Indymedia Seizures Initiated In Europe

Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 05:20 · Score: 5, Funny

Europe's not perfect! The United States isn't always the bad guy! Panic erupts on Slashdot.

Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 08:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

Bush is a Nazi (even though Nazis are on the extreme left, not the extreme right)

Huh? Nazis were on the extreme right, and rose to power in Germany as a reaction to Communism on the left.
Re:Oh no! by JCCyC · 2004-10-10 09:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

You fail to fully understand the mind of the /. RW Troll. For them, not only everything leftist is evil, but everything evil must be leftist too.
Re:Oh no! by fenix+down · 2004-10-10 09:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

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:Oh no! by Zen+Punk · 2004-10-11 02:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

Whilst the grammar and formatting muddy the appearance of this post a bit, the message comes through loud and clear. This is one thing that's actually worth modding up, if I had the points.
So often we go on about losing our rights, but what do we do to utilize the ones we have? We are growing complacent. We may get a little frightened when we see a stick, but the rest of the time we are content to sit around munching our carrots, blind to what is going on around us.
Indymedia.org is my homepage, and I am very concerned about this sudden seizure. Just who are these agencies, I wonder, who requested the seizure, and why? These are the things we should be asking, instead of silly jokes and bickering.
On a side note, I'd like to point out that most of the stories and articles on Indymedia are submitted by independent reporters and researchers, and are more or less posted immediately. They just publish the stories, not create them.

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Sleep is futile.

Just like Echelon . . . by user+no.+590291 · 2004-10-10 05:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

. . . 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 . . . by Waffle+Iron · 2004-10-10 05:50 · Score: 3, Funny

Furthermore, Echelon begins with an 'E', while MLAT begins with an 'M'. Obviously, they have no similarities whatsoever.
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by n54 · 2004-10-10 06:05 · Score: 2, Informative

... Echelon is between English-speaking nations ...

You named the founders of Echelon but it's probably bigger than those nations. Afaik there are Echelon stations in Norway and Germany, probably most Nato countries (except France who often can't be viewed as fully participating). Switzerland isn't part of Nato but Italy is and I wouldn't be surprized if they were in on it and/or have mutual agreements to provide data to as well as get data from the Echelon system.

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this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by demachina · 2004-10-10 06:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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@de_machina
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by ravenshrike · 2004-10-10 06:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why should the US care about an organization that is rife with corruption on the part of it's constituents. As always, the UN is a prime case of a great Ideal smashed against the rocky reef of Reality. The fourth part of your three part plan would be the US bribing the members of the UN to allow us to do normal business evading any sanctions put upon it
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by demachina · 2004-10-10 07:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

"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.

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@de_machina
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by demachina · 2004-10-10 07:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yea why should it care, why doesn't it just get out. Because the U.S. actually cares in a massive way about the U.N. as a forum for the U.S. to arm twist the rest of the world in to doing its bidding. Its not real successful at it, and less so each year under the Bush administration, but I assure you if the U.S. were actually faced with be cutting off from throwing its weight around in the U.N., and were, in particular, denied its security council veto the U.S. would freak.

All you U.N. haters in the U.S. are blowing smoke, nothing more. You deserve to get your wish.

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@de_machina
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by demachina · 2004-10-10 08:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

"$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.

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@de_machina
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 08:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Don't be silly.
The U.S. is in fact more dependent on the rest of the world than the other way around.
Detroit rolling steel once ruled the American highway, but all things pass. Today we live in the age of Asian rolling plastic. This too shall pass. That something is currently percentage points cheaper indicates neither dependency nor conquest.
If places like China and Japan stopped buying treasuries and dollars the U.S. would be in an instant fiscal crisis.
If places like China and Japan stopped buying Treasury bills, dollars would build up in their local economies. Inflation would make it uneconomic for Americans to buy their products.
If China decided to shut off the container ship traffic to the U.S. the U.S. economy would crater.
If China cut off container ship traffic, their warehouses would fill up with useless baubles and their economy would crater too. And crater worse, because America can grow its own food, but $35 DVD players are not edible.
If the world switched to the Euro as the dominant currency, especially for oil that would deal a mighty blow to American arrogance.
If the world switched to the euro, that would mean that Europeans had a roaring economy and plenty of spare cash lying around to buy useless Chinese baubles. It would also mean that the world had more trust in unaccountable central bank Eurocrats than in the Federal Reserve Board.
As if.
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.
Without the US market for cheap plastic crap, China wouldn't be clamoring for nearly as much oil. Blowing away the US economy would obliterate the dollar-denominated foreign-held accounts on which the petrocrats rely as their escape ladder for when the Middle East finally implodes. (Look at the demographics of Arabia: half the population under the age of 16, unfit for employment in the modern world, and indoctrinated with violent revolution as a way of life. Tick, tick, tick...)
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 09:04 · Score: 2, Informative

It's sad to see such crap written about economics by people who don't really have a clue. The biggest buyers of US treasuries (after the US themselves) is the UK and Japan. China has a massive amount of dollars which they don't put back on the market in case it causes the Yuan to rise, damaging their competitiveness on the world market and stunting their growth. In effect, they are working for free - they get paid in dollars and dont spend many of them, keeping the dollar higher and the Yuan lower. As soon as this reverts as it eventually must I guess, the dollar drops and suddenly economically the US is a lot more competitive and homegrown industry booms. Free(ish) market wins again.
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by cdrguru · 2004-10-10 09:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

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:Just like Echelon . . . by 36-bitter · 2004-10-10 10:45 · Score: 2, Funny

Wait...you mean, all the evil antitechnology government goons are *not* working for the U.S.? Do I hear heads exploding all around the globe?
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by BenEnglishAtHome · 2004-10-10 11:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by demachina · 2004-10-10 12:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

"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.

