"American authorities have shut down 20 independent media centres by seizing their British-based webservers," the London Guardian reports this morning.

An "American-owned web hosting company" was forced "to hand over two servers" used by "an international media network which covers social justice issues and provides a 'news-wire,' to which its users contribute. The websites affected by the seizure span 17 countries."

An FBI spokesman, quoted by the Guardian, told Agence France-Presse: "It is not an FBI operation." The FBI "acknowledged that a subpoena had been issued ... but said this was at the request of Italian and Swiss authorities."

Is this another Aschroft "initiative" to conceal legal abuses by the Justice Department? It reads like one.

A British journalist at the media network told the Guardian: "The authorities may just be using this as a trawling exercise. We don't know."