Category: the war on dissent

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…

According to U-C IMC, on Tuesday, Oct. 5, the FBI seized the hard drives from servers hosted by Rackspace which have the websites for several IMCs, including Uruguay, UK and Western Massachussetts. An e-mail from Rackspace says they received no rationale from the FBI, although “the request originated with the Swiss police.” Apparently the situation…

Today the Illinois ACLU released a statement of support for Martel Miller, a local man charged with criminal eavesdropping for videotaping police traffic stops and documenting the disparity between how the police treat black folks in their neighborhoods as compared to how they treat similar conduct of mostly white University of Illinois students in Campustown.…

Two local Champaign, IL men have recently been arrested for videotaping police performing traffic stops in their predominantly black neighborhoods — the bogus charge is felony eavesdropping. I interviewed one of the men, Martell Miller, on the radio show on Aug. 27, and the archive is on-line for listening. Now that the word is out…

Two volunteers stayed at the Urbana-Champaign IMC all night last night in order to take phone calls from our reporters who had been released from detention as well as keep tabs on one reporter who still remains in custody, but is in Central Booking and scheduled for release today. They used some of that time…

I just got off the phone with the IMC and they tell me that one of the female reporters was released just about 20 minutes ago. Now they’re waiting for the last two. They haven’t called the IMC, but we do know that they’ve recently talked to their parents, indicating that they’re still OK. According…

This is an example of how pre-emptive arrests by the NYPD could hit at any moment, even at the most peaceful of marches and actions. Yesterday afternoon five reporters from the U-C IMC were at the War Resisters March, starting at Ground Zero and planned to go to Madison Square Garden for a die-in. Just…

Thanks to Kellan, Rabble, Jebba, and U-C IMC, I’ve learned that the Secret Service has opened an investigation into lists of 2200 RNC delegates that were posted to the NYC IMC newswire. In a statement posted to their website, the NYC IMC collective writes: NYC Indymedia believes that this investigation is wholly without merit, and…

Considering it’s generally more liberal than radical, Salon has a surprisingly fair look at the protest organizing going on NYC in anticipation of the RNC. It reports an expectation of 250,000 protestors in the city — I hope that turns out to be true. Rather than dismissing or chiding protestors who will engage in direct…

Two Urbana-Champaign IMC volunteers traveled to Boston this week to report on the protest activity surrounding the Democratic National Convention, and the overwhelming police repression of that activity. The U-C IMC’s radical zine librarian Adam Davis just arrived back in town and will join us in the studio live. Sarah Lazare is still on the…