Robin,I was forwarded your email by DeeDee. Here's my initial response:
Off the top of my head, Indymedia.org and Wikileaks.org come to mind.
When the FBI was trying to find someone to blame for Bush W's itinerary showing up on a Canadian indymedia server, they decided to go after the registrant in Seattle (Micah as I recall). They just needed to harass someone, and they chose the registrant. I'd have to do a little research to fine tune the details, but that is certainly a good example.
I believe that a similar situation happened to wikileaks in the US, but then the registrar was changed. More details on this is needed.
In general, I would just start by following FBI raids on servers and look at the cases. Indymedia has certainly had its share of servers seized, and one reason we moved the registrar to Brazil under the name "IMC Tech", which in effect anonymizes individual IMC activists.
Registrant Name:IMC Tech
Registrant Organization:IMC
Registrant Street1:Rua Aldo Oliveira Barbosa, 72
Registrant Street2:Parque das Universidades
Registrant Street3:MunicApio de Campinas
Registrant City:Sao Paulo
Registrant State/Province:
Registrant Postal Code:13086-030
Registrant Country:BR
Registrant Phone:+55.119491645
Is ICANN proposing to force some kind of registrant system where individuals/orgs must be identified? Anonymity is indeed important when you are dealing with any kind of independent and investigative journalism.
DeeDee, imagine what the Colombian paramilitary death threats against Burn! would mean to a registrant they wanted to kill, and could identify.
Chris Burnett
Indymedia ON AIR, Host, KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles
Indymedia network organizer and co-founder of LA IMC
**************************
For information about the Burn! case see: