juliet | Interesting things

If Indymedia want my support, they'll stop publishing articles supporting Holocaust denial. Until then, the FBI can ritually bumrape them for all I care.

> Sign the Indymedia petition

Not sure I want to...Hmmm. I'll think about it.

> Alien Loves Predator

I love their tag line.... "In New York no one can hear you scream".

Here's your starter for 10. What did a writer on Indymedia call the "most heinous ethnic cleansing of world history"

a) 'The' Holocaust
b) Some African shambles, let's say Rwanda, or Sudan perhaps?
c) The Armenian Genocide of 1915.
d) The dropping of the atom bombs on Japan
e) The expulsion of the Germans from Polish and Czech borderlands after 1945
f) The AIDS epidemic's disproportionate impact on Africa
g) The US attack on Iraq, 1990 through 2004, including sanctions era

No idea. I'll guess h) any of the above, although from what I remember of history e) didn't affect that many people.

Do you have a link to articles on their site supporting denial of the holocaust? I just looked and didn't see any, but I'd never heard of Indymedia until this incident.
I'm inclined to sign this petition in any case, because free speech doesn't mean much if it's restricted only to speech I like. I haven't signed it yet because I know so little about Indymedia.

Ah, I'm afraid it was (e). Here y'go.

http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/05/802998.shtml

We have lots of restrictions on free speech, most of them for damn good reasons.

See, I'm mostly concerned with the fact that a non-UK agency can seize UK property with no need to give any justification for this behaviour either at the time or afterwards. I'd be concerned about that whoever it was.

I'm not so much worried about free speech as about the issues of legal framework - stuff being seized without people being told why, that sort of thing.

Providing a platform for whackjobs is, unfortunately, a good way to get yourself associated with their whackjobbery, of course.

Take a look at the final comment on this page. BTW, John Paul Cupp has a known reputation as an utter crackpot (see

kennedybak's journal), and AFAIK has nothing at all to do with Indymedia.

I don't especially like that, but seeing as we've now signed treaties saying that British citizens can be arrested in Britain on the sayso of a magistrate in any other EU country, losing a few disks for a while to the FBI when they belong to an organisation that is sympathetic to terrorists isn't exactly high on my list of worries.

Nothing to do with them apart from the fact that they are publishing his writings and therefore funding Holocaust denial.

Yes, funny that it's suddenly a spoof five months after it's posted, and after people start noticing it, rather than at the time... You'll excuse me for being a bit sceptical of a news organisation that evidently has no fact or quality control filter.

Here's a few more - I believe indymedia sites elsewhere in the world are part of the same dubious network, aren't they?

http://melbimc.nomasters.org/news/2004/06/71087.php
http://www.sdimc.org/en/2004/05/104243.shtml

Yeah - that doesn't sound good, but is it not possible that they were (a) acting with the approval of the British authorities or (b) had a Court Order entitling them to seize the property.

Something just isn't right about this - why would the FBI risk creating a PR disaster for Bush's closest ally, weeks before the US elections? I can't believe that there wasn't British involvement somewhere along the line. And the lack of coverage in the mainstream press makes me wonder about what kind of reporting restrictions might have been imposed. It's fishy, decidely fishy.

It's been in The Register, Computer Weekly, Guardian, and a fair few American papers. Generally, when there's a reporting restriction, it doesn't get into the broadsheets...

Exactly. And being fuckwits shouldn't exempt you from that legal protection.

That's true, but also Indymedia aren't fuckwits.
They publish stories that are ignored by the mainstream
media, some of them very important. The opinions of
contributors are often controversial, and occasionally
they're completely insane, but nobody is forcing you
to agree with some random nutcase!

I guess I fundamentally disagree with beingjdc insofar
as I don't think the expression of wrongheaded beliefs
should be criminalised, whatever they concern.

(A proud signatory of the petition.)

People have a right to be protected by the law whether or not they are "sympathetic to terrorists" in someone else's opinion. And the USA isn't in the EU.

You seem to think that because you disagree with some things that Indymedia has published, that they should not have the same rights as other people/organisations.

Whew, that guy writes like a 12 year-old. The "inverted commas" hurt my eyes (and my brain).

People's right to be protected from terrorists > People's right to support terrorists.

I am, in fact, you will be surprised to hear, aware of the geographical ambit of the European Union. But forgive me for being more worried that the Greeks can arrest me than that the Americans can look at my PC.

I don't especially think those who recklessly promote denial of the Holocaust should have any rights at all. This isn't about 'disagreeing with something they have published' as though whether or not the Holocaust happened is a debate in the same way 'Do you like Kylie's new single' is a debate.

You'd repeal laws banning incitement to racial hatred, and criminal offences of conspiracy, or not?

Anyway, I wasn't saying that they should be criminalised, I'm saying that the fact they hate Jews so much they will publish articles claiming that the most wronged people in human history were the Germans in 1945 is a *good indicator* that some of their 'reporters' might have something on these famous hard disks that might help the legitimate authorities in the prevention of terrorism.

Indymedia site going down for a couple of days, versus innocent people dying in terrorist attacks. I'm not finding this a very hard choice, obviously my moral compass is broken.

I don't especially think those who recklessly promote denial of the Holocaust should have any rights at all.

In that case we are doomed to differ. I fundamentally believe that human rights have to extend to all humans, no matter how odious. Part of that stems from the selfish belief that if they don't, people who find my way of life abhorrent can take those rights from me.

I also think the best way to deal with whackjobs is to have their beliefs out in the open for all to ridicule and beware of, but that's a separate issue.

So where do you place a limit on invasive procedures in order to prevent terrorism? It's ok to take disks without a warrant in a region outside your jurisdiction, if it's to prevent terrorism, because fuckwits have been known to post on the site.
If that's a good indicator, how about raiding homes of people without a warrant because they are related to or work with people suspected of terrorism? Or related to or work with racists?
Racist != terrorist by default, any more than being of any race = terrorist.

"Indymedia site going down for a couple of days, versus innocent people dying in terrorist attacks."
False comparison. If the FBI can take disks from a company outside the US, what's stopping them seizing property or people of anyone in the world who exhibits 'good indicators' of terrorist sympathies. For example, anyone who's been to various countries in the Middle East - which marks you out for special questioning at US immigration. Must be a good indicator.

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Let's see how far this goes, then...

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Re: Let's see how far this goes, then...