Second Indymedia Server Seized in UK Within a Year

GarconDuMonde writes "For the second time within the past year, an Indymedia server has been siezed in the United Kingdom. This time it is the Bristol Indymedia server (currently redirected to the United Kollectives IMC site); this follows on from the Ahimsa siezure last October. The current siezure was carried out using a search warrant by the UK police at approximately 16:30GMT on June 27th, 2005. This was despite being warned by lawyers "that this server was considered an item of journalistic equipment and so subject to special provision under the law" (press release). Bristol Indymedia is currently being supported by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), Liberty and Privacy International. Other media organisations have declared their support."

Comments

Speech isn't as free in England as the U.S.

[gbulmash]

AFAIK, and IANAL, the UK does not have the same protections for free speech and a free press that the U.S. has. In fact what freedoms the press has are more a matter of gentlemen's agreement (the king agrees not to shut down our newspapers and we agree not to behead the king) and some common law foundation (relying on prior judicial decisions rather than a constitutional edict). In fact, the Crown's ability to squelch and silence voices of dissent was one of the reasons the right to a free press was amended into the U.S. constitution.

While we may think this is terribly wrong from a moral/ethical standpoint, it may well be completely legal in the U.K.

Remember, I'm not saying this is right, but if you post a comment where you judge its legality by U.S. standards, you may be very wrong.

Greg

Re:Speech isn't as free in England as the U.S.

[dr_strangeloveIII]

Putting AFAIK at the start is a license to write any half-baked bullshit really, I think you might find that we have a very free press (and some of ours isn't even owned by McDonalds and Microsoft) and as for the Crown interfering with free speech (we have a Queen at the moment not a King by the way) I think you may find you are a few centuries out of date.

This was nothing to do with free speech but it was everything to do with someone bragging on the internet about a £100000 vandalism they'd committed and the Police duly investigating it.

Don't be so melodramatic...

[gowen]

Someone commits a crime, and boasts about it on IndyMedia. The police haul in their server, probably hoping to arrest the dickwads who dropped concrete from a bridge onto a train, endangering lives in the name of "protest".

I'll bet you $100 dollars this has been seized for evidentiary purposes, in an attempt to trace the IP addresses of these hooligans, so they can be arrested. And I say "good", because the sort of cocksuckers who drop concrete weights onto trains deserve to go to prison.

Re:Don't be so melodramatic...

[gowen]

RTFA : the one labeled press release

On Tue 21st June, the police contacted an IMC Bristol volunteer asking for IP logs.

They asked for the logs. They didn't get them, so they went to a judge and got a search warrant instead. Completely correct procedure.

Re:Don't be so melodramatic...

[coastwalker]

Common sense suggests that the police should be provided with any evidence that enables them to trace the criminals who dropped rocks onto a freight train off a bridge.

Common sense also suggests that Indymedia have a right to control the disposition of the private information that may exist on their servers in the same way that any business information would normally be expected to remain private.

We have a legal system and laws that should be capable of resolving the two conflicting interests. However it would appear that the seizure of the server in order to obtain information on the rock dropping criminals does not ensure the normal expectation of privicy that the Indymedia business would expect to enjoy. The police have the opportunity to take a copy of and browse all of Indymedias private information at their lesiure and this is clearly not normal.

The solution is either that the police should have an expectation that Indymedia releases all relevant information about the rock droppers or that an independant body be allowed access to Indymedia servers to obtain forensic evidence.

The problem is that both parties are right and that the detail of the application of the law is broken.

Indymedia are not going to be prosecuted here...

[gowen]

The police nabbed the server because someone boasted of violent criminal behaviour on it, and the police want to trace them.

Suppose a kidnapper used my typewriter to write a ransom note. Would my freedom of speech be curtailed if the police took it down the station to dust it for prints?

Don't get your panties in a wad, folks.

I was hoping for more information

[Dancin_Santa]

But all the links lead to either Indymedia or pro-Indymedia sites.

It would be nice to get an unbiased source of this news, especially since Indymedia can't be expected to report on itself without bias.

