EDITORIAL- In “X-Files”-esque move, servers seized

The Terror Threat Advisory may be simmering at an “elevated” yellow, but the shadiness meter… The Terror Threat Advisory may be simmering at an “elevated” yellow, but the shadiness meter is off the charts after U.S. authorities seized Independent Media Center’s — better known as Indymedia — servers in early October, knocking its Web sites off-line.

Computers were taken from Rackspace Managed Hosting’s London office, which hosts Indymedia, a worldwide Internet anti-corporate media center, according to an Associated Press report. These servers were returned, and the sites put back online, but with some of the un-backed-up photos and posts absent.

Who exactly ordered these searches and what they were looking for remains unclear. Reports suggest that photos of two Swiss undercover police, posing as protestors at the 2003 G8 summit — a summit of eight industrial democracies, including the United States — posted on a French Indymedia site, were the cause of this seizure.

Rackspace issued a statement saying that in allowing to be searched, it was complying with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which established procedures for countries assisting in terrorism investigations.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that it served a U.S. subpoena concerning these records on foreign officials’ behalf, but not what was sought or for which country.

Web Hosting Industry Review Magazine reported that Swiss and Italian authorities requested the seizure. According to the AP report, an Italian prosecutor stated that she requested such records. A British official asserted that U.K. authorities were not involved in the search.

Confused yet? No one country or official will own up to anything concrete, be it who acted on whose behalf or for what purpose.

If this got any more “X-Files,” Mulder and Scully would show up — and they did, since, in September, after Rackspace forwarded a complaint issued by the FBI about the photos of the Swiss police, the officers’ faces were obscured and replaced by pictures of Mulder and Scully.

Although not paper and ink, Indymedia is a member of the press and should be entitled to the same liberties that the press deserves under the First Amendment. The subpoena was issued by the United States and served overseas. If it is subject to such a subpoena, it should be protected by the Constitution. Indymedia was not notified that its servers were being seized and, according to its Web site, now has to scramble to restore its sites.

Whoever ordered the seizure, and how it took place, coordinated it through Rackspace and not through Indymedia, which would be like censoring a newspaper by shutting down its physical presses rather than filing a complaint about its content.

Officials shouldn’t have gone through Rackspace. When investigating the media — and here’s a hint that something’s press: it has media in the name — officials should have gone through Indymedia. Internet press, while in a new, rather wild domain, is still press and should be entitled to the same protection that all other media is.