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@de_machina
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by CalCudahy · 2004-10-10 13:15 · Score: 2, Funny

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

"U.N., you got a problem with that, know what you should do? You should sanction me. Sanction me with your army. OH! WAIT A MINUTE! YOU DON'T HAVE AN ARMY! I guess that means you need to shut the fuck up! That's what I'd do if I didn't have no army, I would shut the fuck up. Shut - the - FUCK - UP! That's right!"
Chappelle's Show - Black Bush

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"I think the U.N. is going to find that the blame lies with all the Sudanese rap music that glamorizes genocide."
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by Bob+Uhl · 2004-10-10 16:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.
Bush is most certainly not a religious extremist. As has been repeatedly shown, Bush makes fewer references to God per year than Clinton. Meanwhile, Kerry gets a free pass on religious language in his campaign (there's a better article out there, but I cannot find it atm).
As for getting the UN out of the US and the US out of the UN, fine. It's an antiquated relic of the Second World War--we should leave that den of terrorists, dictators, megalomaniacs and loons.
And as for 'invading a country, based on lies,' can you demonstrate a single lie regarding our invasion of Iraq? Our invasion of Iraq was based quite soundly on international law, and had multiple reasons. The one which was sold the hardest--WMDs--now appears to have been incorrect, but please note that no-one disagreed at the time: the world agreed that Hussein had WMDs and WMD programmes; the world disagreed about what to do about them (we, the Brits and dozens of other states wanted to eliminate them; the French, Germans and the knee-jerk anti-American contingent wished to continue profiting therefrom).
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by Bob+Uhl · 2004-10-11 08:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'd like a reputable reference for the 'God told me to strike at al Qaida' quote--and context, of course. The 'I trust the God speaks through me' quote is inoffensive to me: in context it simply reflects that he believes that what he's doing is right, else he wouldn't be doing it. What man doesn't believe that what he does is right?
Hussein did have ties to al Qaida: the administration is correct to point this out. It does not appear at the moment that they had ties to the 11 September operation, but I do not recall any official source stating that. The reputed Prague meeting is still up in the air: last I heard, Czech intelligence stood behind their report while the CIA (the same CIA which misreported the location of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and the same CIA which was close to 100% certain that Iraq had WMDs) flat-out denies it.
As I noted, every intelligence agency in the world believed that Hussein had WMDs. At the moment it appears that they were all incorrect. Why that is so is an interesting question. Were Hussein's underlings reporting progress they weren't making, in order to line their own pockets with weapons money? Were the intelligence agencies afraid to report things were safe, in case they were wrong? Were the intelligence agencies exaggerating the likelihood of Iraqi WMD programmes in order to increase their own funding?
Lastly, I don't see how you can fault the administration for believing its intelligence apparatus. Clinton believed in Iraqi WMDs for the exact same reason that Bush believed in them: the CIA and every single other major intelligence agency agreed that he had them. Why is a Republican administration supposed to be omniscient when a Democratic administration gets a free pass?
Re:Just like Echelon . . . by Bob+Uhl · 2004-10-11 11:11 · Score: 2, Interesting

Saying God speaks through you is a way of saying your infallible.
Nice job of clipping the bit where I demonstrated that it's exactly not that. But of course, I should know not to expect intellectual honesty from a leftist.
I'm still waiting for the source of your supposed quote, and am still waiting for the context of the quote (that is, the full text of the remarks).
Rumsfeld said he "knew" where the WMD's were. Its pretty obvious he didn't since there weren't any and if he "knew" where they were he would have found them.
He had intelligence which specified that they were at X, Y and Z. The intel was incorrect. This isn't rocket science.
Or do you expect him to have personally verified the locations, but visiting them and perhaps scrawling 'Rummy wuz here' thereon? C'mon! All the evidence says that he did believe that he knew where WMDs were.
...Clinton and the whole world didn't launch an invasion based on flawed intelligence...
Clinton launched more missiles into Iraq than George H.W. Bush did!
More to the point, WMDs were not the sole reason for the invasion of Iraq. There were multiple, mutually-supporting reasons. At the time, we focused on WMDs because the evidence was so compelling, and because it was something the world agreed on (we didn't need to convince Putin that Iraq had WMDs; trying to convince him that dictators are Bad News would have been somewhat futile...). Executive decisions are made on the basis of partial, sometimes flawed intelligence. I have seen nothing to date which leads me to believe that the current administration were anything but correct to act as they did based on the information they had at the time.
My personal read on the situation is that Iraq was the one Middle East state wherein we were able to go to war and effect regime change with a sold casus belli. We need to go to war and effect regime change somewhere in the Middle East in order to indicate to Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Pakistan et al. that we're serious, and that if they continue to support terrorism we will destroy them. Since we were already at war with Iraq; since Iraq had violated the terms of the cease-fire; since it did not fully comply with its international obligations; since it was a monstrous and tyrannical regime; since we believed it to be a clear danger to the stability of the region; since we believed it to posess weapons of mass destruction; since Iraq had dealt with al Qaida; since we had international backing--for all those reasons we were able to re-open hostilities. But the underlying reason was a pressing need to demonstrate our serious intent.
Which has worked--note how Qaddafi has surrendered his program; note how Pakistan is co-operating pretty well in the hunt; note how the typical state sponsors of terrorism are behaving in a much more circumspect manner than before.
Bush and Blair did, big, big difference. The rest of the world was telling them not to.
Rest of the world?!? Um, there are dozens of other nations in this with us. Yes, France, Germany and Russia opposed us--but given that they were in Hussein's pocket, wouldn't one have expected that? Given that they profited quite well from him, wouldn't one have expected that? Yes, a motley collection of tinpot dictators across the world opposed our toppling of a tinpot dictator on the other side of the world: somehow I'm unopposed.
Besides the US and UK, we are backed by Austrialia, New Zealand, Kuwait, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Angola, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Iceland, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Philippines, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Mongolia, Palau, Tonga, Thailand, El Salvador, Colom

Cry wolf by cyberlotnet · 2004-10-10 05:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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Personal Website

Re:Cry wolf by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 05:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

So it's okay for the FBI to help foreign agencies attack their American critics?

