Open secret Indymedia order
p2pnet.net News:- EFF lawyers want to unseal a secret US federal court order that led to the seizure of two servers hosting websites and radio feeds belonging to Indymedia, the global collective of Independent Media Centers (IMCs) and thousands of journalists.
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) wants the agencies and governments responsible for the seizure to be held accountable.
The public and 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," argues the foundation.
Its motion to unseal was filed in the federal court in the Western District of Texas, where EFF believes the secret court order originated.
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See:-
seizure – IndyMedia servers returned, p2pnet, October 14, 2004
clear and compelling – EFF Challenges Secret Court Order, EFF, October 25, 2004
October 25th, 2004 at 9:45 pm
Indymedia: the tale of the servers ‘nobody’ seized
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/21/indymedia_home_office_denial/
Nobody seized Indymedia’s servers, apparently. On the 7th October hosting company Rackspace ‘acted in compliance’ with a court order and two servers belonging to Indymedia were removed from Rackspace’s premises in London.
But the denials of involvement roll in, the latest coming from UK Home Office minister Caroline Flint, who in answer to Parliamentary questions said: “I can confirm that no UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the matter… In the circumstances I do not therefore believe that it is necessary for me to make a statement.”
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Which we can perhaps take as meaning that whatever happened was nothing to do with the Home Office, and you lot might as well stop asking us about it. 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.
The existence of one US court order can be established through its being referred to in Rackspace’s terse statement about the matter. 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. The Register has made enquiries about what, then, he did say, but that is unclear. Swiss authorities meanwhile have said that no request was made, but it appears that an order was issued in Bologna in connection with the matter.
REST,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/21/indymedia_home_office_denial/