Indymedia UK Server in Manchester Seized By Police

On January 22, 2009, police seized a UK Indymedia server colocated in Manchester, strummer.indymedia.org.uk, apparently on the basis that two comments containing the home address of the judge in the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) trial were posted to the site. The home address was quickly deleted in line with the site's policy, in addition the police were aware that the server in Manchester was not the server to which comments are posted — the server in Manchester just hosted a static, read-only mirror of the site and in any case was set up to not log IP addresses, as per the site's IP address logging policy. It therefore appears that the police just wanted to attack what infrastructure was within their jurisdiction. Other sites that have gone as a result of this seizure include London Indymedia and the global Indymedia wiki site. The server was handed over to Kent Police by UK Grid, a Manchester hosting company, after police said they did not have a warrant but claimed they could get one after a phone call.