I don't know about you, but it doesn't make me feel any better as an American knowing the FBI didn't initiate this action. In many ways, it's far worse to know that they'll help carry out foreign laws against certain types of speech (which I'll admit is an assumption at this point, but probably a fairly good one).
Re:Cry wolf by RAMMS+EIN · 2004-10-10 05:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

``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.

--
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Re:Cry wolf by gibbsjoh · 2004-10-10 05:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

Don't forget the fact the Yanks give God knows how many billions of Dollars to a regime that's in violation of over 100 UN Resultions and has killed over 3000 innocent civilans since 2000... oh the fucking irony.

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-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
Re:Cry wolf by b0s0z0ku · 2004-10-10 05:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

And, if you were the victim of a crime, wouldn't you be a bit upset if the guilty party fled to another country and couldn't be apprehended?
Honestly, I'd rather have criminals running free throughout the world than unjust laws being enforced.
-b.
Re:Cry wolf by Pig+Hogger · 2004-10-10 06:03 · Score: 3, Funny

The American asked how the KGB agent had left and gone unnoticed for two whole years. The agent responded, "The day I left there was a car accident and my car was burned up with bodies inside. When you work for the KGB it isn't difficult to get ahold of bodies."
What's amazing is that the russian was allowed to have a car in the first place...
Re:Cry wolf by killjoe · 2004-10-10 07:03 · Score: 2, Funny

"I was unaware that the U.S. had a monopoly on such "scandals.""

Whoo Hoo. We are no better then Russia and China. Damn I feel proud to be an American. All we have to strive for is to be no worse then anybody else.

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evil is as evil does
Re:Cry wolf by killjoe · 2004-10-10 07:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

Iraq was a secular socialist state.

Secondly I don't ever remember the president saying that he wasnted to change Islam. Was that in the party platform? Could you please provide a link to anybody anywhere saying that it's the official US policy to change Islam?

I bet the people who voted for Bush never knew they were voting for a restart of the crusades. Well the last one didn't go so well maybe this time the christians will win. But then again maybe not.

--
evil is as evil does
Re:Cry wolf by Zak3056 · 2004-10-10 07:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

Don't forget the fact the Yanks give God knows how many billions of Dollars to a regime that's in violation of over 100 UN Resultions and has killed over 3000 innocent civilans since 2000... oh the fucking irony.

Nobody ever gives the other size of that particular equation--over a thousand innocent Israeli civilians will killed by palestinian terrorists in the same time frame. Also, the EU has given over a billion dollars to the Palestinian Authority over the last decade, some of which has been diverted to terrorist organizations. But blaming America is an international sport, so what the hell.

I used to be... let's not say anti-Israel, but rather of the opinion that there was no "right" side in that particular conflict. And then it was presented to me that Israel isn't trying to kill civilians--the terrorist leadership make their homes in highly populated areas so that if Israel ever comes knocking they either have to take ALOT of trouble to do so surgically, otherwise they risk killing large numbers of civillians. Sometimes Israel does the former, but usually the latter.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, intentionally kill civillians--it isn't collateral damage, they're the primary fucking target.

So excuse me if I don't feel the outrage others do when Israel assassinates the leader of the Islamic Jihad, or when they blow up the leader of Hamas and bystanders get caught in the crossfire. It also never ceases to amaze me how anybody can regard things like the above as "crimes."

All of the above said, I still think there are some things Israel does that are horrible--personally, I find things like destroying the homes of families of terrorists to be barbaric. I also don't like the amount of money my country sends to them each year. But all-in-all, Israel certainly has the moral high ground.

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What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Re:Cry wolf by I_redwolf · 2004-10-10 10:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Wow this is the most uninformed rehash babble I've seen a while on Israel. If you look at the actual conflict and the reasons why there is fighting going on you'd better understand the current situation. Another point is that Israel was loaned 50 billion dollars recently by the US. They use US Abrams, Apaches, F16's, to fight against the Palestinians who the majority of which have rocks as their only defense. A majority of the Palestinian civilians killed are civilian teen boys.

I was a military analyst for the US army up until Dec 2002. Personally i've taken it upon myself to learn more but professionally it was my job to know about such things. I'll try to give a simple explanation, feel free to factcheck me. In 1948 Israel was founded as a state in the current area of the Middle East they occupy. Before that the land was occupied by Palestinians, Jew terrorist organizations or "settlers" as they called themselves were of the position that they were restoring the biblical state of Israel. Some of these groups exist today Kahane Chai or if you prefer Kach. They felt that they had a holy destiny and right to the land and were willing to kill it for. This brought on the 1948 war known to Jews as the Holy war, known to the Arabs and the Arab Invasion. This fight or war, was based on the fact that that Israel had a right to the land. Now, there were a group of jews who did not belong to any of the "settling" groups who actually decided to move and some of them actually stayed around and in the middle east. Those group of jews you won't hear much about as well as the Ethiopian Jews (who always lived in Ethiopia) who Israel once neglected but recently have taken to, allowing them to immigrate into Israel. This is another story but from what can be assessed i'd assume they just want to get their hand on the holy covenant (The ethiopian jews are currently being persecuted and in some cases killed, starved, etc by another group; so their choices are slim). Anyway, when the jews say they have been in Israel for thousands of years that would be incorrect, they are primarily speaking about a place in a book and this is where they think they once came from. Most of the migration took place during a time when the Jews themselves were being murdered and persecuted by the Germans. Israel as a state, or for that matter even for the people that live there have only been around for approximately 70 years or so.

