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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."
That's absolutely ridiculous - but gives (to me personally) credibility that Indymedia is seen as a force of change.
Word has it that they're going to move to Sealand/Havenco - Take that UK!
Dada Mail - Program, Art Project or Absurdity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indymedia All hail the wiki.
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
Start a happiness pandemic
In fact, that just encourages scurrilous rumor mongering -- which is diametrically opposed to good journalism.
"One cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God, the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to."
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Fool me once, shame on you...
:)
Fool me twice, use an encrypted filesystem fool...
Was that so hard? And random bits are so much fun
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Thanks for the heads up, but perhaps it's a good idea to mention the reason for these seizures alongside the fact that it just happened.
For those of you left wondering by the initial post these seizures are apparently related to an investigation of a bit of vandalism that cost somewhere around a hundred grand...
That's a little background, it's not like some evil government was seizing their servers simply because of a difference of opinion (although, depending on who you listen to, that may be the case)...
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.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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.
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?
Long story short, it's a worldwide network of internet resources for communists and anarchists usually located around local indymedia pages. They use these resources to organize social events and stuff like that. Sometimes I participate of such events, they are mostly orientated to civil rights and antiglobalization stuff.
Apart from that, they also provide hosting solutions to social and radical groups, specially local Hacklabs on which I partitipate frequently.
Your head a splode
And given they could easily build their own server for PEANUTS that would at least be able to get the minimum news out the door, they would have done this kind of redundancy the day after the last time this happened.
I'd be inclined to call them Stupid Hippies, but they're not Hippies or Stupid. I just guess they don't have the few hundred pounds per node to set up a back up server somewhere.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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.
It's not just for communists or anarchists. In fact I'd say its mostly filled with socialists. I admit its left wing, and I agree its news for people who support universal healthcare, education and other social programs. I wouldnt say the majority of people want anarchy or communism, thats the far fringe of even the left. Common sense, we will never have communism or anarchism for the basic reason that too many humans want power over another and it would eventually end up as corrupt as capitalism and the systems we have now.
The purpose of these networks are to give news to the working class, and if people can ignore all the crazy anarchists and communists who don't have a very realistic plan or concept of global government, theres some articles and news worth listening to or reading.
I think this site exists for the same reason FoxNews exists, and these outlets have to exist. The left factions overall are bigger than the conservative right, so I see this as their foxnews.
If you agree with their ideas then go ahead and listen to them, if not then keep watching FoxNews.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Yes, I was just admiring the wide range of communist and anarchist views on Fox News only the other day. It's good that the mass media is there to show us what unbiased and uncensored media looks like.
Nowhere in the article does it highlight the reason the server was taken, which can eventually be found buried in the links, but the response by Indy is: "As the G8 summit approaches, threats to our freedom of expression, and action, appear to be increasing rapidly." So, Indymedia contacted the Police in the firstplace, and now something is being done, they're crying about it.
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.
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
Come on, sending in the commandos would be an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. Would the UK seriously contemplate such action?
Err..
K.
Suppose the Police seized the printing presses of the Sun newspaper because a letter to the editor contained some nasty words
We can live in hope...
Choose the BBC. It's not perfect, but it's a huge amount better than the alternatives. The World news site does indeed cover many stories that aren't otherwise in mainstream attention.
Having the stories edited professionally is a big plus. Also, while some stories can be biased, one is likely to see differing points of view, particularly in the editorials, and ever-increasing comments sections. The "Have your say" articles are perhaps more interesting because all comments aren't published, but rather a selection of differing views from people in different locations.
They are quite accountable, with a "Newswatch" section where corrections and responses to criticism are published. Readers can email and offer comments on or corrections to any story - indeed I have done so in the past myself, and the response (changing the article) has been swift.
For a mainstream news organisation, that hails from one country, I don't think you could expect anything of a higher standard than this.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Perhaps we should try and persuade google to link "WTF is" with "define:" on google. Would make it a lot more natural.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
"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?
I'm not stressed. I'm just terribly, terribly alert.
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.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Seland claims they are a nation, that doesn't make it so. What is and is not a nation is partly in what the world agrees on, and partly what you can enforce. If you have the might to break off from another nation and enforce that right, you can become a nation. This is pretty much how the USA started (though they also had help from France). They beat off their founding nation and thus established themselves as independant. In contrats the Confedracy (the states that broke off and rebelled during the American Civil War) failed to do that and are now again part of the USA.
