According to the Urbana-Champaign IMC’s Sascha Meinrath, hard drives seized from global Indymedia web servers by the FBI last week were returned this morning to Rackspace, Indymedia’s ISP.
Indymedia still has received no official word about why the hard drives were seized, though we do know that at least four countries were involved–Switzerland, Italy, the U.K. and the US–and
an FBI spokesperson, Joe Parris, confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the FBI issued a subpoena to the provider who hosted the Indymedia servers in the U.K., but that it was “on behalf of a third country.”
Just as no explanation has been given for the seizure, neither has any been given for the return. One might be able to infer from an e-mail from Rackspace that the hard drives’ return is in response to a court order, but that’s just a guess. Judge for yourself:
I know that you have gone through more than I can possibly understand. I was just told that the court order is being complied with and your servers in London will be online at 5pm GMT.
I will pass along anymore information that becomes available and that I am allowed to.
Again, I do not have the words to understand nor express the feelings and emotions you have endured since this began.
Regards,
Jason Carter
Business Development Consultant
jcarter (at) rackspace.com
Clearly, all these governments do not want Indymedia to know why the drives were seized, nor by whom. Whether this is due to typical governmental hyper-secrecy, or it’s a tactic to instill fear about when and why they’ll strike next, we can only guess. I do think it’s an indication that Indymedia is making an impact many places around the globe, and that’s why we do it.