Bristol Indymedia servers seized by Police
Currently I’m unable to give you more than the bare facts. This afternoon (Tuesday 21 June) I received information from Bristol IMC that they were expecting a ‘visit’ from Bristol Transport Police in connection with an incident reported on Bristol’s website (relating to the dropping/throwing of bricks onto cars on freight trains). Around 2.30pm we were told that the police had obtained warrants for the seizure of BIMC’s servers and were expected any minute. By the time I checked the site at around 6.30/7.00pm, it had disappeared, including of course the link to the report of the incident itself.
A perfect example of the ‘Shoot the Messenger’ mentality – Indymedia facilitates the report of a crime, so Indymedia has to be closed down.
Or am I just being very simple minded here? Do you remember last Autumn, when the European Social Forum was about to be held in London, from 14-17 October? On 7 October (if I remember rightly), well did you ever? the FBI walked into the premises of Indymedia UK’s ISP and made off with the servers. What’s about to get going in the UK in another 10 days or so? Er..er..oh of course, the G8 in Scotland. Swipe me pink, what a coincidence…..!!!
I’ll keep you posted as and when we get more info.
Currently I’m unable to give you more than the bare facts. This afternoon (Tuesday 21 June) I received information from Bristol IMC that they were expecting a ‘visit’ from Bristol Transport Police in connection with an incident reported on Bristol’s website (relating to the dropping/throwing of bricks onto cars on freight trains). Around 2.30pm we were told that the police had obtained warrants for the seizure of BIMC’s servers and were expected any minute. By the time I checked the site at around 6.30/7.00pm, it had disappeared, including of course the link to the report of the incident itself.
A perfect example of the ‘Shoot the Messenger’ mentality – Indymedia facilitates the report of a crime, so Indymedia has to be closed down.
Or am I just being very simple minded here? Do you remember last Autumn, when the European Social Forum was about to be held in London, from 14-17 October? On 7 October (if I remember rightly), well did you ever? the FBI walked into the premises of Indymedia UK’s ISP and made off with the servers. What’s about to get going in the UK in another 10 days or so? Er..er..oh of course, the G8 in Scotland. Swipe me pink, what a coincidence…..!!!
I’ll keep you posted as and when we get more info.
Comments
Hide the following 31 comments
Site still up
21.06.2005 20:48
curious
I can't see it
21.06.2005 21:06
richarddirecttv
No need to cry wolf
21.06.2005 21:10
ionnek
22.40 21/06/05
21.06.2005 21:44
is this a concocted load of shit to give BIMC hits??
I never go there cos it's crap but the above post made me curious (like 1000 others?)
jhg jhg jhg jhg
No flap.
21.06.2005 22:12
I saw this and immediatly told the police, although I was not the first.
All the police wanted was the IP of these psychopaths to get them befor they killed anyone.
What was intersting was that the people who run the site started sqwaking on about 'police opression' and how they were going to report me to the nuj (!) and how I shouldnt be allowed to post to the site and didnt even mention the danger the train driver was put in let alone sounding in any way interested in helping to apprehend these maniacs.
Most odd.
Zaskar
Indymedia infected my madness
21.06.2005 22:30
Indymedia Bristol refuses to provide IP addresses from individuals threatening to throw rocks at trains and encouraging others to do the same.
Police are forced to get search warrants and sieze the servers if Indymedia Bristol doesnt comply.
Far from being the tool of a fascist state, the police are there to protect the public and property of the citizens from criminal behaviour. They were trying to do there job, and some utter reprehensible lunatics from IM-Bristol interfered.
Poppy
Indymedia Bristol does Not Log IP addresses
21.06.2005 23:42
.
However someone on the bristol IMC website says they informed the police that bristol indymedia do have IP logs.
This may account for the polices mistaken assumption that bristol are being unco-operative by not handing over the logs.
IP
hoodies and rocks
21.06.2005 23:43
worried
ooh ooh ooh
22.06.2005 00:36
Go Fuck off and Die. That's half the problem solved.
Twat
87324876324876
Postings and privacy
22.06.2005 00:36
tangled web
update
22.06.2005 00:41
gdm: 1 of imc-uk
e-mail:
imc-uk-contact@lists.indymedia.org
Correct Tangled Web
22.06.2005 09:03
As for a few teenagers throwing rocks, well apparently it was a little more serious than that. Try very large rocks/boulders being dropped on moving trains.
Hopefully BIM will cooperate, they will distance themselves and other activists from these midless imbeciles, and everything will carry on in its usual dysfunctional BIM way.
Serotonin
e-mail:
amrypooins@gmail.com
wo worried and others i expect
22.06.2005 09:09
It also seems to me that the report of this event broke several important imc guidelines.
Also BIM may claim that they do not log ips but the fact remains that acess to their server will help the police to track down these dangerous people. It would appear indefensible to defend these people to me. It's hardly police opression of the 'free' media is it ?
