Slashdot Mirror
Indymedia Server Seized By UK Police, Again
timbrown writes with word that "On 22 January 2009, Kent Police seized an Indymedia server hosted by Manchester-based colocation facility UK Grid and run by the alternative news platform Indymedia UK. The server was taken in relation to comments on an article regarding the convictions in the recent Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) trial. Seven activists were sentenced to a total of 50 years in prison."
The complete story is worth reading; timbrown continues: "I'm posting this as a concerned UK administrator who hosts a number of sites. The message appears to be clear: the UK establishment does not want political content, legitimate or otherwise, hosted from these shores. The message has been noted, however free speech must be supported even where it may not be agreeable."
This bugs me. Freedom of the press is a vital tennet of our society, and it needs to be protected vigourously by everyone both inside the media and out. Without it we would have no way to stand up to the sort of tyranny that is all too common in countries where people aren't free.
Which is why I think Indymedia should shut the hell up in this case.
What does this have to do with freedom of the press? The name, address and other details of a judge were posted on an Indymedia site and mirrored to this server. That's not journalism. Trying to claim that the police investigating it is an infringement of the free press just undermines the real press and makes otherwise rational people wonder if freedom of the press is really important after all.
Other people's private personal information is not "political content".
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I have no problem with the police taken the action they have, far from using their powers to "repress" anyone they are taking appropriate action to prevent groups like SHAC from harassing people, blackmailing them and generally making their lives a misery.
In the article linked to in the header they are 'concerned' that the police have been instructed by their political masters to clamp down on anyone daring to threaten 'the corporations'. The author has obviously totally missed the point that primarily the activism isn't targetted at 'corporations' but at individuals who happen to work at them. It's usually not the 'corporation' which is branded as a paedophile in a leaflet campaign in it's neighbourhood, it's not the 'corporation' who has masked terrorists driving around his house at night shouting abuse and making threats and it's not corporations whose dead relatives are dug up and then held for ransom. Usually it's a delivery driver, admin assistant anyone who is unlucky enough to be targetted by these groups.
I personally would not want to be relentlessly attacked in this matter because some random group of nutters took exception to something the company I worked for is involved in and I welcome any attempts by the government or the police to stand up and do something about it.
From the details available, it appears this may relate to information that could be used to threaten the judge in the SHAC trial, the trial of some pretty unpleasant and violent people http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7837064.stm.
Information does not equate to action.
There is "information" in local us libraries which would show you how to assemble a bomb a-la oklahoma city. I suppose we should seize and burn all books in the local libraries and send the librarians and library officials to prison for 50 years.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Information like that - information about our world and cultures etc. thats all fine and free. Personal info on the other hand, address, phone number, names of children and family pets etc. Thats sorta stuff is no ones business but your own.
The action the police took here was wrong - but that by no means justifies the actions of the violent individuals who would look to bypass the legal process via threats and intimidation.
Something people forget is that it isn't an unlimited right. Really, no rights are unlimited in a free society. Why? Well for you to have an unlimited right, implies that your right could infringe on my rights to some degree. For example suppose you had an unlimited right to speech. That would mean you could call for me to be killed. You could tell everyone that I should die, explain how best to kill me and so on, and I've have no recourse. You could lie about me continuously to people I care about in an attempt to harm me, you could harass me at every opportunity, and so on. While you having no limits to your right might make you more free, it would make me less free. In fact you find that the only place where people have near unlimited rights are dictatorships. The dictator has the right to do basically whatever they want. However that comes at the expense of more or less everyone else.
Thus in free societies we have to have some limits to rights. We can't have a situation of "You do whatever you want." It has to be more along the lines of "You can do whatever you want, so long as that doesn't interfere with other people." Thus we get laws that restrict rights to an extent. You can say what you like, but not if you are threatening others. You can own all kinds of property, but you can't own other people. You can burn a flag but you can't burn your neighbor's flag and so on.
