I did some reading re the Indymedia incident where computer(s) used to operate a collection of news websites were turned over to the US government, apparently pursuant to a request from a foreign government.
As I understand the facts (chiefly from the above details at Cryptome), Rackspace, a webhosting/colocation provider based in the US, removed a machine which had been in service in its London, UK facility. That machine had been used to serve websites operated by a number of international Indymedia groups. As a result, the websites were rendered unavailable (at least temporarily), and data on the machines may now be inaccessible to the customers and users.
One fact which is unclear to me, from published reports, is whether or not the hardware in question belonged to Rackspace but was rented/leased to Indymedia, or if the hardware actually belonged to Indymedia or its member(s). My impression is that Rackspace’s business model focuses on managing giant farms of identical machines which they own, but lease on a month-to-month basis to their customers, who then administer them (with ‘root’ access) as if they were the owners.
As I understand the process, this is what has probably happened in this case:
1. Foreign Government contacted the US State Department, asking for assistance with a foreign prosecution
2. US State Department contacted the Office of International Affairs, Criminal Division, US Dept of Justice
3. US DOJ contacted the US Attorney’s Office for (probably) Western District of Texas
4. An Assistant US Attorney ( = federal prosecutor) from the WD TX office filed a motion with the US District Court for the WD of TX, requesting that s/he be named a “commissioner” of the court
5. The USDC granted the request
6. As a “commissioner”, the federal prosecutor issued a subpoena to Rackspace, directing them to provide testimony/documents/physical items to the federal prosecutor, in aid of the foreign prosecution, which were then passed up the chain to the foreign government.
I was not able to find, using Pacer (the online docket system for US federal courts), a docket entry for this proceeding. That might mean that it’s not publicly available - it might also mean that I wasn’t able to guess what the name of the proceeding would be in the WD of TX, since different courts/clerks/attorneys may use different names in the captions/titles of the filings.
Given what I did find using Pacer, I would not assume that the Foreign Government involved in this proceeding was necessarily one of the signatories to the MLAT - I found docket entries discussing a 1782 request from the government of Switzerland (e.g., in the District of
New Jersey, case number 2:04-mc-00254-JCL, “LETTER OF REQUEST FROM SWITZERLAND PURSUANT TO THE TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE SWISS CONFEDERATION ON MUTUAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS”), as well as one from Sierra Leone, neither of which is apparently a signatory of MLAT.
I saved a list of the federal cases where Rackspace appears as a named party at http://parrhesia.com/rackspace.txt and an example of another order pursuant to 28 USC 1782 at http://parrhesia.com/khoo.pdf.
Readers with access to a law library or an online research service may find In re Letter of Request from Crown Prosecution Service of United Kingdom 870 F.2d 686 (C.A.D.C.,1989) helpful re background on the history of 28 USC 1782 and the procedure employed in using it.
This story courtesy of Yahoo News quotes FBI spokesperson Joe Parris as confirming that the request was made by US authorities at the request of the Italian and Swiss governments.