A Carnegie Mellon University student who is webmaster for a site that posted the names of delegates to the Republican National Convention is a subject of criminal investigation by the Secret Service into voter intimidation.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Matt Toups is a Carnegie Mellon University student and webmaster for a site that published the names of delegates to the Republican National Convention and is being investigated by the Secret Service. Click photo for larger image.

Matt Toups, 22, is one of the four administrators of www.indymedia.org, a Web site of the Independent Media Center, a collective of media organizations and journalists. Indymedia started in 1999 as a information clearinghouse for groups protesting the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. It describes itself as "a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth."

There are more than 100 member centers throughout the world, including Pittsburgh and New York.

On Aug. 18, an anonymous poster to nyc.indymedia.org published the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of 1,600 delegates to the Republican National Convention in New York City along with a message for anti-RNC groups to use the information "in whatever way they see fit."

On Aug. 20, Toups got a call from Nicholas Merrill, president of the Web hosting service for the Indymedia site. Merrill said that his company, Calyx Internet Access, had been subpoenaed the previous day to testify Aug. 31 before a grand jury regarding the posting.

A Secret Service agent had called Merrill after the delegate information was posted and asked for the names of the people who run the site and for logs.

Merrill told the agent that he was bound to protect the privacy of his clients and that there were no logs, as Indymedia has a policy of permitting anonymous posting and not logging the identifying numbers of those who post. The agent called a couple of times, but Merrill declined to provide the information. When he told the agent that he had secured legal services from the American Civil Liberties Union, the calls stopped.

The subpoena arrived, though, and Merrill then called the four webmasters -- from New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh.

"He was definitely worried. He wanted our consent to turn over the information," said Toups.

The four told him that Calyx could provide their information because they had nothing to hide. None of them had posted the delegate names, nor did they know who had because of Indymedia's anonymous posting policy.

"While we don't think it's right for there to be an investigation, there was nothing wrong with identifying us as Indymedia volunteers," said Toups.

The subpoena listed the basis of the investigation as a federal statute titled "Intimidation or interference of voters."

The post with the delegate information included a message that the information was provided to "supply anti-RNC groups with data on the delegates to use in whatever way they see fit" and that the idea was to "supply a body of information that can be easily added to ... encourage the republishing and redistribution of this data ... facilitate making local connections. Many of these delegates are involved in politics and business on a town or county level."

It closed with the exhortation, "Shut down the RNC!"

Special Agent in Charge A.T. Smith of the Secret Service New York field office said that he would have no comment other than that the inquiry was ongoing and that the agency was still in the preliminary stages of its investigation.

The New York Times quoted a senior Justice Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity: "When you're confronted with something like this, you can't just ignore it. I think people would expect us to look into it and find out whether there is anything going on here that goes beyond the bounds of free speech."

The posting did not include threats but involved political speech fully protected by the First Amendment, said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson.

"This type of investigation is really a form of intimidation and a message to activists that they will pay a price for speaking out," said Beeson. "The posting of publicly available information about people who are in the news should not trigger an investigation. Indeed, if the mere posting of the delegates' names is cause for alarm, then the Secret Service should be investigating the many Republican Web sites where the same kind of information is available."

Merrill said that the information the Secret Service sought from him was also available elsewhere.

After Merrill contacted the ACLU, it sent a letter to the Secret Service in which it provided the e-mail addresses of the four Indymedia administrators -- Toups, Brian Szymanski, Micah Anderson and a fourth identified only by his email address, patrick@indymedia.org -- and advised the agency that the ACLU is representing them as well as Merrill.

The next day, said ACLU spokeswoman Emily Whitfield, "the government told us that Nick did not have to appear at a grand jury hearing," presumably because he had provided the information requested.

"However, the case has not been closed. They may take further action, and we will continue to represent our clients." None of the four webmasters has been contacted by the Secret Service.

Toups said the experience reinforced his group's decision to permit anonymous posting. "The right of an author to choose anonymity is an important part of what Indymedia stands for because we work to create a safe space for dissenting views," he said.

Beeson said she found it ironic that the Secret Service subpoena said that the men were sought in connection with an investigation of voter intimidation. "The only intimidation taking place here is the Secret Service intimidating people who speak out against the government," she said.