Indymedia Seizures Initiated In Europe

daveschroeder writes "According to this Indymedia.org article and AFP report, the request to seize Indymedia servers hosted by a U.S. company in the UK (covered in this previous slashdot story) originated from government agencies in Italy and Switzerland, not the United States. Because Indymedia's hosting company, Rackspace.com, is a U.S. company, the FBI coordinated the request and accompanied UK Metropolitan Police on the seizure under the auspices of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), an international legal treaty, but, according to an FBI spokesman, 'It is not an FBI operation. Through [MLAT], the subpoena was on behalf of a third country.'" Read on below for more.

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.'"

Comments

Just like Echelon . . .

[user no. 590291]

. . . 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.

Re:Just like Echelon . . .

[demachina]

In recent years, especially since 9/11, the FBI has expanded itself in to a global police force. They are quite proud of it, here is their web page where they brag about it.

"Office of International Operations (OIO). OIO now supports some 200 FBI employees in 45 Legats worldwide and hundreds of Agents rotating in and out of temporary assignments overseas."

"Thanks to the foundations laid by the Liaison Section beginning six decades ago, we now have solid working relationships with a range of colleagues in every part of the world, pursuing terrorist, intelligence, and criminal threats with international dimensions. It's no exaggeration to say that the FBI is a global organization for a global age."

Next time you hear Republican's/Conservatives rail about the UN and world government stop and think a minute. They aren't really complaining about the idea of a world government, they are only complaining about who runs it. They want to run it, out of Washington, out of the oval office and at the moment that means they want George W. Bush to run the world.

The bureaucracy at the U.N. is deeply flawed and a good case can be made against it running the world. But instead should the world be run by a religious extremist elected by a tiny percentage of the world's population and whose main goal in life is to enrich and empower that tiny minority at the expense of the rest of the world.

If you don't think the U.S. is angling for a global empire just read the above description of the FBI. Consider the U.S. now has troops in more than a hundred nations, along with big and growing DEA and CIA contigents, and of course the NSA is spying on all communications on the planet. The U.S. also spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined and that spending is accelerating, not slowing, though most of those conventional military forces are of little value against the Al Qaeda threat. The Bush administration is also actively developing new tactical nukes with the expressed intent of bestowing upon itself the privilege of being the only nation on the planet with the license to use nuclear weapons in otherwise conventional wars.

And of course add in the U.S. has bestowed upon itself the right to use preemptive aggressive warfare to take down any sovereign government it so chooses, with or without any valid justification for the action. All they need is to lay an accusation the nation might someday be a threat to the U.S. which is a charge that can be laid against any nation.

One can only hope that Bush and company are thrown out and Kerry doesn't pursue the same path, which is certainly in doubt on both scores.

If bush stays in power, or any U.S. government continues down the current course, the rest of the world really needs to consider forming a global alliance to counter the United State's imperial ambitions, unless you want extremist Christians running the entire planet, and forcing their "unique" idealogy on you.

Probably one of the best things the UN, and its members nations, could do at this point to give the U.S. reciprocal treatment in a three phase plane:

A. Move the UN headquarters out of New York and to Europe without giving the U.S. the option to veto in the security council

B. Place the U.S. on probation to end its imperial ambitions or be removed from the security council

C. If U.S. behavior continuesand eject the U.S.from the U.N. all together.

Maybe the Republicans will dance with joy at getting out of the U.N but I wager when they see their power and influence in the U.N. being eliminated they will freak and suddenly develop a passion for it.

I'd really like to see how much the U.S. likes being totally isolated and being the global pariah its current policies have called for. Their are obvious feasibility problems with this, since Britain, Italy and Australia would oppose it but I'm not sure how many other nations actually would.

Re:Just like Echelon . . .

[demachina]

"You forgot D. Figure out how to make up for ~25% of the UN's budget."

The UN spends according to one source $10 billion a year. What is the United States' cut when it bothers to pay, a couple billion dollars a year. Its chump change. The U.S. is the one that makes a lot more out of it than reality justifies. China, with its new found prosperity could pick up the difference in a heart beat.

