We the People, IndyMedia, and the Neoliberal Project, by Richard K. Moore

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Sunday October 24, 2004 14:48 by redjade

Indymedia is the canary in the coal mine?

On 7 October, 2004, hard drives from two Indymedia servers were seized from the London office of a US-owned web hosting company, Rackspace, at the request of the US Justice Department, apparently in collaboration with Italian and Swiss authorities.

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IndyMedia, perhaps more than any other single Internet player, symbolizes the anarchistic power of the Internet as a facilitator of democratic empowerment. Born out of the 1999 Seattle anti-globalization protests, IndyMedia was a spontaneous response to mass-media obfuscation of what was really happening on the ground. IndyMedia has since evolved into what one might call a "people's media network". It is interesting to compare the structure of IndyMedia with that of a commercial media network, such as CNN or Sky.

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What was the point of this seizure-and-return exercise? The immediate effect on the Internet was negligible. IndyMedia had other servers and their operations were only temporarily affected. We might be tempted to shrug off the entire affair, and that is what is frightening. For what the IndyMedia case was really about was the setting of a precedent. A high-profile Internet publisher was attacked, no agency took responsibility for the attack, no charges were filed, and we are supposed to accept that as normal procedure in our so-called 'democracies'. Indeed, the attack on IndyMedia can be seen as an attack on the highest profile Internet target that was available. If IndyMedia can be attacked, then who is safe? The servers were returned this time, but who can say what would be their fate next time? This is the threat that is being conveyed to us: "Watch out folks, we can take you down anytime we please, and there is nothing you can do about it."