Justice Dept. Demands News Site Server Logs
Kurt Nimmo
Declan McCullagh reports for CBS News that the Department of Justice sent a formal request to Indymedia ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day. A grand jury subpoena required the independent news website “not to disclose the existence of this request” unless authorized by the Justice Department. The subpoena and gag order represent a new level of government intrusion into the operation of a free press in this country.
The DOJ subpoena demands IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information, including email addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers’ Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and other information on users of the website.
The subpoena issued by U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demands a transcript of “all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us” on June 25, 2008. It required website administrator Kristina Clair of the Philadelphia-based Indymedia website to “include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information,” including email addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers’ Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and other information on users of the website.
Clair told McCullagh and CBS: “I didn’t think anything we were doing was worthy of any (federal) attention.” She called the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco and the organization agreed to represent her.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has noted a number of problems with the government subpoena, including that it was not personally served, and that a court order is required for the server logs. Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based EFF, noted the Indymedia does not store its server logs.
Indymedia, short for Independent Media Center, is a global participatory network of journalists that report on political and social issues. It originated during the anti-WTO protests worldwide in 1999 and remains closely associated with the global justice movement, which criticizes neo-liberalism, and its associated institutions. Indymedia uses an open publishing and democratic media process that allows anybody to contribute, according to Wikipedia.
“If you get a subpoena and you’re a journalist, they can’t gag you,” Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of The Press, told McCullagh. “I have seen any number of these things withdrawn when counsel for someone who is claiming a reporter’s privilege says, ‘Can you tell me the date you got approval from the attorney general’s office’… I’m willing to chalk this up to bad lawyering on the part of the DOJ, or just not thinking.”
The government does not consider Indymedia — or the alternative news media as a whole (including Infowars and Prison Planet) — as legitimate news organizations. The corporate media does not accept the notion of “citizen journalists” and has consistently criticized bloggers.
In 2004, the DOJ sent a grand jury subpoena demanding information about who posted lists of Republican delegates to the GOP convention in New York. An Indymedia hosting service in Texas received a subpoena demanding server logs in relation to an investigation of an attempted murder in Italy.
Obama promised “change” during the election. However, as the latest effrontery to the First Amendment by the Department of Justice reveals, nothing has changed and the Obama administration intends to continue the unconstitutional policies of the Bush administration.
|
Spread the word  Stumble It! -  Digg it!
-  reddit
Latest Articles in: Big Brother/Orwellian
- Think Government Is Corrupt? You May Face 10 Years In Jail
- Frightening Taste Of Internet Censorship As Major Free Speech Websites Blocked
- ObamaNet: The coming online censorship
- 4th grader in trouble for 2 Inch LEGO gun
- New Monopoly Game is Cashless
- FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited
- Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks
- Google's link with security agency upsets bloggers
|
PLEASE NOTE
|
Please read our About Page, our Disclaimer, and our Comments Policy.
Please note: InformationLiberation is neither liberal or conservative. When one takes the time to research the "liberal elite," whom the conservatives oppose, and the "conservative elite," whom the liberals oppose, one finds both "elite" are one and the same. "Liberal" or "Conservative" is not a substantive choice, it is only the carefully crafted illusion of a choice, for both parties come together when they are instructed to.
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson."
A letter written by FDR to Colonel House, November 21st, 1933
"Fifty men have run America, and that's a high figure."
Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, in the July 26th, 1936 issue of The New York Times.
If you care to know who runs the world you live in, view these films. If you care not then I leave you with this quote to ponder:
"There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution."
Aldous Huxley, Tavistock Group, California Medical School, 1961
Audio - Transcript
|
|
|
FAIR USE NOTICE
|
|
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
|
|
About Us - Disclaimer
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill |
The Century of the Self: The Untold History of Controlling the Masses Through the Manipulation of Unconscious Desires
Operation Gladio: "One of the most secret programs that ever existed"
The Money Masters: How International Bankers Gained Control of America
Print
The age of the killer robot is no longer a sci-fi fantasy
Top Obama czar: Infiltrate all 'conspiracy theorists'
Shocking H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Miscarriage Stories From Pregnant Women
Unbelievable: Government Hijacks Kids TV To Propagandize For Swine Flu Shots
Government Propaganda To Infest Network TV Shows 
One bank to rule them all: UN wants new global currency to replace dollar
The $531 Trillion Dollar Derivatives Time Bomb