Your ecomonic threats are hot air. Throwing the U.S. out of the U.N. would have nothing to do with economics and markets until and unless it escalated to full scale military or economic conflict. The U.S. is in fact more dependent on the rest of the world than the other way around. The U.S. despite its wealth is the world's biggest debtor nation, not just consumer but, in trade, production and government deficits. If places like China and Japan stopped buying treasuries and dollars the U.S. would be in an instant fiscal crisis. If China decided to shut off the container ship traffic to the U.S. the U.S. economy would crater. Its lost on the Bush administration but budget and trade deficits make your country very vulnerable to the whims of other nations.

"but the consequences of being right hurt you just as much as it hurts the US."

I'm American not European though I lived in Canada for years and am aiming to get out of America next year if it stays its current course.

It would be a trauma if the U.S. economy were sliced out of the world, but the U.S. would suffer far more than the rest of the world. America doesn't actually produce anything any more. Its wealth is predicated on past glory, service industries and controlling wealth and shuffling it from one pile to another. The nations that produce things like manufactured goods, electornics, steel and oil are where the real productivity and new wealth lies. If the world switched to the Euro as the dominant currency, especially for oil that would deal a mighty blow to American arrogance. If oil producers embargo the U.S. again the U.S. would be devastated far worse than it was in the 70's. The producers wouldn't really even miss the U.S. oil market because China is clamouring for more oil every day and there is a global shortage. That would be one way to bring down global oil prices, just shut off the supply to the U.S.

The only real leverage the U.S. has in the world is its military.

Re:Just like Echelon . . .

[demachina]

"$25billion certainly is not"

That is $25 billion over five years. Now you are all the way up to $5 billion a year and then you have to resort to the shady nether regions of "indirect investment estimates". That is like a weeks worth of America's trade deficit.

"Like China wants the UN to start poking its nose into Chinese affairs anymore than they already are."

Here you are showing how clueless you are. If the Chinese starts picking up the U.N.'s tab why would they start poking around more in their internal affairs. Chances are the U.N. would poke less in the affairs of its major benefactor. This statement sounds kind of like it has a undercurrent of desperation because you've started to think about the adverse consequences to the U.S. if it got its wish and was actually thrown out of the U.N. so you are FUD'ing the concept.

The Chinese take the long view. I wager if they saw the chance to gain greater influence over the U.N. and to replace the U.S. as its leading contributor it would pony up $2-5 billion a year in a heart beat. The Chinese would pay it for the same reason the U.S. pays it, control and power.

"Having lived in Canada, you of all people should be aware of what would happen to the Canadian economy if the US was somehow forced to its knees. And if it came down to it, backs against the wall sort of thing..yes, I believe the US would invade Canada for its oil plus use its military to break any world embargo."

Just because I lived in Canada for a while doesn't actually mean I care when arrogant American assholes do what they normally do, and threaten to solve their problems at the end of a gun barrel.

You might not have noticed but your post is a case study in why the world increasingly despise America and Americans who think like you apparently do. Your arrogant and your first approach to solving every problem is waving your dick in the air.

"do you think the oil flow will just keep on a'coming if you kick the US out?"

Uh yea, the U.S. doesn't have any kind of monopoly on oil field technology as much as you would like to think they do. You are just showing your arrogance again, you really think the world can't survive without the U.S. and probably be a better place. Iraq oil production would probably go up if the U.S. got out, because the insurgents would probably stop blowing it up on a daily basis.

"If you kicked all of the US workers in the Saudi Oil fields alone, do you think they could keep up their production levels?"

Who cares if they do, if at the same time you cut off oil to the U.S. it would be a net gain for the world. Americans, who insanely spend 2 and 3 hours a day driving from the suburbs, usually solo, to their jobs are single handedly squandering a disproportionate share of a precious resource.

Re:Just like Echelon . . .

[demachina]

"The U.S. tossed out of the U.N.? Fuck that. How about we toss the U.N. out of New York?"

Well I guess we kind of agree, the U.N. should leave the U.S. one way or another and land in a neutral place like Switzerland or maybe Slovenia.

I'll bet you a hundred bucks if the world calls the America's bluff and moves the U.N. headquarters or throws out the U.S., the U.S. will freak. The U.S. needs the U.N. to interact with the rest of the world, a lot more than right wing nut cases think.

"That means we yank our troops out of Europe."

