FBI try to close down Indymedia on a near-global scale?

[denny]

Tsk. That pesky freedom of speech thing appears to be upsetting the US government again.

The FBI took the hard drives of Global IMC servers in the USA and the UK. It appears that a court order was issued to Rackspace (Indymedia's service provider with offices in the US and in London) to physically remove the hard drives from Global Indymedia servers (backup servers are now in place). Rackspace was given no time to defend against the order before it was acted upon and turned over the hard drives, both in the US and the UK.
http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/126066/index.php

The list of affected local media collectives includes Ambazonia, Uruguay, Andorra, Poland, Western Massachusetts, Nice, Nantes, Lilles, Marseille (all France), Euskal Herria (Basque Country), Liege, East and West Vlaanderen, Antwerpen (all Belgium), Belgrade, Portugal, Prague, Galiza, Italy, Brazil, UK, part of the Germany site, and the global Indymedia Radio site.
http://www.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/111999.shtml

Comments

[stuartl.livejournal.com]

Any idea on the story or stories that prompted it?

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Nobody actually knows - Rackspace were issued with a gag order at the same time as the seizure order, so they're legally bound not to reveal what grounds were given for the seizure.

There are some suggestions in the comments on the second article linked, and also in the /. discussion about this - one common theory is that Indymedia were going to publish contact details for some US political candidates or something. I'm not sure of the details, but it sounds like they were going to publish already public information in a what could have been considered a slightly inflamatory manner (similarly to anti-abortionists publishing home addresses of abortion clinic doctors). I'm not sure how that would legally lead to this level of action against them though... of course, once it gets political, legality is somewhat flexible.

[nullstr.livejournal.com]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/11/home_office_fbi_mlat_request/

[nullstr.livejournal.com]

More details from El Reg:
http://go.theregister.com/feed/2004/10/14/indymedia_seizure_genoa_connection/