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Indymedia Servers Given Back
NW writes "According to a post on Indymedia Argentina the two Indymedia servers seized earlier by the FBI are in the process of being returned: "A Rackspace employee stated, "I was just told that the court order is being complied with and your servers in London will be online at 5pm GMT. I will pass along anymore information that becomes available and that I am allowed to." It has been verified that the returned hard-drives are the originals, but the circumstances of the seizure still remain unclear: who took them, why were they taken, and under which court order? Indymedia is not aware as to whether Rackspace is still under gag order.
The hard-drives will be treated as "hacked" (compromised) and as a result there will be delays in restoring the sites that are still down."" Here's our previous coverage on this.
Does anyone know why the hell they seized them in the first place?
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The FBI loves intimidation, and it appears that is what happened here too. I wish the FBI would offer apologies and make some sort of serious restitution every time they confiscate stuff and then realize they don't want to prosecute. They need some sort of penalty for raids that prove unwarranted. It is a form of terrorism, I think. "If you run afoul of us, even maybe violate copyrights, we will raid your house, and take your stuff."
xyzzy - operation overload.
You're on crack if you think the FBI isn't interested in IndyMedia. To quote Mr. Heron, "You got freedom of speech - as long as you don't say too much." IndyMedia participants say a lot.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
If this had been your site, there probably would have been no media outcry. Your site would still be down, and your drives in an evidence locker with no likelihood of return. When people say "Free speech has consequences," this is the kind of thing they're talking about. Cast a vote against the Ashcroft administration and send a check to the EFF.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
From what I've read, yes, it's a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. But the current administration doesn't appear to be doing much to track down who first leaked Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA secret agent. Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was exposed by columnist Robert Novak when Novak wrote:
To quell the knee-jerk duopoly partisans: I'm not saying a Kerry administration would do better here. I have no idea what a Kerry administration would do about this. Speaking out against the actions of one party or one administration is not implicit support for any other party or independent candidate.
Digital Citizen
What I'd like to know is why Indymedia still trusts Rackspace with its hosting. If my colo was refusing to tell me what's going on in a situation like this, I would think about moving my servers elsewhere, preferably overseas. I realize Rackspace is probably under a gag order, but frankly that wouldn't make me feel much better.
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
The ridiculous part of it, was the photos HAD been (as far as I remember) redacted in the form of face blur/blacking, after an initial FBI approach.
This action was merely harassment.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
If some of them were undercover agents, their lives might be in danger for all you know.
If I were an undercover agent and if photographs of me were on the web showing me in places where I ought not to be, it's quite understandable.
No it's not. Taking photographs of demonstrators is an intimidation tactic. If they were serious about taking photos to put into some big database somewhere or whatever, they could easily have done it with telephoto lenses from a distance such that the photographees did not know they were being photographed.
Instead, it sounds like they stood right out in front of the demonstrators and made it a point to be seen by the people. But, the idiots who thought a little public intimidation would be a good thing forgot about one minor detail - the freaking internet.
From the reports, it sounds like they just got a little more sauce of the goose than they could handle. So they tried to take their toys and go home.
Either that, or there is something completely unrelated going on the undercover agent thing is just a thin cover story. Aren't conspiracies great?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I don't get the logic in this. I have 2 particular issues:
1. So what if Rackspace is a U.S. company? If they are doing business in the U.K. they have to obey the laws in that country. Why didn't Italian and Swiss law enforcement agencies contact their counterparts in the U.K. and other listed countries instead? I'm sure the British police could easily seize those hard drives under the British court order.
What does the FBI have to do with this? Is it because the FBI has more pull now and it's easier to violate people's rights in the U.S. as long as you utter the word "terrorism" or am I overreacting?
2. As I understand, whatever was on those hard drives belongs to Indymedia. So, doesn't the FBI need to serve the court order to Indymedia directly (instead of or in addition to Rackspace)? Imagine if you are leasing a car from your local dealership and police get a warrant to retrieve an audio/video CD that they believe you are keeping in your car. Can the police serve the warrant to the dealership and then help themselves to your car without letting you know? Wouldn't they have to serve you with the warrant?
IANAL, are there any lawyers who can verify if these things are legal and if law enforcement does indeed possess such powers?
Compromising the identity of undercover police officers is something that is frowned on by governments worldwide. Don't know if it's actually illegal in Italy or Switzerland though.
The problem of course here is that protestors for years had been desparately pointing out that agent provocaters had been the ones stirring up strife at protests, and not them.
Those cops where in classic black block garb, and provide some solid evidence of cops infiltrating to cause trouble.
I think protestors have a right to get this information out, simply because it provides some evidence towards clearing the innocence of a lot of people who have been entrapped into acts of madness by people who have less than altruistic intentions towards 'the movement'.
I assure you, if a spook was giving me grief, I'd expose his ass quicker than he can blink.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
...we've got a few clients who host with rackspace, but after this we've recommended that they find another provider.
Rackspace have come out of this with egg on their faces and I seriously hope that it hurts their business big-time. I also hope that they will be compensating indymedia and all the other sites hosted on those servers for the lost time, aggrivation and general shittyness of the whole thing.
I am NaN
I thought that the whole point of a protest was to be seen. There's no point to protesting if the target doesn't notice you've done anything. My understanding is that most protesters are very keen to be seen, recorded, and rebroadcast by the mainstream media, bloggers, tourists, and whomever else happens to be about. Saying "I'm going to go out in a public place, make a lot of noice, march about, and wave signs--but I only want some people to videotape me doing it!" seems a tad disingenuous.
The police pay particular attention to the most "vocal" individuals? Well, no surprise there. That's who everyone else is paying attention to as well. People with megaphones tend to attract one's notice, whether you want them to or not. Indeed, that's presumably their goal.
Is it police intimidation to record a protest? It's an interesting question. There's an argument that having a record of attendees at a large gathering--and particularly of the most vocal leaders--is good police practice in the event that something untoward does happen.
If you're at a protest or rally, then you shouldn't be doing anything illegal that will be caught on tape. Chanting, speaking, and waving signs are all generally legitimate, legal practices. If you're leading a group and encouraging them all to do something illegal, you probably should be recorded and charged. Take your lumps like a man. Civil disobedience involves facing the risk of punishment. Gandhi did it.
Police bringing cameras to a protest "intimidates" protestors in the same way that a cop on the corner intimidates pedestrians. It inconveniences you if you want to smash a window; otherwise it is--or should be--moot.
Being on government subversive files can become a health hazard.
Historically and in some countries this has been the case. Is there evidence to support this statement now, in Britain?
~Idarubicin