It is foolish to expect anonymity on the net.
I fail to understand how dropping rocks on a treain is any sort of legitimate act of protest.
Zaskar
IP numbers
22.06.2005 09:13
Zaskar
thiis is a little odd
22.06.2005 10:02
could lead to an illegal act
or encourages this illegal act
not just a misdemeanour
or a silly misconceived action
but an act that threatens human life
surely it breaks the guidelines
as incitement
Zaskar takes it upon himself to act
IMCUK moderators should have taken
it upon themselves to act on this matter
comment should have been hidden under IMCUK policy
with acknowledgement of why posting was hidden
in a reasonable tone
as to perhaps deter possible criminal acting element
from carrying out their threats
and notification given to the authorities
about these actions taken
in a responsible way
from where i am sitting
the moderators failure to act presented itself as an opportunity
for IMCUK use this to isolate Zaskar
making him appear as some sort of
rogue element
and that is a very strange situation indeed
[forgive me if i have got this arse about face...]
just my opinion
paul c
i forgot to add
22.06.2005 10:20
then there is not mush else than
review the moderation policy on
'announcement of a criminal life threatening act'
if IMCUK have one
which they should
i also acknowledge that the G8 is coming soon and
there is a possibility of some sort
of shenanigans happening
IE a reason for seizure is manufactured
if the spooks are monitoring as much as i think they are
then the perps should be done for!
like i say:
reviewing or setting up a moderation/action policy on
'announcement of a criminal life threatening act'
might help IMCUK
with a possible 'false scenario' occurring
imagine if a murderer started announcing
who he's killed
Ripper style on this wire
what would you do...?
sad to think that IMCUK
haven't planned for this contingency
paul c
think b4 u call people psychopaths
22.06.2005 10:28
Freight trains, dont have people on them, but cars, cars that boost pollution, invoke civil satus issues, cause wars over oil, kill innocent people on the streets, and make honest cycling people to have nervous attacks and stiff necks before their times.
That besides cars cause the poorer people to take loans, thus fascilitating exploitation through banks, undernourishment and maleductaion of children, general health complaints in the 'lucky' owners, cars are advertised through female unfriendly means, etc etc etc.
Think before you call carefull people psychopaths.
onix
onix
dur...onix...please get a grip
22.06.2005 10:40
train seems not to mind at first
but develops, major fault that goes
unnoticed because of the corporate pigs
greed & idiocy
driver dies?
that OK is it?
freight train crashes... into what???
a school?
a hospital?
a nuclear power plant?
what?
i don't see your logic
except that maybe you are a spook manipulating
content on a useful resource site
i know what impact industrialisation has
are you thus suggesting we bomb a nuclear power plant
dopey!
paul c
doing the right thing.
22.06.2005 11:07
On thier list all the talk was of getting me for breaking nuj rules, most odd, with hardly anything about the unreasnoble crime committed.
The original stroy broke every guidelines and was morally indefensible, it remained up for ages. It was pulled by another mod whose connection had been down when he saw it.
Some on u75 are also assuming this is some plot hatched by the police, which is a bit odd.
Zaskar
Paranoia growing and growing
22.06.2005 11:43
How about there being some guideline on IMC about people not making allegations or suggestions that others posting on the site could be cops, MI5, spies or whatever without any sort of proof whatsoever? It happens all too regularly and bores me to tears...
Chill!
Leam
how about living in the REAL world
22.06.2005 12:16
i thought i made a valid point
illuminating the possibility that someone
could pose as an 'activist'
and seek to justify the seizure of the
servers
what?
don't think it could happen?
well ...hey!
my wrong
i guess it's me who is living in cloud cuckoo
land...i'll stop investing my time
into investigating this
global takeover
and giving you my observations
on the war on terror
the bush juntas
pentagon based seek and
destroy mission of any dissent
backed by a coalition
[I think the UK might be a little involved! ...er...]
utilizing psyops
that's 'psychological operations'
PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES
Joint Publication 3-53 - Doctrine for Joint Psychological Operations, [pdf]
The Army and the embedded media [pdf]
psyops warfare in the 21st century [pdf]
Read: The Rand corporations
The Art of Darkness: Deception and Urban Operations [pdf]
im not f**cking around here...
professional military corporate goons want
to steer you to give them cause to arrest you
Does the name
Sherman Austin ring any balls?
someone posted a link on his site
'raise the fist'
which contained bomb making equipment
he did time
and was made an example of
later his mother - Jennifer Martin Ruggiero
found that extreme right wing patriot sites
had exactly the same types of information
on bomb making
but were NOT
hounded/arrested/intimidated/arrested/jailed
released and then gagged
as Sherman was...
why would that be?