The Palestinians don't have clean hands either but it would be silly to neglect their reasons for the absolute hatred and violence. The primary reason Israel was and is backed by the US is because it was in the interest of this country and an answer to the Soviets. If we let the middle east come under Soviet control we would of lost alot in natural resources during the cold war and could have been energy starved should anything have happened. The actual people, the Palestinians, didn't want anything to do with the Soviets or the US however so they formed the PLO which was an organization of I believe 14 Arab states in 1968. They wanted to work diplomatically but basically could not keep control of all the terror organizations working to attack and keep Israel off of what they considered holy land. Then Israel being backed by the UN (League of Nations but for the sake of simple explanation) and the US it became clear that the Arab nations had to get support from somewhere. They got this support from the Soviets, this is why you'll see alot of terror organizations with Soviet made weapons and jets. MIGs, AK's etc.

Basically what's going on now is that both groups are being led by extremists. You have the extremists on the Palestinian side and the extremists which run the gov't on the Israeli side. Each is a pawn for opposite countries, and it's not been uncommon to find China and terror organizations in northern Europe funding Palestnians.

I'm impartial either way, my views are only based on fact. Not religious or holy beliefs, and i'm not all that religious personally. However, from both books none of
Re:Cry wolf by maxpublic · 2004-10-10 11:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

over a thousand innocent Israeli civilians will killed by palestinian terrorists in the same time frame.

That isn't our problem. That's Israel's problem. If Israel can't support it's own military and economy after more than fifty years of freedom, then it doesn't deserve statehood.

I say end all aid to Israel, now and forever. And aid to most of the other shitholes in the world as well. As an American citizen I'd much rather see that money spent at home on AMERICAN citizens, or returned to me through tax cuts.

Max

--
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Re:Cry wolf by lemur337 · 2004-10-10 12:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

But all-in-all, Israel certainly has the moral high ground.

I think this is open to debate. Israel certainly does have F-16s and Apache gunships that allow them to attack Palestinian command and control targets. The Palestinians on the other hand have almost nothing. They use their own bodies and attack whatever targets they can get to. They're in a war for survival and they can't reach hardened military targets. They strike whatever they can. It's a horrible situation made worse by the U.S. turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by one side and not the other.
Re:Cry wolf by I_redwolf · 2004-10-10 13:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

1. THERE WERE NO PALESTINIANS IN 1948. None. There were Arabs living in the British Mandate of Palestine, but they have absolutely nothing in common with the Palestinians of today, who are Egyptians and Jordanians who were refused return to their own countries.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire the area was in disarray. NO ONE owned it, where do you get that there Arabs were living under British Mandate? The whole area was void of any one countries control until after World War 1. Where the Allies decided to carve the area up into pieces. This didn't work too well.

2. Your vicious anti-semitism here is noted. The Jewish settlers were not terrorists. They bought the land they lived on. Bought it.

They did not buy the land, the land simply was not up for sale. The jews who settled in the middle east emigrated from Northern Europe. All the facts and history point to that. Jews constantly site that they bought the land but that's in their religious text and isn't bound by any historical document or trade of land that I know of to date. The jews who claim to have bought private land from private land owners have no record of this and what private land owners are they speaking of? The British who summarily gave up control of their respective areas? There is no record or proof of this at all, anywhere. Show me some proof and I'll be willing to update that idea. As for history any sale of land in the past has been documented with buyers and purchases. There is NOTHING like that, i'm aware of for the land the Jews claim to own. Not withstanding that some of the areas they moved into were clearly already occupied. Of course I'm not being anti-semetic when I say that the original jewish "settlers" were terrorists. These weren't the jews who were living in the vicinity but people who started killing others in the name of a biblical state.

It's not hard to understand the situation:

The Israelies want to live in peace.
The Palestinians want to murder the entire population of Israel.

Wow so the palestinians want to murder the entire population of Israel. For no reason? They just don't like you right? Let me guess, you're Israeli?

No they don't. Very simply, no they don't. The Israelis simply and absolutely do not target non-combatants, regardless of gender or age. Sometimes a sad accident will happen, as the Palestinians do use children as human shields.

All those children that die are being used as human shields? Do you realize that most of the children killed by Israeli's are killed in house raids? Children throwing rocks at tanks and a couple of rounds go off, dead child. It's not new.

My conclusion is that you are a complete idiot. The Palestinians have been offered a state twice , giving them more than 90% of what they had asked for, and both times they rejected it in favour of continued murder.

They rejected it because it came with stipulations and lands they weren't willing to concede to Israel. You neglect to mention that fact, then you throw in the mix that you aren't dealing with one people but many other different sects of people.

On the other hand, the Palestinians do deliberately target women and children, and always target non-combatants when they can find them. Not long ago, they shot and killed a pregnant woman in her car along with her three daughters. The blow up crowded cafes and packed buses. They send teenagers to their deaths just so as to kill a few more Israelis.

Violence begets violence? What would you like me to say? The truth is, you are killing one another.

You can't blame the entire situation on the Palestinians; the Israelis aren't perfect angels. And the other Arab nations have been carefully fostering the situation for decades, after they realised that they couldn't hope to defeat Israel militarily.

Because the Israel military has such great might a strength fostered on their own?

No, only 99% or so of the blame ca
Re:Cry wolf by maxpublic · 2004-10-10 19:02 · Score: 2, Funny

and fear makes people do crazy things.

And my answer to this is "so the fuck what?" What does it matter if a bunch of extremists in the Middle East destroy each other by nuclear or conventional means? It won't matter for dick to the citizens of the United States; whatever pissant tribe of nutbags ends up in control of the oil will *still* sell to us, so why should we give a damn?

Max

--
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?

terrorism? kidnapping? laundering? by alexhard · 2004-10-10 05:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

"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.

Re:terrorism? kidnapping? laundering? by sql*kitten · 2004-10-10 06:14 · Score: 2, Interesting

"as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering."

It should be noted that Indymedia is a big supporter of the PLO, which is into those things. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that terrorists were using Indymedia's forums to communicate (or course the same could be said of any site that lets people post random stuff).

What? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 05:25 · Score: 2, Informative

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.

curious... by the+gnat · 2004-10-10 05:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

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... by general_re · 2004-10-10 05:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

--
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Re:curious... by belroth · 2004-10-10 06:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

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...

--
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Re:curious... by TRACK-YOUR-POSITION · 2004-10-10 07:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

If a treaty is merely signed, then no, it does not supercede the constitution or even simple laws. If the treaty is ratified on Constitution, I believe that DOES override the Constitution, as the Constitution itself insists.
Article VI, Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
I'm not certain, but I think that means a treaty is essentially a new amendment to the constitution.
Re:curious... by general_re · 2004-10-10 07:29 · Score: 2, Informative

Treaties supersede state constitutions. Leave out the "or laws..." bit to parse it - "and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution....of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding".
The clearest discussion of this was in Reid v. Covert, 354 US 1 (1957). To quote Justice Black, writing for the Court:
Article VI, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, declares:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; . . . ."

There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result. These debates as well as the history that surrounds the adoption of the treaty provision in Article VI make it clear that the reason treaties were not limited to those made in "pursuance" of the Constitution was so that agreements made by the United States under the Articles of Confederation, including the important peace treaties which concluded the Revolutionary War, would remain in effect. It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights - let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition - to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the Senate combined.
There is nothing new or unique about what we say here. This Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty. For example, in Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258, 267, it declared:
"The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the States. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government or in that of one of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without its consent."

This Court has also repeatedly taken the position that an Act of Congress, which must comply with the Constitution, is on a full parity with a treaty, and that when a statute which is subsequent in time is inconsistent with a treaty, the statute to the extent of conflict renders the treaty null. It would be completely anomalous to say that a treaty need not comply with the Constitution when such an agreement can be overridden by a statute that must conform to that instrument.

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ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

That's what you get... by rainer_d · 2004-10-10 05:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

Re:That's what you get... by grahams · 2004-10-10 05:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

What would encrypted disks solve? This seizure happened at a hosting company.. Which leads me to presume that the party under investigation had material on a website. If that material is on a website, then it must be served in decrypted form.

Which means that either someone at the hosting company would have to have the key to decrypt the drive (so each time the machine was rebooted the html drive could be decrypted), or the key would have to be stored on the machine itself. Either way isn't very secure...
Re:That's what you get... by phayes · 2004-10-10 05:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

Encrypted disks for servers only sounds like a good idea until you consider how you enter the key/passphrase/oter on system reboot. You have the choice of using a plain text key, using a removable key (which the authorities will sieze along with the HDs) or waking someone in the middle of the night (usually hours after the system has rebooted due to some "unplanned maintenance").

In addition, for the last "solution", in some countries like France, refusing to divulge passphrases is a separate crime...

--
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Re:That's what you get... by Ian+Bicking · 2004-10-10 07:30 · Score: 2, Informative

Indymedia is an open organization, so encrypted disks are unnecessary. To the degree possible, Indymedia does not keep any record of who posts or connects to the machine (of course, upstream routers might still keep logs). Of course, there may be mistakes that make it possible to track posters forensically. Anonymity of Indymedia posters is a public policy, and both policy and implementation are discussed publically. The only private communications in Indymedia are related to security, and those communications have only recently been set up; that's purely for technical discussions to protect the servers from attacks.
I doubt law enforcement is actually expecting to find much. This is more likely an attempt to suppress the service and the content on those servers. Indymedia does not have much money, and as a volunteer organization has limited person resources. Also, I don't know what the backup situation is, so confiscation of servers may take some information offline for an indefinite period of time. Though thanks to infrastructure like archive.org, Google cache, and others, important articles can probably be maintained.
Re:That's what you get... by Ziviyr · 2004-10-10 09:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Yes, because freely available news for a public audience should always be otherwise top-secret.

Anyways, indymedia prolly isn't into kidnapping, doesn't have much of a cash flow to launder, so they're international terrorists for some reason...

--

Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!

which court ? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 05:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

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

Perhaps...? by robyannetta · 2004-10-10 05:31 · Score: 2, Funny

Perhaps they should have been hosted in SeaLand?

--
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.

Re:What's really unbelievable by Zocalo · 2004-10-10 05:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

--
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

So begins the next war...on the first ammendment! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 05:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

Now that we have replaced the "war on drugs" with the "war on terror", some thought the next target would be Iran, Syria, North Korea, or heck, maybe Canada! Some considered the next big war of distraction would be the "war on copyright infingement", where mass arrests and jailing of file sharers would occur. Few would have guessed the next one will be the war on speech! Ah, but it seems so perfectly Orwellian.

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.

Information Freedom Rule no.1 by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 05:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

Hosting provider is a US corporation... by daveschroeder · 2004-10-10 05:35 · Score: 4, Informative

...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.

Re:What's really unbelievable by goneutt · 2004-10-10 05:36 · Score: 4, Informative

First off, RTFA. Second, strongly centralized governments envy banana republics that don't have this "rule of law" democracy seeking people keep asking for.

I think Indymedia's problem really is that they don't know why the servers were seized, they just got a call from rackspace saying "dude, the FBI is here with a warrant, so that server is coming down". In fact, I think that this could have been done without Indymedia knowing until the server was unplugged, sort of a Patriot Act style no knock raid.

The first rule about patriot act is we don't talk about patriot act. The second rule about patriot act is we don't talk about patriot act!

--
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.

More info by zecg · 2004-10-10 05:40 · Score: 3, Informative

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

--
.i lu doi ringos.star. xu do puku'aroroi dunli dopecaku leni virnu li'u

Cryptome by tiny69 · 2004-10-10 05:42 · Score: 5, Informative

Cryptome has a couple of pages on the subject, inclucing the original article and pictures that started this.

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)

Re:Cryptome by p0ppe · 2004-10-10 06:09 · Score: 4, Informative

Mirror:

http://cryptome.sabotage.org/fbi-imc.htm
http:/ /cryptome.sabotage.org/fbi-imc/fbi-imc-doc.h tm
http://cryptome.sabotage.org/rackspace-axe.htm

--

"Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

Distributed backups by b0s0z0ku · 2004-10-10 05:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why did Indymedia place all of their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and store their data only at Rackspace? The data at Rackspace should have been backed up off site at least once every 24 hours - remote backups take only a small fraction of the bandwidth of actually hosting a site.

