Cops Seize Server that Hosted BlueLeaks, DDoSecrets Says
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:
Cops Seize Server that Hosted BlueLeaks, DDoSecrets Says:
German Authorities Seized the Servers that Hosted BlueLeaks Police Files at the Request of the US GovernmentAuthorities in Germany have seized a server used by the organization that published a trove of US police internal documents commonly known as BlueLeaks, according to the organization's founder.
On Tuesday, Emma Best, the founder of Distributed Denial of Secrets or DDoSecrets, a WikiLeaks-like website that has published the police data, said that prosecutors in the German town of Zwickau seized the organization's "primary public download server."
"We are working to obtain additional information, but presume it is [regarding] #BlueLeaks," Best added on Twitter. "The server was used ONLY to distribute data to the public. It had no contact with sources and was involved in nothing more than enlightening the public through journalistic publishing."
Best shared a screenshot of the email they received from DDoSecrets' hosting provider informing of the server seizure.
"Your server has been confiscated," the email reads. "Until now we were not allowed to inform you accordingly." The email then notes that the seizing authority was the Department of Public Prosecution Zwickau.
takyon writes:
The site that hosted hundreds of thousands of leaked police files - dubbed BlueLeaks - has been taken offline after its servers were confiscated by German authorities acting at the request of the US government.
[...] It's not clear what legal grounds the US has to take the server offline. Hacking the government is a crime, but the Supreme Court has upheld the right of journalists to publish leaked documents as long as they weren't involved in their theft. DDoSecrets maintains that it's a publisher without any ties to the hacker who first obtained the BlueLeaks files.
A spokesperson for the Zwickau prosecutor's office told the German outlet Zeit Online [in German] that they were aware DDoSecrets is a journalistic project, but declined to provide any further information.
Previously: "BlueLeaks" Exposes 269 GB of Data from Hundreds of Police Departments and "Fusion Centers"
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