Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Vol. IV, No. 37 October 17 - 23, 2004 Quezon City, Philippines |
Civil
Rights/Human Rights Posted
by Axisoflogic Back
to Alternative Reader Index
October
13, 2004 (AxisofLogic.com) -- 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. Copyright
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