We present a message from across that came to Yisrael Medad, Israel Media Watch Director. 7 November 1999.
The names were excised.
A web provider get life threats in order to close a website containig the "secret document" about the IMW complain about TV IBA journalist Eytan Oren and GSS agent Avishai Raviv.

We will ask MKs to look into this disturbing matter.

"During the latter hours of shabbat I received several calls from Israel (where shabbat had ended already) alerting us that our internet servers were down and asking that we do something about it immediately following havdalah.

Two and three years ago, when machines were not used or designed for internet traffic, this was not an unusual occurrence, but in the past year we have become accustomed to unaccosted shabbatot and have had no emergencies of this kind.

After havdalah I looked into the problem and discovered that all four of our servers were down but that ou.org, which sits along with our host company's site at netmcr.com, was working. This alerted me that something strange was going on. for one server to go down is nothing outrageous, if ALL the servers were down we would be dealing with a connectivity issue - but for FOUR of our servers to be down while others on our network were not is statistically close to impossible.

Upon further investigation it was found that our servers were deliberately turned off on friday evening by the owner of our host company, netmcr, "n. s." in ****.

I tracked "n." down and the story he told was bone chilling. He claimed to be getting phone calls and e-mails for three days asking him to shut off our servers because an illegal document had been posted on one of them. He says he ignored the calls for a few days as pranks, but on friday evening received what he considered to be "credible and verifiable threats" to his life and the life of his young family.
The callers claimed to be, according to "n.", from "official" israeli diplomatic representatives, and told him that U.S. - Israel relations were at stake and he was responsible. He was also told that they had "a lot of friends in your area that can get to you very fast."

He was scared for his life and the life of his young family (they just had their first baby after a series of miscarriages) and our offices were closed for shabbat so he decided to shut down the machines. he told his wife to shut the blinds in their apartment and not answer the phone or door if "she didnt know the person for sure."

Whatever the merits of the case may be, and I still have to look into those, this is unacceptable and must be dealt with. we live in a country of law and not a police state. We ourselves have been trying unsuccessfully to shut down hamas and hizbullah sites for over a year - nothing that could have been posted on any of the sites we host can even come close to that. I am no legalist but there have to be freedom of speech issues at play here.

I am angry at "n." for shutting down all our machines because of one potentially problematic posting, especially without telling me for three
days that he was getting threats. Elly and I will deal with that through our regular legal channels, but that aside - how have we come to this point? I simply cannot believe that anything could make our official government representatives stoop so low - to threaten a good Gentile providing us with honest services for close to five years, all over a piece of paper that was already in the public domain for several days?

Please let me know how we are going to proceed with this,

"m."

AFOUL OF THE LAW

The Orthodox Union reports that its internet host company was forced to
turn off the OU web server on Friday night because of death threats it
received from a man identifying himself as an Israeli diplomat.  The web
server was the host of the site on which the "secret Raviv document" was
found.  The FBI is investigating... 

åìñéåí, "èéô" ìâåìùéí - "äîñîê äñåãé" òãééï îåôéò áòùøåú àúøé àéðèøðè áéùøàì åáòåìí.