MYTH OF A FREE PRESS

We live in a democracy right? Freedom of speech, free press all that kind of jazz? Okay, so the press may be owned by a few barons, the tv news pitched at you as if you were retarded, and what passes for political debate corrupted by the inane drivel of a few hacks, a culture of personality and a commercial-world that reduces the human mind to a light custard, but we have freedom of the press right? No.

“Indymedia is a global media network that provides open space to publish challenging, independent reporting, with emphasis on political and social justice issues. The Indymedia network is based upon principled mutual aid and voluntary participation, maintaining openly accessible newswires with the capacity for anyone to publish texts, images, audio, and video.
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.

The seizure of the hard drives in London shut down an Indymedia radio station and around 20 different Indymedia websites including those serving Ambazonia, Uruguay, Andorra, Poland, Western Massachusetts, Nice, Nantes, Lilles, Marseille, Euskal Herria (Basque Country), Liege, East and West Vlaanderen, Antwerpen, Belgrade, Portugal, Prague, Galiza, Italy, Brazil, UK, and parts of Germany Indymedia.

Although the hard drives were returned on October 13, the particular legal framework under which the seizures took place is unknown. One week after the seizures there is still an almost total information blackout from the authorities in the UK, US, Switzerland and Italy. Indymedia still has no confirmation of who ordered the seizures, who took the hard drives, why the seizures took place, or whether it will happen again.”

Go here for the background to the attack on Indymedia and to sign the declaration of solidarity:
Solidarity or here for some background on what's being done to combat this attack....
Or here to read the Guardian report (virtually alone in mainstream press coverage)