Indymedia Disk Seizure
Thanks for all the comments to the last post on trains. Will mull these over and respond imminently.
I have had a few emails over the last couple of days about the seizure of disks holding material published by Indymedia and hosted in London by Rackspace.
Details of this can be found at Indymedia itself and on The Register and the BBC.
Will comment further later, but just to say for now that this is worrying and I have tabled a Parliamentary question to the Home Office as a result. This is due to be answered on Friday 15th Oct and is worded as follows:
Mr Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions he has had with US law enforcement agencies concerning the seizure of material from UK-based internet hosting providers; and if he will make a statement.
This is a round about form of wording but is necessary to fit the rules for Parliamentary questions. I will post the response when answered and try to follow up with other questions.
I am glad to see that at least one UK MP has picked up on this.
How long would such a question normally take to receive an answer?
For some background information see this blog, jebba is the guy who had the contract with Rackspace, also the hard disks have now been returned: http://jebba.blagblagblag.org/
Sorry, useless question. – “UK-Based” may be viewed as nonaplying to rackspace/Indymedia case.
Thanks for picking up on this one, Richard.
An up-to-date summary of what’s happening may be found here:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/AhimsaOverview
From slashdot “According to a post on Indymedia Argentina the two Indymedia servers seized earlier by the FBI are in the process of being returned: “A Rackspace employee stated, “I was just told that the court order is being complied with and your servers in London will be online at 5pm GMT. I will pass along anymore information that becomes available and that I am allowed to.” It has been verified that the returned hard-drives are the originals, but the circumstances of the seizure still remain unclear: who took them, why were they taken, and under which court order? Indymedia is not aware as to whether Rackspace is still under gag order. The hard-drives will be treated as “hacked” (compromised) and as a result there will be delays in restoring the sites that are still down.
thankyou mr Hallam for asking the question on indymedia’s behalf. the network is still in some considerable difficulty. although the servers have been returned, they are staying offline until checked out. Gareth Peirce will be approaching the home office sometime tommorrow to start legal action against the home office for the illegal use of an MLAT against a news agency, gross invasion of privacy(this has potential multiple claimants) and illegal use of MLAT against an ISP. can gareth peirce co-ordinate with you, mr hallam?
nice to see theres some decent politicians somewhere out there on this big old planet.
Shayne (from australia)