FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Joe Broadhurst's INTL NEWS site mysteriously shut down after Diebold-US election criticism

Joe Broadhurst's "INTL News" blog has contributed much over the past few years to the dissemination of the truth about the double dealing and deception of politicians and government officials.
It appears then that the day has finally arrived where the mere act of posting a link which highlights government mendacity is enough to warrant direct censorship and infringement of the much touted "free speech" - a central tenet of the "freedom and democracy" that the US government is determined to impose on the world.

" [...] As soon as I posted a story directly linking a Diebold employee to manipulating votes in Gaston, N.C. I got a note from my host, ServerFly, that my credit card wasn't being excepted. I checked with my bank and all was fine, I even went out and used the card TWICE to make sure it was fine. Then I posted that I was being shutdown and 45 minutes later I was. They even said I would have to post an APOLOGY if I wanted to reinstate the account. I have since found out that "ServerFly" is based in Houston."

INTL News old site is: http://intlnews.typepad.com/intlnews/

Feds seize Indymedia servers

The FBI yesterday seized a pair of UK servers used by Indymedia, the independent newsgathering collective, after serving a subpoena in the US on Indymedia's hosting firm, Rackspace. Why or how remains unclear.
Rackspace UK complied with a legal order and handed over hard disks without first notifying Indymedia. It's unclear if the raid was executed under extra-territorial provisions of US legislation or the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Provisions of RIPA make it a criminal offence to discuss warrants, so Rackspace would not be able to discuss the action with its customer Indymedia, or with the media.