Crackdown on Indymedia

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The FBI has issued an order to hosting provider Rackspace in the US, ordering it to turn over two of the servers hosting the Independent Media Centre's websites in the UK, a statement from the group says….

Rackspace complied with the FBI order, without first notifying Indymedia, and turned over Indymedia's server in the UK. This affects over 20 Indymedia sites worldwide, the group said.

Indymedia said it did not know why the order had been issued as it was issued to Rackspace. Rackspace told some of the group's volunteers "they cannot provide Indymedia with any information regarding the order." ISPs have received gag orders in similar situations which prevent them from updating the parties involved on what is happening.

Infoshop and Indymedia are saying Switzerland requested this after a French Indymedia site published pictures of undercover Swiss police. (That would mean the Swiss asked the American police to shut down a British server operating a site in France. And some say multilateralism is dead!)