Laws, what laws?

It appears that through all the bubub over Indymedia's server's being snatched from their mounts in London last week, no-one was able to confirm who was actually responsible. It turns out, nobody here. A Liberal Democrat MP from Sheffield followed up the organisation's queries with official questions to the UK intelligence services and they were, to the Government's knowledge, not involved.

So Rackspace, the UK hosting company, based in the US may well, conjecture here, have removed the servers under the direction of US authorities even though they were subject to UK law. Suddenly their system of priorities becomes vastly clearer - UK law matters not, EU law matters not, US law reigns supreme.
The fallout from this will be quite something to see.

"Mr. Allan: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the seizure of computer disks containing material published by Indymedia from the London offices of Rackspace. [192111]


Caroline Flint [holding answer 18 October 2004]: I can confirm that no UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the matter referred to in the question posed by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam."

Richard Allan
The Register