Do the Bologna train bombings ring a bell with any of you?
please stop calling me paranoid...
its very silly indeed
just because outside your window bombs ain't falling
it doesn't mean there isn't a war going on...
look around you...
corporatist UK police state
proud of that? are you?
paul c
look
22.06.2005 12:22
http://www.iwar.org.uk/psyops/resources/21st-century/psyop.pdf
"but this proves nothing - your paraniod...
but what the hey!
paul c
...it doesn't mean they're not out to get you
22.06.2005 13:50
However, it seems sensible that you only go about implying that someone is a cop if you actually have proof or at least some sort of reasonable evidence that they may be, with this taking a lot more than someone posting things you disagree with or that you think might stir up an argument that is counter-productive. Of course, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't feel free to tell people that a poster is wrong or that getting into a particular argument may be counter-productive.
I think a similar approach was taken by a lot of groups in the '60s who ended up getting fed up with their movement getting paralysed by accusations and counter-accusations that people were informers. By all means be careful and secure about things, but bandying about words like "spook" based on one post from someone is ridiculous and makes us all look divorced from reality.
Leam
UPDATE REMINDER : BIMC SERVER HAS NOT BEEN SEIZED
22.06.2005 14:18
update
22.06.2005 01:41
Police have demanded access to Indymedia Bristol's server; however the server has not been seized, nor have warrants been served to the best of our knowledge. A fuller statement will be issued tomorrow.
gdm: 1 of imc-uk
mail e-mail:
cut n paste
Giving Information to the police
22.06.2005 14:29
This is not about IMC UK. This is about Indymedia Bristol.
A post which quite frankly is pretty unintelligable talks about picking up and dropping rocks onto metal. It's not clear from the post whether that means onto some cars that were on a train trasnport, onto the transport itself or onto the rail line. It is also unclear if the thing was moving or not.
'Zasker' is the person who seems to know most about the incident and seems to have knowledge about what happened.
'Zasker' an ex-member of Bristol Indymedia who has been in conflict with others in the BIMC collective, contacts the police and tells them go get the Bristol Indymedia servers and they can get the IP address of who ever made this post.
Now while I would not condone any damage to property that might endanger life, I would also not condone telling the police details about Indymedia collective members, or the webservers - and certainly not encouraging the police to start making fools of themselves by telling them to go after Indymedia servers.
-
ok
22.06.2005 18:18
seemingly
morphed from one thing into another
but the points i think are still valid
we must be aware of the medium we use
and its potentilal to be usurped
to those i hot headedly accused of as a spooks
i apologize
its hot hot hot!!!!!!
i guess i'm just as programmed to respond as most are...
by labelling as conspiracy nut or paranoid
sorry
the poster above is right about the
way in which the movement of the 60's lost its momentum
i hope you understand i do not seek to divide
or create tension
but just to express my opinion
which is
'we' are
'fighting a war'
its been an interesting thread
love
paul c
kiss kiss
paul c
IP logs ARE kept according to BIMC's Tom Rawlings
22.06.2005 19:57
Why don't you cooperate with the cops? As someone who's supposed to have worked as a bus driver what are you doing protecting these maniacs?
When you came bounding into my office a couple of months ago to accuse me of posting some anonymous nonsense on BIMC you expressly told me that you DO keep IP addresses - you threatened to go and check to see if I had posted what ever it was - in which case you are lying to the police.
Unfortunately you can't have it both ways - and either way you're a liar.
A kind of wriggling embarassment at the apex of BIMC. Time to go! Like the Bristol Evening Post's Mike Lowe.
Tony Gosling
Homepage:
http://www.public-interest.co.uk
So which side are you on?
22.06.2005 23:05
We then have Zaskar, an ex-member (ie kicked out) of the BIM collective, condemning the action and BIM for allowing the post. So off he trots to his phone to ring the cops, giving them details of the newswire post, and info on how to contact the BIm collective, including it appears giving the cops the details of at least one BIM collective member's personal contact details (either work or home no?).
Zaskar makes out he is part of the wider movement, of which Indymedia is a part. he likes to come along to protests with his camera and make films. next time he points a camera in your direction at a protest, remember...if he morally disagrees with your action he'll be giving your details to the cops. Zaskar is a police informer, henceforth know as 'Mark the Grass'.
If he posts on Indymedia again...beware, he supports the state, and it's role as the guardian of capitalism!
Officer friendly
i cant help feeling that
23.06.2005 01:55
shame
the g8
is a side show
sure....
but we'll see the pictures of guess what?
the usual flames and deaths
all for what?
the discrediting of a lot of work
well done
yeah
real nice
some people will never learn
will they?
paul c
UNOFFICIAL STATEMENT
24.06.2005 09:15
unofficial statement
So what you are saying is....
24.06.2005 16:08
I think some balance needs to be brought to this story.
Serotonin