Indymedia gets its servers back

By Steve Malone

Posted on 14 Oct 2004 at 11:37

The UK-based Indymedia servers which were seized following a court order in the US have been returned. The Independent Media Centre says that whilst the servers have been returned by the Feds and are now back in the Rackmedia racks, they are assumed to have been compromised in some way. As a result, IMC is checking out the drives for spyware and other interesting pieces of code that the Feds might have left behind before pressing them back into service.

Last week, Texas based ISP Rackspace was served with a court order demanding that it hand over two servers based in the UK which host Indymedia services across Europe.

Rackspace has apologised to IMC for the trouble caused - even though it wasn't their fault. Because of a gagging order the ISP is not able to give any further information as to why the servers were taken, or even by whom. Initially, it was assumed that the FBI made the order although the bureau has now denied being involved.

All anyone seems to know, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the seizure was issued at the request of a foreign government, most likely with the assistance of the United States Attorney's Office in San Antonio.

The IMC is now considering taking legal action following what it considers the illegal seizure of its property.

'Secret orders silencing US media should be beyond the realm of possibility in a country that believes in freedom of speech,' said EFF staff attorney Kurt Opsahl. He also pointed out that in an earlier case the EFF had' established that seizing entire servers because of a claim about some pieces of information on them is blatantly illegal and improper. It appears the government

forgot this basic rule, and we will need to remind them'.