[Air-l] Democracy Now

[Derek McMillan]

The following comes from "Democracy Now" Radio Station in the US....We ought
to be concerned about the violation of democratic rights.


In the latest crackdown on the Indymedia network, the FBI with Spanish and
Swiss officials oversaw the confiscation of the servers. Indymedia's
Internet provider is under a gag order not to talk about what happened.
[includes rush transcript]

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Earlier this month, two United Kingdom-based Internet servers containing
data for more than 20 local Independent Media Center websites were seized A
week later, the webservers were returned to Indymedia and their hosting
company, Rackspace Managed Hosting.
It is still unclear who actually took the servers, the reasons for the
seizure, or the legal authority under which they were impounded. Citing a
gag order, Rackspace would not comment on what had happened both in the
original seizure of the servers or their return.

What is known at this point is that the subpoena that resulted in the
seizure was issued at the request of a foreign government. Although initial
reports suggested that the FBI had taken the servers, the FBI has now denied
any involvement.

Indymedia and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are planning legal action
to find out what really happened to Indymedia"s servers.

The seizure has come under heavy criticism from civil liberties and press
freedom groups. Aidan White, General Secretary of the International
Federation of Journalists, called it "an intolerable and intrusive
international police operation against a network specializing in independent
journalism ... [that] smacks more of intimidation of legitimate journalistic
inquiry than crime-busting."

The full transcript:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1438244



The petition

http://solidarity.indymedia.org.uk/