The FBI Stole an Instapaper Server in an Unrelated Raid

Marco Arment: >So the FBI now has illegal possession of nearly all of Instapaper’s data and a moderate portion of its codebase, and as far as I know, this is completely out of my control. [This](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/f-b-i-seizes-web-servers-knocking-sites-offline/) whole [mess](http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/department-of-justice-disrupts-international-cybercrime-rings-distributing-scareware) is crazy to try and wrap your head around. Likely the only way that Marco ever gets…

Marco Arment:
>So the FBI now has illegal possession of nearly all of Instapaper’s data and a moderate portion of its codebase, and as far as I know, this is completely out of my control.

[This](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/f-b-i-seizes-web-servers-knocking-sites-offline/) whole [mess](http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/department-of-justice-disrupts-international-cybercrime-rings-distributing-scareware) is crazy to try and wrap your head around. Likely the only way that Marco ever gets and explanation or half-hearted apology from the FBI is if:

1. He knows someone at the FBI.
2. We (the collective Internet) make a big enough stink about it.

I say we make a big ol’ stink about this — we, as United States citizens, have a duty to hold those we put in power responsible for their actions. If someone must resign for taking a picture of their junk, then someone **must** explain why they took down seemingly innocent sites. At the very least, the warrant needs to be produced to the public and if the FBI did over reach they need to be held accountable for that action.

UPDATE: Marco got the server back [last night](http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6854208028), it’s still not known why it was ‘taken’.

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