incorporated in USA and is acting in UK (through branch or subsidiary) it must follow UK laws for its operatiopns in UK). So any orders for UK subsidiary issued by UK legal institutions are applicable.
What I do not get is Why Swiss/Italian authorities did not contacted/requested UK authorities for legal assistance directly? Why USA agencies were involved at all? (To my understanding there is no need for USA agencies to be involved from the point of view of UK-Swiss-Italian authorities).
I also do not get why FBI did not say back to Swiss/Italian agencies "Why dont you contact UK directly? All the servers are in UK, not USA".
Italy and UK are both EU members and have mechanisms for legal assistance.
So I draw a simple conclusion: situation is not as simple as it is presented. FBI(USA) has same interests in this case. The issue was solved in a very complicated maner.
check out the indymedia cache of the story that might have some bearing on why Blunkett was so agreeable to pulling them off the net.
The Nazis were backed by corporate interests and were good Fascists.
If that's you definition of "right", they were certainly that.
If you define it as being for a free market economy, they were no closer to that than the communists. So by that definition Hitler was definitely "left".
Also remember that only some corporate interests backed them. The big number of Jewish owned corporations that they felt unfairly dominated the German economy didn't get any favorable treatment.
good old plain summaries.
I don't give a fuck about MLAT . They have a purpose, they do whatever they need to do. However...
Okay, so some (Swiss) cops got their photos taken, and personal information distributed. (This shit happens. This shit is GOING TO HAPPEN.)
So instead of fscking up/grabbin servers,
CARRY THE CAN (Mr Swiss Government!)
1. Change the fucking COPS identity.
2. MOVE the location of their homes. (you hired em, you fucking PAY for the shit)
3. any phone / id numbers? CHANGE THE SHIT!
Problem solved Mr. Swiss Govt.
QUIT FUCKING with people's rights.
I'm sure if I spent time with a Camera I could get confidential photos too! The public don't have no fucking privacy anymore, so WHY THE FUCK SHOULD YOU EXPECT IT?!
Dear Rackspace.co.uk,
Nice that you have such great support, yeah your people don't nap for 5 minutes. But I hope this bites you in the ass.
And... Finally, we need cops. No doubt. BUT...
They signed up for the duty, and KNOW the fucking risks, quit joining/signing up if you can't handle the heat.
http://volokh.com/posts/1097514987.shtml/ has some interesting insights and questions on this.
Team America - Enforcers of Justice
Im from Australia. I don't much care for America's policies and its ethical behaviour. Infact. I am bordering on hating all things American. It has no positive-ethics, and it is reaping havock all over the world in every aspect conceivable. What will it take to stop these right-wing extremests from taking down anything that aint got the US stamp on it? I don't agree with anything that america has done/enforced upon us in the last decade. They have a different set of morals and ethics than I do.
My support goes out to www.indymedia.org.
"For the greater good" not
"Endz justifiez the meenz"
PS: I hope I havn't offended any decent folk in America with some of my generalisations.
=telnet://pickled.dyndns.org:2323=
=kabledag=
Bush is actually an error. And the effects are...
Too many to name...
=kabeldag=