Re:I was hoping for more information

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Indymedia covered the Tlalnepantla massacre [1] where a lot of other news sources didn't. They do seem to be very, very biased, but it's better for information to be collected for me to sort out what's useless, biased drek than it is for someone else to decide what's drek and filter it for me (both because that person is in a position of power to be corrupted and because I hate not having all the information).

If you want to find out about Indymedia, read some of the sites and issues they cover and some of their editorials. At the very least, you can gain terms to Google for from Indymedia (try it with Tlalnepantla).

[1] Citizens of this town tended to decide elections via a town council, then when a consensus had been reached, the official vote was cast using the Mexican ballot. Because everything was hammered out in the council beforehand, you could walk away from the thing knowing who the elected candidate was going to be. At the end of 2003 (or the beginning of 2004), this election was held again, but instead of everybody going to vote after the council, only about 10% of the people cast ballots. The result was that a local do-nothing politician (these kinds of guys really are everywere) who'd screwed up several positions in the past was elected mayor. The citizens had decided at the council who they wanted using the same process they'd used before Mexico was a country, and now the Mexican government was forcing them to accept the elected-by-ballot screw-up.

The Tlalnepantlans declared fricken autonomy. You hardly see that these days, but it's a significant event, and it's hard to imagine actually doing it when autonomy has been just a word for so long, but they did it.

The Mexican government reacted in the same way European nobility reacted hundreds of years ago. They moved to put down a full-tilt revolution and stormed the town with guns-a'blazin, killing dozens of unarmed Tlalnepantlans. There's video of the thing floating around somewhere if you want to see for yourself.

Some more objective news sources

[jeorgen]

Why are practically all the links to indymedia itself? What about having links to some other news sites so that we can get, like, more view points into this?

Timing

[fullofangst]

Did anyone else notice the timing co-incidence here?

From Indymedia.com: "The UK Indymedia site will be facilitating independent coverage of the actions and events. - G8 summit is running 6th-8th July.

Now I don't want to sound paranoid or suggest a conspiracy, but come on, the timing of this seizure is extraordinary. And there's about 0.00% chance of getting the server back before G8.

Re:Fool me once...

[DrSkwid]

not handing over your password will get you a spell at Her Majesty's Pleasure

Re:Nice job injecting opinion into your review.

[bani]

If you agree with their ideas then go ahead and listen to them, if not then keep watching FoxNews.

I don't get it. Why does it have to be either indymedia or foxnews? Why impose the arbitrary limit?

IMO it can certainly be neither.

Both indymedia and foxnews are equally nutty.

indymedia is full of cranks and wild-eyed woo-woos, but at least they dont try to hide their bias (honest cranks? heh.)

More information

[Exter-C]

As issues like this are becoming more and more common internet law neutral hosting enterprises are starting to sprout up in places that would normally have fishing communities as their primary income. As governments begin to make laws and regulate more and more information across the internet it will only force these new "bastions" will begin to flourish. In many ways it will benefit the internet more and more to have more of these friendly countries hosting content that cannot be seized.

Re:Indymedia are not going to be prosecuted here..

[kfg]

The police nabbed the server because someone boasted of violent criminal behaviour on it, and the police want to trace them.

It is not necessary to seize anything to do this. At most all they need to do is mirror the drive, which can be done without even removing it. In the previous case all they really needed was the cooperation of Rackspace in supplying the needed data.

Seizing of computer equipment not actually needed for evidence is very simply a means of discomfiting and intimidating the owner and the case of the siezure from Rackspace itself illustrates that they only really need the drive at most, not the entire computer, as only the drive contains the evidence in question.

Would my freedom of speech be curtailed if the police took it down the station to dust it for prints?

Why don't they just dust it where it is? They're perfectly capable of doing the job. In any case, as per above, this particular case is more like they impounded your typewriter, your desk, everything in it, all of your files and all of your customer's files.

KFG

Re:Encouraging stupid posts?

[Anonymous Coward]

A reasonably close analogy here would be if an anonymous coward on Slashdot bragged about a crime they'd committed, and the FBI responded by seizing all the Slashdot servers.

There is no evidence that the crime in question was committed or endorsed by the owners of the server. Instead, the server was seized because they refused to give the police access to its logs, claiming journalistic privilege.

