Indymedia servers seized in UK

Seamus Holman October 8, 2004

From indymedia.org: Thursday morning, 7 October 2004, 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 court order 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.

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After three years of art directing In These Times--and nine years of living and studying in the Midwest--I returned to the northwest in 2005 to start Gridwork and focus solely on web design.