Who nabbed Indymedia's computers?

The freewheeling network of Web sites has a history of clashing with authority. But usually it knows who is trying to shut it up.

By Mathew Honan

Nov 9, 2004 | Hep Sano is remarkably calm. Sipping an iced tea at a brewpub in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, she dispassionately recounts Indymedia's alarming situation -- the unexplained seizure of two of the media organization's computers by an unknown government at the behest of the FBI.

"We want to set a precedent," says Sano. "The damage has been done to us. But we're hoping to get something that says, no, the FBI was wrong. You can't just go in and take a server in another country for unknown reasons without saying who did it."

The facts of the matter are scanty. On Oct. 7, Rackspace Managed Hosting, an Internet service provider based in San Antonio, was served with a subpoena ordering it to hand over two Indymedia servers physically located in London. Rackspace immediately fired off an e-mail to Indymedia informing them about the servers and noting that it was required to comply, according to something called the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, an international agreement that sets out "procedures for countries to assist each other in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping, and money laundering."

In the e-mail, Rackspace noted that it was "acting as a good corporate citizen and is cooperating with international law enforcement authorities. The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter."

And that was that. Rackspace refused to provide a copy of the seizure order to Indymedia. Noting that it was under a federal gag order, it refused to even discuss the contents of the order. Indymedia was left wondering which government seized its servers and for what purpose. To this day, the group has no idea what was done to the servers before they were returned, what was being searched for, who did the searching, or why. All they know is that for nearly a week somebody, somewhere, with the assistance of the FBI, had a peek, and maybe more, at their machines.

This kind of thing doesn't happen to Wolf Blitzer.

Indymedia, also known as the Independent Media Center, is a pain in the establishment ass. It doesn't fit neatly into the box of either journalism or activism. Frequently cited and dismissed by the mainstream media as irresponsible, it also boasts a string of legal victories giving it important media protections. It consistently pushes the bleeding edge of what can be published, and for that, it has landed in hot water again and again.

The promise of Indymedia is that anyone can be a reporter. Forget journalism schools or internships at hifalutin intellectual magazines. Indymedia is more or less dedicated to the same promise as Fox News (minus daily memos from Roger Ailes): We report, you decide.

But the "we" in Indymedia's case is inclusive of everyone, everywhere. The idea is that the mainstream media isn't telling the whole story, and so the public has to pick up the slack. Or, as Sano puts it, "Who really knows what's going on in a neighborhood better than the people who live there?"

Like so many other progressive and activist organizations, Indymedia had its genesis in the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, where freelance journalists and activists came together to form a new media organization that aimed to broadcast a message they didn't feel the mainstream media was covering. They wanted to present a different picture of the WTO than the one typically portrayed in the press. They wanted something new, something that wasn't organized from the top down in a hierarchical manner. And before the protests had ended, IMC was born.

Over the years, IMC has grown to include cities all over the world, with more than 100 centers in all. There's no barrier to entry. Once approved, anyone who abides by the New Independent Media Center principles can form their own branch. In the years following the Seattle protests, IMC branches have opened from Europe to Uruguay. But true to its riotous roots, IMC has consistently pushed the limits of acceptable practice.

Which is perhaps why Sano remains sanguine. Trouble with the law is a regular occurrence for Indymedia.

Next Page: The lawyers are yelling "Sue, sue!" But sue whom?

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