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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Crime & Police : Government Secrecy : Media : UCIMC |
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Who Seized Indymedia's Servers? |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sascha Meinrath
Email: sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!) |
21 Oct 2004
Modified: 10:32:42 AM |
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As legal pressure and public outrage grows, both the UK home secretary and the FBI are now claiming that they were not involved in the seizure of two Indymedia servers that shut down 20 Indymedia Websites and multiple other online projects. |
According to questions asked by two British MPs, the UK government is now claiming that no one from UK law enforcement was involved in the server seizure:
[From: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/cm041020/text/41020w14.htm#41020w14.html_sbhd2 ]
Indymedia
Mr. Allan: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the seizure of computer disks containing material published by Indymedia from the London offices of Rackspace. [192111]
Caroline Flint [holding answer 18 October 2004]: I can confirm that no UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the matter referred to in the question posed by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam.
Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what powers, and acting under what information, officials of his Department seized web services belonging to Indymedia; and if he will make a statement. [192814]
Caroline Flint: I can confirm that no UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the matter referred to in the question posed by my hon. Friend. In the circumstances I do not therefore believe that it is necessary for me to make a statement.
However, as The Register aptly points out, "The Home Office's apparent lack of interest in court orders from non-UK jurisidictions being enforced on UK soil without the involvement of UK law enforcement agencies would however seem a fertile area for further questions." [Full story at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/21/indymedia_home_office_denial/ ]
The FBI is now also claiming that it was not involved with the server seizure -- according to the Register, "The FBI has denied any involvement in the seizure of the servers, and although an early Agence France Presse report said a subpoeana had been issued at the request of Italian and Swiss authorities, the FBI spokesman now involved claims to have been misquoted." And the Swiss government now claims that it issued no orders concerning Indymedia.
Which begs the question, do the authorities really expect people to believe that the law enforcement agencies of both the US and the UK were not involved in legal actions in both countries? And why was the oder served in a US Court instead of going straight to the UK Home Office? Why are all the orders still veiled in secrecy?
As an interested News organization, the Urbana-Champaign IMC plans to demand information concerning the seizure of Indymedia's servers, whose jurisdiction the order fell under, why the servers were seized in the first place, etc. |
This work is in the public domain |