It's also partly in what others recognise. There are a number of nations that are incapable of self defense, yet are widely recognised as legit and have countries ready to go to bat for them. The Vatican is such a country. It is a small district, entirely contained in Italy and without any sort of defense, save that provided by the Swiss. However it is internationaly recognised as a soviregn state and any attempt to conqure it would lead to a massive backlash from most of the world.
Well, Sealand has neither of these. It has no military, no security force to speak of. A division of regular troops from just about any nation would be sufficient to conquer it. Nor does it have any diplomatic status. Nobody appears to recognise it as a legit nation.
Thus if Britan took it over, I imagine most would view it as a recapturing of a military installation they built in the first place and legitimately own.
A footnote in the Evening News today hints that the server was suspected of being used to organise 'civil disorder' in Edinburgh during the G8 summit. Living in Edinburgh and watching the City bracing itself for full on riots, offices and shops closing, wide spread road closures, non critical surgery being canceled to deal with possible injuries, local - family run businesses going to the wall, supermarkets saying they may not be able to sufficently stock their shelves with food.... I'm happy at any steps being made towards limiting the anarchy that some groups are planning.... Even Edinburgh Castle (realy nothing more than a tourist attraction now...) is stepping up security. How would you like it if the world Invaded (and I use that word deliberatly) YOUR town, shutting it down for a week, potentaly destroying a large part of it and making the residents lives hell? Everyone seems to assume that everyone that claims to support freedom of speech should also have freedom to do whaterver they dam well please... With Freedom comes responobility, Freedom to state your views also comes with the need to consider the concequences of those views on others... If you incite a riot you must accept to be held accountable....
[The Universe] has gone offline.
The ahimsa seizure last October:
- Swiss and Italian authorities made a request ot the USA under Mutual Legal Assisstance Treaties
- The FBI issue a supoena to Rackspace (A US-based hosting company, who were hosting the Indymedia servers in their UK facility.)
- Rackspace co-operate with the FBI, and hand over the servers
As far as I know, no information about what the Swiss and Italians wanted from the servers was released, but it has been suggested that is was relted to photos from the 2003 Switzerland G8 summit.The Bristol seizure yesterday:
- An anonymous author post this message, on 17th June:
(copy & paste from my Firefox cache.) This post was hidden within 24 hours, for violating Bristol Indymedia (BIM) policy. (I don't know exactly when it was hidden.)
- An individual with a history of conflict and disagreement with BIM then contacted police about the post, since it hints that the poster threw rocks at trains, or the cargo on trains, or the train tracks ("dropping rocks onto useless pieces of metal.")
- Police initally contacted BIM last monday, 20th June. BIM take legal advice.
- Police request IP logs from a BIM member on 21th June.
- Later on the 21st, BIM inform police via their solicitor that they will not voluntarily hand over and information. (NB: for non-Brits, a solicitor is a type of lawyer.) BIM also inform Indymedia UK at this point, and contact Liberty
- Yesterday, 27th June, police visit the home of the BIM member who hosted the server with a search warrant, and seize the BIM server and the individual's own computer, and arrest the BIM member.
Various posters on Indymedia sites have suggested that police may be trying to shut down Indymedia sites in the run up to the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, next month. I doubt that, in general, that is the case (Indymedia sites can be quite helpful to police, since they can use them to find out about planned actions, and spot people bragging about what they've done.) This appears to me to be more like someone with a grudge against Bristol Indymedia causing the police to act a bit excessively in a criminal investigation.I can't think of any EU state other than Belgium that doesn't have a colonialist, imperialist or otherwise expansionist past. Europe had a very violent middle-ages.
t huania, Estonia, Latvia
Hmm, let's see - as pointed out, Belgium does have a particularly nasty colonial past in Africa. But the EU states that don't have any colonial nasties in their history include:
Finland
Ireland
Luxembourg
Malta
Cyprus
Li
Poland?
Slovakia
Slovenia
Czech Republic (unless you count expelling the Germans after WW2, and, er, the defenestration of Prague).
Certainly, Finland, Ireland, Slovakia and the Baltic states (and others) were themselves the victims of colonialism, as was Poland, for long stretches of their history.
Do you see the BBC campaigning for renationalisation of the railways, or higher taxes, or a stronger welfare state
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
.. 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?
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)