-b.

Something that's been bothering me... by casuist99 · 2004-10-10 05:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

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 by daveschroeder · 2004-10-10 05:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

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:Bottom line by daveschroeder · 2004-10-10 08:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

So, would there be ANY scenario in which you'd acknowledge that it's not some Bush/GOP/Cheney/Halliburton conspiracy? Or will US political agents be to blame, as far as you're concerned, no matter what? This is as serious question.

The Swiss government claims it was because photos and names of Swiss undercover police officers were revealed on an Indymedia server; Cryptome relates the same story.

Are you really *that* paranoid and delusional to still think that's just a smokescreen by the powers-that-be to divert attention from the fact that it's really the US Republican political agents taking it down to stifle dissent and criticism about things like Diebold and RNC delegates?

If so, I'm sorry to say that you're fucking completely looney.

Race to the bottom by mcc · 2004-10-10 05:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

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

Nice change of subject by daveschroeder · 2004-10-10 05:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

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 are nearly pointless by SuperBanana · 2004-10-10 05:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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.

Why they asked to remove the webpages by ptitvert · 2004-10-10 05:52 · Score: 5, Informative

Hello,

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.s html

if you want to read it by yourself!

LG

Re:Why they asked to remove the webpages by airmax · 2004-10-10 07:00 · Score: 3, Informative

There were only some photos, bot no names and no adresses on Indymedia's website. See the : google cache for example. When swiss newspaper are talking about adresses, it's only a lie they are repeating, maybe originating from the swiss governement.
Re:Why they asked to remove the webpages by BrookHarty · 2004-10-10 07:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

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:Eh? by An+Onerous+Coward · 2004-10-10 06:08 · Score: 4, Informative

I think you speak for those who didn't bother to read the articles when you ask: "Who the heck is Indymedia and why should we care?"

From Yahoo! News:

"The website was established by organizations during the 1999 World Trade Organization (news - web sites) protests claiming the mainstream media failed to adequately cover the news."

"It calls itself 'a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate and passionate tellings of the truth.'"

In short, they're a site that helps coordinate and inform the worldwide anti-globalization movement.

As to the question of what they might have been involved in, they can only speculate on what exactly their servers were yanked for. But speculations abound. It could be a story they ran about the Swiss undercover police, or their publication of the names and addresses of RNC convention delegates, or their involvement with the Diebold memos.

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.

--

You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!

To the knumbskull that modded me a troll... RTFA by CPM+User · 2004-10-10 06:09 · Score: 3, Informative

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

"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."

Re:What's really unbelievable by caluml · 2004-10-10 06:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

Hmm. Belmarsh - the Guantanamo bay of the UK?

--
Get your own free personal location tracker

That's the point by Chris+Acheson · 2004-10-10 06:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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

Mirrors needed! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 07:04 · Score: 4, Informative

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... :-/

Office of International Affairs is responsible by Animats · 2004-10-10 07:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

This has to have gone through the Office of International Affairs in the Justice Department, which handles all MLAT matters. So that's whom journalists should contact for information. The Director of that unit, Molly Warlow, is the responsible party.

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.

Complaints need filed by Todd+Knarr · 2004-10-10 07:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

Re:Torrent? by ScrewMaster · 2004-10-10 07:47 · Score: 2, Informative

Yes. Contrary to popular belief BitTorrent wasn't designed as a way to securely distribute content considered questionable by the authorities, ala Freenet. It's just a way to get big files around the Internet quickly without stressing anyone's pipes too badly. People that are depending upon BitTorrent to keep the cops (or certain "industry trade associations") from their door are making a mistake, I'd say. I'm asked that question a lot: isn't BitTorrent "safer" than Gnutella? Nope. I would say that it's worse, because unlike Gnutella the entire swarm has to be visible in order for the protocol to work, so everyone who is sharing or downloading can be tracked. If you're not downloading a legal file, say a Linux distro from a .torrent on the vendor's site, don't expect to remain anonymous. If the MPAA decides to start suing people for downloading movies, expect peers to get hit just as hard as the tracker/seeders.

And that's no slam to Bram Cohen: BitTorrent does exactly what he said it would and does it pretty well. All I know is that the last 650 Mb. ISO I grabbed came down at 4 mbit/sec.

--
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.

Free Speech == Terrorism?! by suwain_2 · 2004-10-10 07:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering.

Which of the three does publishing news stories fall under?

--
________________________________________________
suwain_2 :: quality slashdot p

Before we globalize investigative agencies... by curious.corn · 2004-10-10 07:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

... 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 Ã il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan

Re:Network Architecture by Chandon+Seldon · 2004-10-10 07:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

You've just made it so they have to capture both the auth servers and the data servers at once.

Try this protocal:
The server comes up normally, it has normal unencrypted disks except for one partition.

Whenever the server reboots, it pages a sysadmin.

If a sysadmin gets paged, he uses SSH to login to the server and manually mounts the encrypted partition - using cut + paste to get the passphrase to the SSH window.

--
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.

Re:Eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-10 07:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

indymedia also likes to join any controversy in the anti-government side, no matter who is acrually right. For example, they are in favor if Basque independence, and call ETA detainees 'political prisioners'.

indymedia is an open publishing system. Saying that indymedia is pro-ETA on the basis of some posts there is like saying Slashdot is pro-terrrorist on the basis of a few wacko posts here. Just because some posters hold a particular view doesn't mean that the organisation holds it.

It is fair to critisise indymedia for not exercising enough editorial control to make their site authoritative. It is not fair to attribute unpopular views to them that they do not neccessarily hold.

Summary attempt by SignalFreq · 2004-10-10 08:00 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Re:Please, by all means, continue to ignore... by demachina · 2004-10-10 08:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

--
@de_machina

Wow by Erwos · 2004-10-10 08:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

A lot of mourning over an organization that made Fox News look like it was completely unbiased. Good riddance to them.