I think the U.S. already is. Oooo your threat really scare them. I wager the only objection you are getting from Europe over doing just this is from local political and economic leaders. Its the same objection you get from any community when you close a military base. Local economies inherently and unavoidably become very intertwined with them. I wager most Germans, outside those immediately dependent on the bases, will dance a jig when the U.S. leaves. Tanks and fighters are noisy and messy, and have no productive economic value. Having a large body of arrogant American teenagers in your midst probably doesn't improve the quality of life.

These U.S. bases are obviously completely worthless in the current world, since there is no military threat in Europe unless Putin continues down the road to reconstituting the U.S.S.R. Fortunately for Western Europe they have a large buffer now in Eastern Europe that wasn't a buffer during the cold war.

It should be noted the U.S. isn't pulling all these troops out of Europe, many of them are moving closer to the Middle East and Central Asia where they can better exert influence over the oil and gas fields which are the only thing the U.S. cares about in the world these days.

"You castrated your armies because you knew the U.S. would help you if necessary. "

Actually no country can justify the massive resources the U.S. is squandering on its military especially since the Societ Union collapsed from within, thank you Gorbachev. Most of them are actually trying to strike a balance and build just enough military so they have one in an emergency, without destroying their economies in the process. Militaries are a complete economic waste unless you actually need them to stop an invasion. With the exception of some hot spots in the Balkans, Europe has turned in to a pretty happy, peaceful place and they don't really need or want the absurdly overgrown military the U.S. clings to.

"I would wish another European war on them"

Your little rant deteriorated in to sick at this point dude. You should probably rethink it. Someday America needs to get off this kick that the whole world owes them an eternal debt forever because the U.S. threw troops into World War I and II.

If you want to play this game the U.S. is eternally in debt to the French, you better say you're sorry. If it weren't for French generals, armies and navies, the U.S. may well have lost the American revolution and there wouldn't be a U.S.of A. The American revolution was won at Yorktown thanks to intelligence gathered by Lafayette, a French general who planned the strategy, a French army that was held half the line, and a French fleet that bottled up Cornwallis, preventing his escape and compelling his surrender.

Cry wolf

[cyberlotnet]

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

Re:Cry wolf

[RAMMS EIN]

``half the people on here thought it was all the US/FBI's fault, that we are the bad guys..''

Good point, but on the other hand, the US intelligence services have quite a reputation. Wasn't it the US who put Pinochet in power? Supported Osama bin Laden? And Saddam Hussein? Arrested Dmitry Sklyarov for breaking US laws in Russia? Attacked Iraq under false pretenses?

I'm interested in how many such incidents can be reported about the USA and other countries. No, seriously. I'd like to know more such scandals.

That's what you get...

[rainer_d]

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

Re:curious...

[general_re]

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.

As a general rule, the US does not recognize offenses abroad that don't have what would be considered parallel offenses here. That is, if you visit Upper Freedonistan, and fail to tip your hat to one of the local women - punishable by six months in jail and a fine of 10,000 klopkas - the US will not usually extradite you to face punishment, because no parallel offense exists here. The French can harass Yahoo France all they like, but there is no way they'll get an American judge to operate that way here - treaties cannot and do not supersede the Constitution. That is, you cannot perform an end-run around the First Amendment merely by signing some treaty with another nation, in the end. Whether other nations behave similarly, I can't say, but I presume that for the most part, they do.

Something that's been bothering me...

[casuist99]

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.

Bottom line

[daveschroeder]

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...

Re:Why they asked to remove the webpages

[BrookHarty]

The problem with this is, how do you show police abuse of a foreign country if our police will assist them in comvering up the event?

It's amazing, if this was Fox news reporting riots in G8 and police abuse pictures, it would stay on the air. (Not that FOX shows anything negative about police actions.)

Riot control is being censored in all media, hence Indie news agencies. Being here in Seattle, we saw the police mass arrest people, tear gas and physically assault peaceful protesters. The police chief had the local news agencies stop broadcasting, and they complied. (It was reported in the SeattleTimes about the "Blackouts")

I read that people are suing NY City because of the RNC mass arrests. They had to let people go who wouldn't plead guilty. So they arrest you, and you agree you commited a crime so they can fine you and let you go, after the RNC.