So people need to get over this idea that you can just say whatever you want and there are never any consequences. No, not the case. You can say a whole lot, speech is one of the most permissive rights in most free countries, but there are limits. A threat would certainly be a limit just about everywhere.
Any time you see a limitation like that, and you think it is unfair, ask yourself how you'd feel if you were on the receiving end. If your life was being threatened, would you be ok with that, or would you then want the person threatening you arrested? Because remember: You can't have it both ways. It can't be ok for you to do it to someone else, but not someone else to do it to you.
Also from the details available, they seem to have quite correctly pulled that information as soon as they spotted it, before the police asked them to, and the problem was that the police demanded information that they didn't have. So what were they supposed to do?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Information does not equate to action.
There's a bit of a difference between "this is how you make a bomb", and "This is where he lives, let's get him".
Please do try to bear in mind that the SHAC "activists" are violent criminals, who have launched physical attacks on people involved in animal testing. Whether you believe animal testing is right or wrong, that is not the way to go about protesting it.
The SHAC protesters broke the law, and are now - rightly - in jail. The person who posted the judge's personal information and a death threat against him also broke the law.
If a poster on a forum posted information on where to find Barack Obama, and a death threat, would you expect the server that hosted that forum to be seized?
If a poster on a forum posted information on where to find Barack Obama, and a death threat, would you expect the server that hosted that forum to be seized?
Hardly. I would expect a judicial order requiring the post to be removed, and then that the Secret Service would monitor that service to see if any further posts were made by that individual. By seizing the server (and shutting down the service), the police blocked a potential source of further leads as to the identity of the person. In short, a panic reaction, rather than a reasoned reaction.
The SHAC protesters broke the law, and are now - rightly - in jail. The person who posted the judge's personal information and a death threat against him also broke the law.
The SHAC protesters are in jail. The poster will be in jail, if they can find him/her. Fine. Now explain to me what law the server owners/operators broke, that resulting in their server (and service) being "thrown in jail".
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
If a poster on a forum posted information on where to find Barack Obama, and a death threat, would you expect the server that hosted that forum to be seized?
I bet if the post had been made on timesonline.co.uk (The Times' website) it wouldn't be seized.
Says who? If you believe in something strong enough, why rule out certain kinds of actions?
Nietzsche, "Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one." Of course the obvious result of your thinking is, it's ok to do anything to anyone as long as you believe in something strong enough.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
but yea, you should look up what exactly your rights are regarding addresses, etc. I think you will be pretty shocked.
It's kinda sad when people post this sort of nonsense, so I'm not surprised you posted as AC.
In the UK, there are various privacy and data protection laws that do cover the handling of personal information (principally under the Human Rights Act and under the Data Protection Acts), and they are considerably stricter than in some places. There are also laws to deal with how you act based on that information, e.g., protection from harassment or various forms of unsolicited marketing. Oh, and as a topical note, making death threats is illegal, too.
I personally completely disagree with your claim that such information is not personal or private. It is clearly both, and in a world that values freedom, in a world where identity theft is a fast-growing crime, in a world where there is a genuine risk of violence against officials undermining the justice system, it is reasonable and common sense that the information should be protected. There is no free speech argument here, and no censorship: why do you think you have some God-given right to know everything about someone else?
Now, this sort of action should obviously be handled by the book, with the proper warrants issued and the proper data obtained. If that is not the case here, then someone screwed up. But it does seem that a serious crime was committed, and indicated a genuine threat of a much more serious crime, and the police asked for reasonable cooperation from the service provider in order to deal with that. That is their job, and if the provider gave them some cute "freedom of speech" response then I'm not surprised that the police took more direct action, nor do I blame them for doing so. This sort of "defence" of freedom is exactly why the government is now pushing for mandatory logging of all such activities by all ISPs for everyone, which is a far worse thing for freedom than having the police make reasonable requests on a case-by-case basis. The fact that Indymedia seem to be proud of the fact that their service can be used for making anonymous death threats and they won't cooperate with lawful authorities to help identify the source doesn't exactly raise my opinion of them, either.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.