[MKE - Indymedia] United States' FBI Seizes IMC Servers in the UK

[Modemand Guitar]

Thursday morning, US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace ordering them to hand over Indymedia web  servers to the requesting agency. Rackspace, which provides hosting services for more that 20 Indymedia sites  at its London facility, complied
and turned over the requested servers, effectively removing those sites from the internet.

Since the subpoena was issued to Rackspace and not to Indymedia, the reasons for this action are still unknown  to Indymedia. Talking to Indymedia volunteers, Rackspace stated that "they cannot provide Indymedia with any  information regarding the 
order."
ISPs have received gag orders in similar situations which prevent them from updating the concerned parties on  what is happening.

It is unclear to Indymedia how and why a server that is outside the US jurisdiction can be seized by US  authorities.

At the same time an additional server was taken down at Rackspace which provided streaming radio to several  radio stations, BLAG (linux distro), and a handful of miscellanous things.

The last few months have seen numerous attacks on independent media by the US Federal Government. In August  the Secret Service used a subpoena in an attempt to disrupt the NYC IMC before the RNC by trying to get IP  logs from an ISP in the US and the
Netherlands. Last month the FCC shut down community radio stations around the US. Two weeks ago the FBI  requested that Indymedia takes down a post on the Nantes IMC that had a photo of some undercover Swiss police  and IMC volunteers in Seattle were
visited by the FBI on the same issue. On the other hand, Indymedia and other independent media organisations  were successfull with their victories for example against Diebold and the Patroit Act. Today however, the US  authorities shut down IMCs around
the world.

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.