FBI shuts down 20 antiwar web sites: an unprecedented act of Internet censorship

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Wed, 13 Oct 2004 05:45

 

FBI shuts down 20 antiwar web sites: an unprecedented act of

Internet censorship

 

 

<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/inte-o13.shtml>

 

FBI shuts down 20 antiwar web sites: an unprecedented act of Internet

censorship

 

By our correspondent

13 October 2004

 

 

The US government move to shut down nearly two dozen antiwar,

anti-globalization web sites on October 7 is an unprecedented exercise

of police power against political dissent on the Internet. The World

Socialist Web Site denounces the attack on the Indymedia sites and

demands a halt to all such attempts at suppressing political criticism

of the US government.

 

The shutdown was carried out by Rackspace, a US-based web-hosting

company with offices in San Antonio, Texas, and greater London, in

response to an order from the FBI requiring it to turn over two of its

British servers that were hosting dozens of Indymedia sites. There are

conflicting accounts of the legal process, with Indymedia attributing

the order to a US federal district court, while the Electronic Freedom

Foundation, which is supplying legal representation to the group,

describes it as a " commissioner's order " directly from the FBI itself.

 

At least 20 national web sites, including those for Brazil, Britain,

France, Germany, Italy and Uruguay were taken down when the hard

drives for the servers were given to the FBI. Most of the sites were

restored to service by the end of the weekend, but they may have lost

significant digital content because of the removal of the hardware.

 

The seizure appeared to be politically timed. It came just one week

before the start of the third session of the European Social Forum

(ESF), a large gathering of antiwar and anti-globalization activists,

scheduled to take place in London October 15-17. The ESF was to be

broadcast live via streaming video on many of the Indymedia sites.

 

The FBI said the action was taken at the request of Italian and Swiss

authorities, under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which provides

for cooperative efforts by various national police agencies against

international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering. According to

a statement issued by the web-hosting firm, " Rackspace is acting as a

good corporate citizen and is cooperating with international law

enforcement authorities. "

 

The invocation of such a treaty against a group of left-wing web sites

with no link to any form of terrorism is an outrageous smear.

Indymedia was formed in 1999 to provide live on-the-spot coverage of

the anti-globalization protests in Seattle. It has expanded into a

worldwide network of 140 locally based sites that provide extensive

coverage of political activities that are frequently blacked out by

the corporate-controlled media.

 

According to a statement issued by the Indymedia network, the group was

asked by the FBI last month to remove a story posted on one its member

sites about Swiss undercover police. The story included photographs of

two secret police officers who had acted as agents provocateurs during

anti-globalization protests last year outside the G-8 summit meeting

in Evian, France. The FBI conceded that the posting of this

information did not violate any US law, and Indymedia did not take

down the information.

 

The two policemen had engaged in violent actions in the center of

Geneva, the Swiss city adjacent to Evian, where most of the

anti-globalization protests took place. These provocations became the

pretext for police attacks on peaceful demonstrators. The Indymedia

report gave the names and addresses of the undercover cops as well as

their photographs.

 

Indymedia said it could not be sure that the FBI action was related to

the Swiss police exposure " since the order was issued to Rackspace and

not to Indymedia. " Two other possible motives have been suggested: one

relating to the politics of Italy, the other relating to the US

elections.

 

According to some Internet reports, the federal prosecutor for the

Italian city of Bologna, Marina Plazzi, has begun an investigation of

Indymedia for possible " support of terrorism, " claiming a link between

the group and attacks on Italian soldiers in the Iraqi city of

Nasiriya last November. Plazzi claims to have contacted the FBI as

well as the Italian Department of Justice.

 

Several leaders of the neo-fascist National Alliance party have

demanded the outright shutdown of Indymedia, including Alessandra

Mussolini, granddaughter of the fascist dictator. National Alliance

leader Gianfranco Fini is the deputy prime minister in the coalition

government headed by billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, and a fervent

supporter of Italian participation in the occupation of Iraq.

 

According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which

condemned the Indymedia shutdown, this action may be related to a

court case heard September 30 in San Jose, California, against some

Indymedia activists who helped expose security flaws in the electronic

voting machines that will be used by tens of millions of voters in the

November 2 US elections.

 

Aidan White, general secretary of the IFJ, declared, " We have

witnessed an intolerable and intrusive international police operation

against a network specializing in independent journalism.... The

seizing of computers and the high profile nature of this incident

suggest that someone wanted to stifle these independent voices in

journalism. "

 

A representative of the US-based Electronic Freedom Foundation said,

" The Constitution does not permit the government unilaterally to cut

off the speech of an independent media outlet, especially without

providing a reason or even allowing Indymedia the information

necessary to contest the seizure. "

 

Reporters Without Borders, an international group defending freedom of

the press, also condemned the seizure of computer equipment in an open

letter to David Blunkett, the British Home Secretary. The letter

declared: " This intervention is the responsibility of the British

authorities because it relates to a hosting company operating on their

territory. Closure of websites is a serious step, the reasons for

which should definitely be made public. "

 

This intervention by American police to shut down antiwar web sites

has been widely reported in Europe, with accounts carried in the

British Guardian and Independent and by the French news agency Agence

France-Presse, among others. But nothing has appeared as yet in the

American mass media. This silence only underscores the role of the

American corporate media as the accomplice of the Bush

administration's attacks on democratic rights, both at home and abroad.

 

The suggested connection between the Indymedia shutdown and the US

elections is especially significant. At the September 30 court hearing

in northern California, federal judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in favor of

two Swarthmore College students and the Online Policy Group, an

Internet service provider that hosts an Indymedia site, in their suit

against Diebold Election Systems, a leading manufacturer of electronic

touch-screen voting machines.

 

The two students had web-posted internal Diebold company memos

describing flaws in the software of the voting machines that would

permit vote rigging and alteration of vote totals. The Online Policy

Group was a party to the suit because it served as the Internet

service provider for the San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia web site,

which posted a link to the memos.

 

Diebold had brought lawsuits against several other groups that posted

the memos, but the two students, active in the Swarthmore Coalition

for the Digital Commons, filed a civil suit against Diebold claiming

that it had unfairly used provisions of the Digital Millennium

Copyright Act.

 

Judge Fogel ruled that Diebold had violated provisions in the act that

make it illegal to knowingly misuse copyright law to stifle free

speech.

He ordered the giant manufacturer to pay damages as well as court

costs and lawyers' fees.

 

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