In the DNC they had people in "Protest Zones" aka, caged off areas with barb wire. Thats now how protesting works.

Police spending is up in Riot control. But what Riots? We hardly ever have real Riots with stores and property being damaged, but we do have people protesting.

Learn from history folks.

Just as Whites never saw the abuse of blacks in poor areas, Working people don't see the police abuse on peaceful protesters. LA's Blue Shield took years to bust, organized crime in our own freaking Police departments!

News is being censored, your freedoms eroded, polution is increasing, corporation crime is on the increase, people dieing in a police action.

We need to protect the Indie news agencies, its the only objecting voice in the crowd of sheep.

-
http://www.studentsfororwell.org

Re:Please, by all means, continue to ignore...

[demachina]

The facts in front of you are the Bush administration sold this war to the world based on Iraq possessing WMD's, and having ties to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. Neither of these were true. its revisionism to make out like it was really about "Freedom and Democracy" and because Saddam liked to build palaces.

You are missing two critical fact about Saddam's obstruction of the WMD inspection regime.

A) When the war was actually launched he was cooperating with U.N. inspectors, the inspectors had to flee the country ahead of the invasion.

B) The CIA has after billions of dollars spent and a year and a half of unfettered searching found no WMD's so apparently as troubled as it was, the sanctions worked.

The bottomline is when the time came for the U.N to authorize the invasion of Iraq it didn't, so as a result, the U.S. invasion was illegal under current international law. Either you abide by UN votes or you don't in which case you should get out, instead of adhering to the decisions you like and ignoring the ones you don't. Building consensus is hard, it usually ends in everyone being unhappy but its usually better than unilateralism.

It appears the U.N.'s judgement was in fact right because they didn't buy the U.S. propaganda that Saddam was on the verge of giving a nuclear bomb to Al Qaeda.

The fact that Saddam was a prick and built palaces is no justification for preemptive warfare. Before the first Gulf War and sanctions Iraq was in fact a pretty prosperous place. It was a secular state versus an extremist Islamic state like Saudi Arabia or Iran. Yes Saddam was a two bit dictator but the world is full of those. If the U.S. wanted to take him down they should have done it in the first gulf war when they had a fresh justification. If they would done it then it would have saved the lives of millions, for example the lives of the Kurds and Shia's George H.W. Bush encouraged to revolt and then turned his back on.

"I'm wondering how much aid the U.S. has given your country through the years."

I'm American, though I'm increasingly embarrassed to admit it. The chump change the U.S. hands out in foreign aid doesn't even register against what its sucked out of the world over the years. The World Bank and IMF in particular hand out billions of dollars most of which disappears into the pockets of corrupt dictators, and leave the country and its people deeply in debt, worse off, and at the mercy of the tyranny of the IMF's economic dictates. I'm willing to bet you the third world would be a better place if the IMF never existed. It is just another tool by the U.S. to acquire control over poor nations.

Re:Oh no!

[fenix down]

Don't worry about it, see, a vital part of a strong fascist movement is the redefinition of the German/American/whatever people's historical enemies to create a popular myth that the current fascist movement has always existed, and has always warred against some single master-enemy, of which all other enemies are merely aspects. So, while the Nazis had a Heathen Anglo-Russo-Semitic Communist Movement which sought to bring down the Civilized Aryan Holy Roman Bismark Empire, other fascist movments might have a Liberal-Communist-Nazi-Islamic-Globalist-Atheist New World Order out to destroy the Evagelical Protestant Republic of American Freedom. Hence the constant comparisons of Saddam to Stalin or Hitler, or the suggestion that the UN was in Saddam's pocket. Saddam is merely an aspect of the larger Order which has Ever sought to bring down the eternal march of American Freedom, which is merely the end of the continuous march of progress which has foiled the Order at every stage since the dawn of civilization.

Re:Please, by all means, continue to ignore...

[demachina]

"Your argument is flawed. The US invasion wasn't strictly illegal by international law. Hussein was in material breach of the Gulf War cease-fire, and a number of UN treaties."

