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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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EFF, UCIMC Challenge Secret Court Order |
Current rating: 0 |
by EFF via Sascha Meinrath
Email: sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!) |
26 Oct 2004
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Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) attorneys filed a motion to unseal a secret US federal court order that led to the seizure of two servers hosting several websites and radio feeds belonging to Indymedia, a global collective of Independent Media Centers (IMCs) and thousands of journalists. The motion seeks to discover which agencies and governments are responsible for the seizure in order to hold them accountable. In their motion, EFF attorneys argue that "the public and the press have a clear and compelling interest in discovering under what authority the government was able unilaterally to prevent Internet publishers from exercising their First Amendment rights." They argue further that secret court orders circumvent due process, undermine confidence in the judicial system, and deny an avenue for redress. "When a secret order results in the unconstitutional silencing of media, the public has a right to know what happened," said Kurt Opsahl, EFF Staff Attorney. "Freedom of the press is an essential part of the First Amendment, and our government must show it had a compelling state interest to order such an extreme intrusion to the rights of the publisher and the public..." |
 20041022_Indymedia_Motion_to_Unseal.pdf (77 k) EFF Challenges Secret Court Order |
A .pdf of the full motion is above.
Motion Demands Information About the Seizure of Indymedia's Servers
Texas - Today Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) attorneys filed a motion to unseal a secret US federal court order that led to the seizure of two servers hosting several websites and radio feeds belonging to Indymedia, a global collective of Independent Media Centers (IMCs) and thousands of journalists. The motion seeks to discover which agencies and governments are responsible for the seizure in order to hold them accountable. In their motion, EFF attorneys argue that "the public and the press have a clear and compelling interest in discovering under what authority the government was able unilaterally to prevent Internet publishers from exercising their First Amendment rights." They argue further that secret court orders circumvent due process, undermine confidence in the judicial system, and deny an avenue for redress.
"When a secret order results in the unconstitutional silencing of media, the public has a right to know what happened," said Kurt Opsahl, EFF Staff Attorney. "Freedom of the press is an essential part of the First Amendment, and our government must show it had a compelling state interest to order such an extreme intrusion to the rights of the publisher and the public."
Citing a gag order, Rackspace has not revealed the contents of the seizure order, the requesting agency, or even confirmed the identity of the court that issued it. Apparently requested by an unidentified foreign government, the secret order was served to San Antonio-based Rackspace Managed Hosting, which hosts IndyMedia's servers. The seizure took offline more than 20 IMC websites and more than 10 streaming radio feeds. So far, government agencies in the US, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Departments of State and Justice, and the US Attorney's Office in San Antonio, have refused to take responsibility for the incident. Prosecutors in Switzerland and Italy have admitted pursuing investigations related to Indymedia articles but denied requesting the seizure.
"Silencing Indymedia with a secret order is no different than censoring any other news website, whether it's USA Today or your local paper," said Kevin Bankston, EFF attorney and Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis Fellow. "If the government is allowed to ignore the Constitution in this case, then every news publisher should be wondering, 'Will I be silenced next?'"
EFF's motion to unseal was filed in the federal court in the Western District of Texas, where EFF believes the secret court order originated.
Contacts:
Kevin Bankston
Attorney, Equal Justice Works / Bruce J. Ennis Fellow
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston (at) eff.org |
This work is in the public domain. |
Comments
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Re: EFF, UCIMC Challenge Secret Court Order |
by scott
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
26 Oct 2004
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FWIW, drudge redlined an ap story on the seizure server and various comments... |
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Re: EFF, UCIMC Challenge Secret Court Order |
by Anna Epelbaum
aepelbaum (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
27 Oct 2004
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I still can't understand what necessity the incumbent party might have had to shut down Indy webs. There are a lot of postings pro their policy. Also a lot of postings against , but not more than of the first kind. If Indy was really shut by some kind of "secret order" I can only guess that somebody, who is accustomed to do such kind of "shutting", has not personally liked the revelation about him/her personally on this web, but this guess seems to be kind of wild, don't you think so? Though knowing what I, personally, know and was sent through, it is still possible! |
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Indymedia websites knocked offline, sparking charges of censorship |
by Ellen Simon, Canadian Press via AP
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 Oct 2004
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004
NEW YORK (AP) - Devin Theriot-Orr, a member of a feisty group of reporter-activists called Indymedia, was surprised when two FBI agents showed up at his Seattle law office, saying the visit was a "courtesy call" on behalf of Swiss authorities.
