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Wall Street Journal Reporter Silenced
Here's another example of a journalist being taken out of action by one of the Bush junta's propaganda arms. See A Clear-eyed Look at the War on Iraq.

posted by LoZo 11:07 AM

 

U.S. Fascists Close Down Independent Media
(Independent Media Center of Philadelphia, 09 October 2004)
Thursday morning, 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 subpoena 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.

The last few months have seen numerous attacks on independent media by the US Federal Government. In August the Secret Service used a subpoena in an attempt to disrupt the NYC IMC before the RNC by trying to get IP logs from an ISP in the US and the Netherlands. Last month the FCC shut down community radio stations around the US. Two weeks ago the FBI requested that Indymedia takes down a post on the Nantes IMC that had a photo of some undercover Swiss police and IMC volunteers in Seattle were visited by the FBI on the same issue. On the other hand, Indymedia and other independent media organisations were successfull with their victories, for example against Diebold, and against the Patriot Act. Today however, the US authorities shut down IMCs around the world. The list of affected local media collectives includes Ambazonia, Uruguay, Andorra, Poland, Western Massachusetts, Nice, Nantes, Lilles, Marseille (all France), Euskal Herria (Basque Country), Liege, East and West Vlaanderen, Antwerpen (all Belgium), Belgrade, Portugal, Prague, Galiza, Italy, Brazil, UK, part of the Germany site, and the global Indymedia Radio site.

[COMMENT: We might as well get used to this. The Fascist Bush Government is going to stop at nothing in their attempt to avoid being tried for the war criminals they are.]

posted by LoZo 1:19 PM