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 /. 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!

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 /.'ers who have this problem, but alas, I suspect it is far more than that.

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.

Re:Please, by all means, continue to ignore... by danheskett · 2004-10-10 08:46 · Score: 3, Informative

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.
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.

By any measure of International law, the cease fire that Iraq/Hussein signed was violated in any number of cases over the years. Any one of those violations was enough to justify - legally - renewed military operations.

George H.W. Bush encouraged to revolt and then turned his back on.
One final note. This is again overly simplistic view of the matter. The dynamics of the countries in the middle-east are vastly complex. Countries like Saudi Arabia who are railed against for being on the side terrorists (especially by the left in the media - "18 of 19 hijackers were from there", type of stuff) are a mish-mash of conflicting political entities. Saudia Arabia was nearly torn apart from within due to the US intervention the first time around with Iraq. The ruling family is not in complete control of the nation. They have a tacit agreement with the religious clerics to preserve and protect the order - but the House of Saud knows that this could turn at any moment. Make no mistake: 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.

It's hard to underestimate the effect this would have on the world.

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

Middle-East politics is an amazingly complex thing. Citing a single reason for anything that happens there is a sure-fire way to be wrong.

Info on Server Seizures & Indymedia by Yeb · 2004-10-10 09:03 · Score: 5, Informative

Unknown agents have seized servers. They have yet to issue demands.

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

Re:Info on Server Seizures & Indymedia by daveschroeder · 2004-10-10 11:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

It is believed that it is the US State Department that had the drives (servers?) seized.
Believed by who? The quasi-"official" article at indymedia.org and the AFP report both say that the request initiated with the Swiss and Italian government. Why are you not asking questions of the Swiss and the Italian authorities? You and I both know that the only reason the US was involved is because Rackspace is a US company. Also, the FBI does not have jurisdiction in the UK, no matter how much people might like to imagine it might. Rackspace, a US company, complied with a US federal order in offices it operates in a different country. The FBI itself says it's not an FBI operation. Now I realize that's laughable to many on slashdot: believing the FBI when it says it's not an FBI operation. But the FBI proudly talks about its own investigations; if this was an FBI investigation, it would have already said so. But the fact is, the request initiated in Switzerland and Italy, and probably focused on very specific content.
You say the US had absolutely nothing to do with it? How about the Federal Order? Do you have info I don't have?
I didn't say the US had nothing to do with anything relating to this; I said they had nothing to do with initiating the request, or the actual physical seizure of the drives/servers, since that would have to have been done by UK authorities, even if accompanied by the FBI.
Sounds very much like US agents are involved...
Yes. Acting as agents for Italy and France under an MLA treaty.
And if the "State Department" was involved, it's only because it had to be involved for the mechanics of the MLA treaty.
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.
Because Rackspace is a US company. All of this obscures the real issue here: the fact they were physically on UK soil is irrelevant, because they weren't violating any UK laws. They probably weren't even violating any US laws. But the evidence from the third party, the third nation, must have been compelling enough under the guidelines of the MLA treaty for the US to act as an intermediary, and to generate a US subpoena.
At least admit than more than just the US is involved here. Of course, plenty here will believe this was 100% orchestrated by the US for purely political reasons. But the US can't execute search warrants or seizures in foreign countries, therefore at a minimum the UK was involved in an enforcement action. But it sounds like Rackspace chose to comply voluntarily.
Listen: nowhere did I say the situation was a good thing. Just that the US official story, take it or leave it, is that it is NOT a US operation, and that it was merely handling a request for a "third nation", and specifically names Swiss and Italian authorities, who have also not denied such a request. Now, even if all that is true, you can berate the FBI for throwing around its weight with a US corporation who clearly doesn't want to get on the "wrong side", as it were, of the authorities. You can chastise Rackspace for rolling over. But the bottom line here is that this all took place on UK soil, and ostensibly had it not been for the Italian/Swiss request, whatever it was, we wouldn't be here talking about this right now.
I understand that all you know for certain is that it was a US federal order, but that somewhat glosses over the fact that the reason it's so is because Rackspace is a US company, which is probably why the request got channeled to the US in the first place. I'm not saying it's right, just saying that all the blame doesn't exclusively rest on the US here. The US was but one part of this puzz
Re:Info on Server Seizures & Indymedia by Yeb · 2004-10-10 12:24 · Score: 5, Informative

OK...
daveschroeder wrote:
Why are you not asking questions of the Swiss and the Italian authorities?
What makes you think we're not? People are trying to figure this out.
daveschoeder wrote:
You and I both know that the only reason the US was involved is because Rackspace is a US company.
I don't know that this is the only reason, and likely neither do you. In fact, what is your connection to this whole thing anyway?
daveschroeder wrote:
Now I realize that's laughable to many on slashdot: believing the FBI when it says it's not an FBI operation.
I'm glad people realize believing the FBI is laughable. They and the rest of the cops have certainly earned it. I don't necessarily think this is a FBI operation though, but I sure as hell don't trust their word.
daveschroeder wrote:
But the FBI proudly talks about its own investigations
Uh, you've got to be fucking kidding. Ya, I'm sure they talk proudly about some but they keep plenty in the dark. Hell, we still don't even know all the things that Hoover did over 25 years ago.
daveschroeder wrote:
I didn't say the US had nothing to do with anything relating to this
But, daveschroeder wrote in an earlier comment:
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.
Anyway, I'm not going to continue showing your trollishness. I'm a bit busy.
I'll just add that the US certainly ain't standing up for Free Speech anymore. And their sense of justice is quite whacked since this is all done in the dark now.
Also, I'm not saying European govt's do no wrong. They're jacked too, especially that fascist running Italy.
Enjoy the spectacle,
-Jeff
Re:Info on Server Seizures & Indymedia by daveschroeder · 2004-10-10 12:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

