The following article is published by democrazialegalità
“Our computers were seized. We are sad.
No one here is playing the undying hero. The search took place in the early hours of 27 October; the seizure of the computers and other material, impeccable agents of the Polizia Postale wandering about the house was no fun: and we are not “calm and relaxed”: we are a trifle nervous, we are.
As we write and update our site thanks to the help of trusted friends, our hard discs are lying around who knows where, pared down to the bone in a sort of IT autopsy. What a shame.
When we received the “visita” we were sound asleep in our own homes. If your house has never been searched, as in our case, you can have no idea what you are in for: there you are in your pyjamas, in front of badges and reams of warrants which you don't have time to read, confused as you are, while questions and answers crowd your sleepy brain. In other words, we have been accused of the crime of “complicity” (concorso), with a public official who – this is the theory – is supposed to have passed onto us the report about Locri. A public official who is totally inexistent, as far as we are concerned, because the document has already been circulating (with a vengeance) for months among journalists and the public in general. This fictional public official, according to the theory of the Reggio Procura, is supposed to have met us (but where?In Calabria?) and passed the material onto us, just as one sees in the worst kind of spy story, during a dark and stormy night battered by the winds of the Strait. Yet how and when and from whom and by what means we got the document is well known to the police themselves, who deduced this information with a couple of clicks of the PC.
Time drags when you are being searched and investigated. On Friday the 27th it dragged interminably. While Marco followed inspectors and agents to the barracks, and Roberta stayed on the spot, the first news items on the episode were dispatched and the news spread thanks to Veltri and many friends.
Seizing our hard drive, as well as depriving us of our tools for work, has also robbed us of our ability to communicate and all our data – professional or private- memorised on those precious magnetic supports, believed to be such “hot property”.
We don't know why they might be considered so explosive nor why they need to be confiscated; the Internet is the least secret thing in the world and every trace of our activity had been accurately analyzed (email sent and received, publications on the internet, connections with site etc), because of a prior foray by the Police in our Pisa server.
What can we say, in our position as suspected criminals? We are innocent. It seems banal, but it's true: we have committed no crime or misdemeanour, much less those we are accused of. The fact that the Basilone report is still available online, and can still be read on our site, proves that is was not and is not necessary to black it out or hide it.
Furthermore, it is a good dose of truth which should be made known, even to those who are directly quoted with name and surname as they – perhaps unknown to them – were considered to be “known criminals”. Whoever has anything to do with information knows perfectly well that information is always useful, though sometimes unwelcome, as in this case.
We have the feeling that it is all – as they say in the underworld – a misunderstanding. We should get out of this soon without any broken bones. We feel a little bit stressed and violated of course. But we are confident that the Reggio Procura will clear things up in a short time (at least as short as the search and seizure operation lasted). Now we would like our computers, our material and our dignity back…
We know we are not alone and this is a great consolation to us.
But we are sad, as we have said in the headline, because we have come face to face, personally, with another defeat of the State. Each time the State, in order to protect itself, its citizens, in order to get to the truth about criminal activities of administrative misdemeanours is obliged to seize, confiscate, hide and camouflage, this is a defeat for the State itself and for all of us. From the tremendous affair of the State secret surrounding the kidnapping of Abu Omar, from the disgraceful affair of the secret dossier about the “enemies of Berlusconi” who have to be “disarticulated” (among which there was, incidentally – the editor of this publication) to the trivial incident involving ourselves, fog and mystery are regularly used to shroud clarity and truth. Shame, shame, shame.
Roberta Anguillesi Marco Ottanelli
Acknowledgements
We have received many emails, telephone calls and testimonies of solidarity. We are deeply grateful to everyone for what they have done and are doing, we can't thank you individually because there are too many of you, but, without offending all the rest we would like to say thank you to;
a Elio Veltri, Giulietto Chiesa, Antonello Falomi, Diego Novelli, Achille Occhetto and all the friends at the Cantiere;
to MP. Antonello Falomi, again because he has presented a question in parliament on what has happened;
all'on. Tana de Zulueta che ci ha esternato la sua solidarietà
to Marco Travaglio, who has written about us affectionately
to Barbara Fois and Daniela Gaudenzi, Massimiliano Coccia and Vittorio Melandri, Maria Cristina Naso, Luigi Villani, Antonia Stanganelli and Giulia Sgrisi who have put out press released
to the sites genovaweb.info, centomovimenti.com, antimafiaduemila.com, carovanaperlacostituzione.it, giustizia-elibertà.com, a Controradio, and all the other who have reported what happened
to Marco Mucci who has lent us a PC
to Francesco Paola who is helping us
to the policeman who were very polite
to the dog Trippa who amused the police during the search.