Yes, the police seized the server because they were legitimately investigating a genuine crime. But this is basically getting back to the question of whether the media can be forced to reveal their sources. There is a real freedom-of-speech issue here. While you are right to try to forestall many of the predictable kneejerk reactions, it is equally the case that nobody, whether British, American, or from any of the other many countries where people read Slashdot, can afford to dismiss this story without first considering the real issues at stake here.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Richie1984]

"leftist media stations of the US"

Most Americans don't seem to realise that they have one of the most right wing societies in the west. You 'liberal' democrats would be considered rather right wing in most European countries. Just like most of your media. This is most likely the same with your 'leftist' stations.

"the sole purpose of pushing leftist heart string stories to gain the support of the global public. This kind of manipulation outrages me."

I don't really see how a heart string story can be considered left or right. If a newspaper prints a story about Timmy losing his pet cat, does that make it leftist? Similarly, if a website wants to print the views of ordinary Iraqis or Afghans, that does not instantly make it a leftist website?

I take it your outrage at manipulation doesn't stop there. You must hate any sort of biased media. Given that, do you watch Fox News?

Re:Nice job injecting opinion into your review.

[tha_mink]

But yes, many of us believe its much more honest to be up front about our biases.
And EVERYONE has them.

Everyone might have them, but it's what you DO with them that makes you who you are. That's why Fox News is horrible and indymedia (huge generalization) is just as bad. If you could seperate your bias from your journalism then you'd be...a professional.

Re:Indymedia are not going to be prosecuted here..

[gowen]

Suppose the Police seized the printing presses of the Sun newspaper because a letter to the editor contained some nasty words

Shockingly bad analogy, because the presses don't contain information that would be useful, like IP logs or fingerprints.

PS : ever wonder why every national UK newspaper has a clause that says something like "correspondence intended for publication must contain your full address and daytime phone number." Well now you know why.

Unbiased?

[samjam]

And what unbiased source are you going to use to tell you whether or not your sources are unbiased?

eh?

What you are asking for is bias that is too hard for you too see.

If thats all you need, just close your eyes and everything will be ok, eh?

Sam

Re:BBC Bias

[gowen]

The BBC has a very left leaning liberal agenda

Well, if that "very" was a "slightly" I met let it slide but ... really? Very left leaning? Which left is that?

Do you see the BBC campaigning for renationalisation of the railways, or higher taxes, or a stronger welfare state ... or, well, anything really? In fact, your opinion of the BBC reveals far more of your own biases than the Beeb's.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[erikkemperman]

.. organizations [like IM] have the sole purpose of pushing leftist heart string stories to gain the support of the global public. This kind of manipulation outrages me.

Just curious, wouldn't you agree the US administration (the corporate interests they represent, and by extension the mainstream media) are guilty of precisely the same kind of manipulation? For instance, pushing heart string stories about "free" Iraqis to attenuate the opposition of the global public?

Re:Nice job injecting opinion into your review.

[Zeinfeld]

Maybe in the future anyone to the right of michael more will be considered a bigoted prick.

The real problem with Moore is not where he is on the political spectrum, its the fact that he is almost as sloppy with facts as the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Being sloppy with facts is even worse when the majority of the facts are on your side. Take the whole memogate incident. The evidence that Bush went AWOL from the national Guard is overwhelming but when CBS introduced one piece of evidence from a source that nobody in their right mind should ever trust the GOP was able to pretend that the whole story must be fake. (Contrast this with the media treatment of the Smear Boat Liars for Bush who were repreatedly proven to have lied and contradicted their own contemporary accounts)

Ideological zealots like Bush or Moore can be very popular for a short while. After a time however people tend to tire of them and when they do the result is usually that the party that embraced them is out of office for a very very long time. Bush is not worthy to lick the boots of Margaret Thatcher or Clement Atlee but once the country tired of them they turned against their party for more than a decade.

Ideology is a very effective tool for mobilising your base, it also cuts you off from everyone who is not part of your base.

The indymedia crew appear to be a bunch of hard left zealots whose only real common platform is that they hate everything about the current political scene.