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

curious...

[the gnat]

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.

Re:curious...

[belroth]

Except we in the UK now have a treaty with the US where if the US provides proof of identity we hand over a Brit for transportation to the US for whatever - maybe trial maybe not.
This is not reciprocal (as extradition treaties normally are) and hasn't been ratified by Congress - but we've started handing people over.

Note that this doesn't mean that the extraditee has ever left the UK, it's just if the US asks for someone by name we hand them over. It was dreamt up for terrorists but the first victims^Wsuspects are for alleged offences related to Worldcom.

The other big change is that every other extradition treaty we have requires some indication not only of the identity of the person to be extradited but some prima facie evidence of a case to answer. I suppose we could streamline the process by just throwing in jail whomsoever the US names...

which court ?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:What's really unbelievable

[Zocalo]

Try telling that to the inmates of Belmarsh Prison who have been imprisoned under our shiny new anti-terrorism laws here in the UK. True, maybe some or even all of them should be in there and the evidence really is truly sensitive and could, for instance, compromise an undercover asset if made public. Even so, they are still being held without being formally charged with anything at all in many cases.

Race to the bottom

[mcc]

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.

Re:Just like Echelon . . .

[cdrguru]

Best thing in the world would be an argument with China that stopped all trade with that country. Yes, there would be some economic damage, but in two years or less there would be manufacturing jobs in the US again and the barely educatable would have a place to work.

Sure, it might be uncomfortable for a while, but it would be worth it.

Re:Oh no! - The first poster was correct.

[Sein]

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.

Re:Just like Echelon . . .

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Look, I'm from Texas. Around here, we call Bush "The Texas Twit" or just plain ol' "Shrub." I have no respect for the guy.

But...

You characterized him as "a religious extremist." That's just flat wrong. If he was anything close to well-immersed in Christianity he would have understood the need to stay out of wars in the Middle East. He'd certainly have known better than to have started one. He would have understood the religious motivations that have produced conflict in the region for thousands of years and he wouldn't have seriously considered for more than a nano-second sticking his nose into that quagmire.

If he were a religious extremist, he would have just kept up support for Israel, made a few peace gestures that would produce good photo ops, and prayed that nobody over there chose to nuke anybody else until he was out of office.

A real Christian, someone who understands the history of his religion, would have known better.

Bush says he's a Christian. This gets him votes and, in this country, makes him seem like a nicer, more principled person. However, the evidence that he really gives a rat's ass about his faith is feeble to non-existent.

Hello. My name is Indy Media. You killed my father

[Doc Ruby]

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.