What makes you think we're not? People are trying to figure this out.
I'm sure people are trying to figure out what's going on; it's just that people seem to try to be laying the lion's share of the blame here on the US, when I'm not sure, in this instance, that's where it should be laid.
I don't know that this is the only reason, and likely neither do you. In fact, what is your connection to this whole thing anyway?
We might not know for certain, but if Rackspace was not a US company, and were instead e.g. a UK company, how or why would the US have even been involved? The servers were physically in the UK, and it was the Swiss and Italian authorities who had problems with some of the content. So, why would the US FBI have been involved under those circumstances? I realize that's a hypothetical, but the only reasonable reason the FBI was involved, given the information that we DO have (IF we trust what the US has said so far) indicates that the only reason the FBI or any US agency was involved is because Rackspace is a US company. Otherwise, indeed, why would it have been involved? (I realize this requires us to actually believe the FBI when it says the request initiated with Swiss and Italian authorities, when it says it's not an FBI operation, and when it says it was simply facilitating an MLA treaty request.)
Anyway, I'm not going to continue showing your trollishness. I'm a bit busy.
In the story submission, I acknowledged "because Indymedia's hosting company, Rackspace.com, is a U.S. company, the FBI coordinated the request". I have said as much in several other posts. But I still stand by the assertion that the US, or political agents within the US, had NOTHING to do with the initiation of this request, and the FBI's involvement with facilitation of handling MLAT requests and generating a US subpoena, in this particular instance, was incidental.
I'll just add that the US certainly ain't standing up for Free Speech anymore. And their sense of justice is quite whacked since this is all done in the dark now.
Yes, yes, it seems that the US didn't really do anything to help the situation, from your perspective. But the US wasn't the only responsible authority here. It can be argued that the US created the legal weight that ultimately resulted in the seizure, but again, this is only because Rackspace was a US company. Otherwise the US would have had no standing whatsoever, and, quite frankly, would not have even been approached by any Swiss or Italian authorities.

I hate this argument by Theatetus · 2004-10-10 09:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

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

Re:I hate this argument by GozzoMan · 2004-10-10 19:40 · Score: 3, Informative

in most European countries, for instance, the leftists are the hawks and the right wingers want to end military spending.

As an European, I disagree.
Even if I agree that American and European politics are quite different, I think you are quite wrong on this point.

Maybe just UK can be an exception, since the well known position of the labourist Prime Minister (but I never heard of any end-military-spending of their rightwingers, altough I admit it is possible).

As an instance, here in Italy I can assure it surely isn't that way (even if the main leftwing party can't be defined a hard-line pacifist one, having approved military intervention in Kosovo at the time).
Leftists are mainly, and strongly, against any militarty intervention. Some even insistently asking immediate troops withdrawal from Iraq.
As another important example, I remind you that Spanish new leftist government has just done it.

Re:Please, by all means, continue to ignore... by demachina · 2004-10-10 09:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

"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?

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@de_machina

Sigh by daveschroeder · 2004-10-10 10:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ok, let's break this down:

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).

Re:Please, by all means, continue to ignore... by demachina · 2004-10-10 10:26 · Score: 2, Informative

"not even the US that was getting pilots shot at in the no-fly zones."

The U.S. and Britain were shooting just as much as they were being shot at in the no fly zones. It appears likely the no fly zone flights were in fact being used to soften Iraq up in the run up to the invasion.

"plenty of countries willing to trade with him without any sanctions in place."

Its interesting but plenty of nations were already trading with Saddam in defiance of the sanctions. The recent CIA report on Iraq listed all the companies in Russia, France etc. Interestingly enough there is apparently also a list of American and especially Texas companies that were violating the santions. The Russian and French companies were named by the Bush administration while the list of American companies is still classifed so as to not embarrass the Bush administration and their friends. It will be interesting if Halliburton was one of them and if this list comes out before the election. I wager Halliburton was on the list, thanks to one of their many foreign shells they use to skirt sanctions, and I wager the Bush administration will make a maximum effort to censor it. Lets hope someone leaks the uncensored list.

The U.S. can be holier than though about corruption, in the U.N., France and Russia, but when there is a buck to be made Americans are just as corrupt as everyone else if not more so.

"Oh, and by the way, the IMF isn't run or operated by the US - it is a 100% UN institution, part of the World Bank."

When the IMF was formed the U.S. and Europeans cut a deal. The U.S. always holds the Presidency and Europe nominates the managing director. The American president apparently has approval authority over the choice of the Managing Director. The end result is the U.S. does in fact have ultimate control over the World Bank and the IMF, though the G-8 do have substantial input. The rest of the world really doesn't have a lot of say in it.

If you want it to be international body, you apparently think it is, the U.S. and Europe would have to renounce their lock on the presidency and managing directory and replace it by a system where all nations vote on candidates regardless of nationality. I don't the U.S. or Europe is likely to relinquish that power.

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@de_machina

Re:Oh no! - The first poster was correct. by Sein · 2004-10-10 10:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

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:Please, by all means, continue to ignore... by demachina · 2004-10-10 13:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

"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.

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@de_machina

Hello. My name is Indy Media. You killed my father by Doc+Ruby · 2004-10-10 13:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

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make install -not war

Re:Wrong by Yeb · 2004-10-10 15:13 · Score: 4, Informative

daveschroeder, who the hell are you? You submitted this article and have been posting comments like mad yet you don't know jack about what's going on. You're just spreading massive disinformation.

You say "Any enforcement was done by the UK Metropolitan Police IN the UK".

How are you the privileged one that knows this? People have contacted the Met and have heard nothing. My lawyers know pratically nothing. Yet you know it was done by the Met?

Who is modding this stuff insightful? Geez, and people complain about crap on indymedia...

MODERATORS PLEASE MOD THIS DUDE DOWN FOR THE TROLL HE IS!

-Jeff

US and Italian govt actions against Indymedia by jdfox · 2004-10-10 17:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

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