Theriot-Orr was even more surprised a week later when more than 20 Indymedia websites were knocked offline as the computer servers that hosted them were seized in Britain.
The Independent Media Center, more commonly known as Indymedia, says the seizure is tantamount to censorship, and civil libertarians agree. The Internet is a publishing medium just like a printing press, they argue, and governments have no right to remove Web sites.
The case, which involves an Internet company based in Texas, photos of undercover Swiss police officers and a request from an Italian prosecutor investigating anarchists, raises questions about the circumstances under which Internet companies can be compelled to turn over data.
"The implications are profound," said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union, calling the Indymedia activists "classic dissenters" and likening the case to "seizing a printing press or shutting down a radio transmitter."
"It smells to high heaven," he said.
Internet providers in the United States routinely remain silent when ordered by authorities to turn over data, though actual seizures of their servers is rare.
The Oct. 7 seizure involves a particularly vocal group - Indymedia activists work in 140 collectives around the world from the Czech Republic to Uruguay to western Massachusetts and their sites get about 18 million page views a month -and generated intense interest in Europe, including questioning in Britain's House of Commons.
The two computers were seized from the London office of Texas-based Rackspace Managed Hosting, and while they were returned Oct. 12 and all the sites are now working again, some that didn't have backup are missing posts and photos.
The governments involved did not provide The Associated Press with a clear picture of what was sought or which country initiated the action.
Richard Allan, a Liberal Democrat, asked in Britain's Parliament last week whether the Home Office, which is responsible for domestic security, had ordered the seizure.
Home Office spokeswoman Caroline Flint said, "I can confirm that no UK law enforcement agendas were involved in the matter."
On Friday, a motion was filed in San Antonio federal court to unseal the original order in the case.
"The significance of this is that apparently, a foreign government, based on a secret process, can have the U.S. government silence independent news sources without ever having to answer to the American people about how that kind of restraint could happen," said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which drafted the motion. "Every press organization should be asking, 'Am I next?' "
The FBI issued a statement saying that, "at the request of a foreign law enforcement agency," it assisted in serving Rackspace with a U.S. subpoena for Indymedia records. "Rackspace located the Indymedia records on servers in the United Kingdom. A brief interruption of Indymedia's Internet service resulted when Rackspace copied the subpoenaed records from their servers. There is no FBI or U.S. investigation into Indymedia."
Said one FBI source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, "There were two different requests from two different countries that are in no way connected, except that both pertain to Indymedia." The requests to handle the cases came through the countries' embassies, to the Department of Justice, then to the FBI, he said.
Bologna prosecutor Marina Plazzi told The AP that she had requested information about Indymedia-posted material from the United States. She stressed that her request did not seek "the seizure of servers or hard disks." Plazzi is investigating an anarchist group that has made bomb threats against European Commission President Romano Prodi.
Bologna prosecutors said in a statement that they made a request to U.S. authorities for "specific and targeted information about (the) Indymedia provider. This request concerns neither the management nor the content of the website."
"There was no reply to this request," the statement said. "Any other information is bound to secrecy."
Swiss federal justice authorities referred questions to officials at the state level in Geneva but those authorities did not respond.
It seems that photos posted on a French Indymedia site of two undercover police officers posing as protesters at an anti-globalization rally are at the crux of the Swiss case. Comments posted under the photos said they were taken because police had photographed protesters at past rallies. Swiss police have also posted images of protesters on police websites, labelling them "troublemakers" and asking the public for information about them.
In late September, Rackspace sent Indymedia an FBI notice about the photos, which were on an Indymedia site operated out of Nantes, France.
Rackspace sent the note to an Indymedia volunteer, who passed on the request to the Indymedia collective in Nantes. The Nantes collective then obscured the faces of the two Swiss officers, covering them with photos of the characters Mulder and Scully from the show The X Files, he said.
Theriot-Orr said the F.B.I agents who later visited him asked about the Nantes Indymedia operation that had posted the photos of the Swiss police officers.
A statement on Indymedia sites attributed to Rackspace said the company had complied with a "court order pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty" that lets countries assist each other "in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering."
"Rackspace is acting as a good corporate citizen," the statement added. "The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter." Rackspace spokeswoman Annalie Drusch refused further comment.
"If it was all about those photographs, whatever they tried to do backfired," Indymedia volunteer David Meieran in Pittsburgh said of authorities. "Now they're mirrored on 300 websites around the world."
"It's like trying to grab water," said Meieran. "The Internet is all over the place. You can't reach in and try to grab a photograph and expect it's not going to be put up anymore."
© The Canadian Press 2004
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/index.html |
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