| Indymedia investigated for terrorism Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=F406EF7A-15E6-405D-8954-CB2686A7D82Ahttp://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=F406EF7A-15E6-405D-8954-CB2686A7D82A
Government Inspecting S.A. Web-hosting Company's Computers LAST UPDATE: 10/11/2004 5:50:12 AM
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A Texas Internet company this week surrendered hard drives from a pair of its Web servers in England to U.S. government officials, but the company says it's not allowed to say why.
San Antonio-based Rackspace Managed Hosting said it gave up the equipment after receiving a court order under an international treaty governing multi-nation investigations of crimes such as terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering.
But officials from the Independent Media Center, whose London office leased the Web servers for Internet affiliates in more than two dozen countries, says it has been kept in the dark about what the U.S. investigators might be looking for.
"We don't know what court made the order or why and we don't know the agency involved," said Hep Sano, an IMC spokeswoman in San Francisco. "Was it the FBI? Was it the Secret Service? Was it the (National Security Agency)? We really don't know."
The IMC, better known as "Indymedia", is a loosely organized collective of online journalists and others posting information to Web sites.
Indymedia describes itself as "a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate and passionate tellings of truth."
Its central Web site on Friday included stories about a lesbian activist's murder in Sierra Leone, protests against welfare reform in Germany and last weekend's march in Washington against the Iraq war.
The hard drives surrendered in London hosted Internet sites for a disparate group of Indymedia outlets. Most were based in Europe, but a few were from South America and one is in western Massachusetts.
In a brief statement, Rackspace said it was complying with terms of a bilateral treaty between the United States and Britain.
According to the State Department's Web site, the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty authorizes cooperating federal law-enforcement agencies to summon witnesses, compel the production of documents, issue search warrants and to serve subpoenas.
Officials from the U.S. Justice Department in Washington did not immediately respond to a phone call from The Associated Press.
Rackspace says the Indymedia investigation did not arise in the United States, and that the company is "acting as a good corporate citizen" and that the court order it received prohibits further comment.
Rackspace, founded in 1998, provides managed Internet hosting for corporate clients ranging from small startups to Fortune 500 companies.
Sano says Indymedia leaders and Rackspace had an encounter with the FBI during the summer when an Indymedia outlet in France posted personal information about undercover agents reportedly working in Switzerland.
She says that information was removed from the site, and that Rackspace told Indymedia the problem was solved.
Sano says that's the usual way Rackspace and Indymedia work together to deal with troubles. But in this case, she said, "we have no recourse because we don't know who to apply to."
She suspects that the unnamed U.S. agency went after the servers on a fishing trip.
"They're just using some excuse so they can see what's on the machines," Sano said. "But we scrub the machine logs religiously to protect posters' anonymity."
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