Excepting you are doing exactly what I said you were doing. You like the resolutions that sanctioned and condemned Saddam so you are using them as justification, but you when you either didn't get a vote or lost the vote sanctioning the most extreme form of enforcement, an invasion, and all of sudden the UN's will is irrelevant. Since the UN passed all those resolutions it was the UN's call to decide if they had been violated and what the punishment should be, instead the U.S. through a tantrum and decided itself. Like I said the U.S. should either get out of the U.N. or be thrown out instead of using it when its convenient, and then ignoring it when its convenient. ...quote lengthy rant on Saudi Arabia here...

What does this have to do with anything I said. Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with George H.W. Bush sending signals to the Kurds and Shia at the end of the first gulf war that the U.S. would support them if they revolted against Saddam. They did revolt, and the then first Bush administration looked the other way while Saddam slaughtered them. As a new height in hypocrisy George W. Bush uses some of the mass graves full of those rebels as justification for the second war, though most of those people are dead thanks to the actions of his dad's administration.

"if the House of Saud falls to a fundamentalist regime like the old Taliban or the Iranian government the world as a whole will be in a really nasty spot."

So its OK to topple a despotic regime in Iraq with a high probability it will be replacted with a fundementalist regime like the one in Iran. But somehow its crucial to the entire world that a despotic, already fundementalist regime in Saudi Arabia stay in power. Not sure you were aware but Saudi Arabia already closely resembles Afghanistan under the Taliban, women are deeply oppressed and people are routinely beheaded in public because thats what Islamic law stipulates. The only key difference is Saudi Arabia has lots of oil money, and its royal family is massively corrupted and many of them are decidedly bad Muslims, thanks to the womanizing, gambling, jet setting etc. things that most people do when they are filthy rich.

I'm pretty sure Americans are no judge as to whether the world would be a better or worse place if the House of Saud was deposed. America might be worse off for it because they own like 7% of America which is why we don't complain about all the things we complained about with Saddam and the Taliban. Americans think the House of Saud is sacred because they have massive influence over America's political, economic and media leaders, the kind of influence massive quantities of money can buy. The poor Taliban didn't have that kind of money.

"HW Bush was warned off deposing Hussein the first time because of tensions in moderate nations, specifically Jordan and Saudia Arabia."

So why did that matter then and it was irrelevant the second time around when most of the world condemned the invasion? Was it because the Saudi's secretly gave it the green light the second time and as I said above the Saudi's practically own the Bush administration?

Re:Please, by all means, continue to ignore...

[demachina]

"Women are not routinely executed like in Afganistan under the Taliban. Quite frankly you are terribly wrong."

You are putting words in my mouth. I said "women are deeply oppressed" and "people are routinely beheaded in public". I didn't say "women are beheaded in public" though I'm pretty sure they must be if they violate the laws that call for beheading. The key point is most Saudis, outside the royal family. don't really have a better life than those under the Taliban and Saddam did. Women had more rights under Saddam. Americans don't seem to realize this because Saudi Arabia is an ally so they haven't been demonized by propaganda the way Saddam and the Taliban have.

"They, despite innuendo, do not support terrorism against the West."

As you recall there were 80+ pages censored from the Congressional 9/11 report that were entirely about Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. I'd sure like to read what they said.

You seem to be echoing a Bush administration propaganda theme that the Saudi's are pure as driven snow. I doubt that is true and you seem to have fallen for some very good propaganda that said, Saddam was involved in 9/11 and Saudi Arabia wasn't. Reality is almost certainly the exact opposite.

The Saudi's have only very recently officially started to fight terrorism, partially thanks to the fact Al Qaeda launched attacks in Saudi Arabia against Arabs. Prior to that they either denied the problem or were indifferent as long as it was targeted at infidels.

Unofficially its a near certainty wealthy Saudi's are still funnelling large sums into Madrassa's to raise new extremists and to fund Al Qaeda, Hamas and the rest.

"First off, foreign investment is a way of life in the US, and has been for two hundred plus years. It's nothing new."

There is nothing new about it but when a small number of foreign investors own a stake as big as this one, they are insured they will get special treatment. If they pulled their investment out they could single handedly crash markets. You just have to factor in they get special treatment when the U.S. government deals with them. For example they get 80+ pages of embarrassment censored out of report on their involvement in 9/11, and they get to fly their nationals out of the country right after 9/11. After Pearl Harbor most Japanese Americans were rounded up, stripped of their property, and eventually landed in concentration camps.