RADIO FREE EIREANN
WBAI RADIO
120 WALL STREET
NEW YORK, NY 1005

For Immediate Release
RADIO FREE EIREANN WEB SITE CLOSED BY THREATS
TO SEIZE ASSETS OF SERVICE PROVIDER

http://www.IRARADIO.COM, the web site which archives all Radio Free Eireann broadcasts, has been taken down because the web service provider was threatened with seizure of their assets if they continued to host "terrorist" radio programs. Travis E. Towle, the Founder and CEO of Cosmic Entertainment Company, which put up IRARADIO.COM, was told by their internet service provider, Hypervine, that they had been "strongly advised" to take the web site down.

A Hypervine representative read Mr. Towle a statement that, under an Executive Order recently signed by President Bush, the newly created Office of Homeland Security can seize all assets "without any notice and/or any real un-reasonable evidence of any company or person that helps, supports, or does anything that can be called or labeled terrorism or is found to be connected to terrorism in any way or means possible."

Hypervine is a subsidiary of the New York based Skynet. These threats have also caused Cosmic Entertainment to close the web sites archiving two other WBAI radio programs, "Our Americas" and "Grandpa Al Lewis Live." "Our Americas," hosted by Mario Morillo, is an acclaimed news magazine covering Latin America. "Grandpa Al Lewis Live" features commentary by the actor and political activist who starred in "The Munsters" and "Car 54 Where Are You." Radio Free Eireann, which broadcasts Saturday afternoons at 1:30 p.m. on WBAI 99.5 FM has covered the conflict in Northern Ireland for over twenty years. Guests have included Bernadette Sands, the sister of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands; Rauri O'Bradaigh, the President of Republican Sinn Fein; Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.

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Frank on the goodlight board:

Terrorist Financing Executive Order Fri Sep 28 16:56:21 2001

Search whitehouse.gov by keyword http://www.whitehouse.gov/search
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010924-2.html
Fact Sheet on Terrorist Financing Executive Order September 24, 2001

"We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them against each other, rout them out of their safe hiding places, and bring them to justice."

President George W. Bush September 24, 2001

The President has directed the first strike on the global terror network today by issuing an Executive Order to starve terrorists of their support funds. The Order expands the Treasury Department's power to target the support structure of terrorist organizations, freeze the U.S. assets and block the U.S. transactions of terrorists and those that support them, and increases our ability to block U.S. assets of, and deny access to U.S. markets to, foreign banks who refuse to cooperate with U.S. authorities to identify and freeze terrorist assets abroad.

Disrupting the Financial Infrastructure of Terrorism

Targets all individuals and institutions linked to global terrorism. Allows the Treasury Department to freeze U.S. assets and block U.S. transactions of any person or institution associated with terrorists or terrorist organizations. Names specific individuals and organizations whose assets and transactions are to be blocked. Identifies charitable organizations that secretly funnel money to al-Qaeda. Provides donors information about charitable groups who fund terrorist organizations. States the President's intent to punish those financial institutions at home and abroad that continue to provide resources and/or services to terrorist organizations.

Authorities Broadened The new Executive order broadens existing authority in three principal ways:

It expands the coverage of existing Executive orders from terrorism in the Middle East to global terrorism; The Order expands the class of targeted groups to include all those who are "associated with" designated terrorist groups; and Establishes our ability to block the U.S. assets of, and deny access to U.S. markets to, those foreign banks that refuse to freeze terrorist assets.

Blocking Terrorist Assets

The Order prohibits U.S. transactions with those terrorist organizations, leaders, and corporate and charitable fronts listed in the Annex. Eleven terrorist organizations are listed in the Order, including organizations that make up the al-Qaeda network. A dozen terrorist leaders are listed, including Osama bin Ladin and his chief lieutenants, three charitable organizations, and one corporate front organization are identified as well. The Order authorizes the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury to make additional terrorist designations in the coming weeks and months.

Other Actions in War on Terrorist Financing This Executive Order is part of a broader strategy that we have developed for suppressing terrorist financing:

A Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center (FTAT) is up and running. The FTAT is a multi-agency task force that will identify the network of terrorist funding and freeze assets before new acts of terrorism take place. The President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State and others are working with our allies around the world to tackle the financial underpinnings of terrorism. We are working through the G-8 and the United Nations. Already, several of our allies, including Switzerland and Britain, have frozen accounts of suspected terrorists.

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Radio Free Eireann
Down but not out
Wed Oct 3 21:09:50 2001

Republican radio website removed

© 2001 Irish Echo Newspaper Corp.
September 26-October 2, 2001
By Stephen McKinley

The website for the weekly radio show "Radio Free Eireann" was removed from the Internet last Thursday, allegedly because it was perceived to support terrorism. The site, iraradio.com, was the repository for the archives of "Radio Free Eireann," dating back to 1995. It was hosted on the servers of a Kansas City company, Cosmic Entertainment, which in turn takes its server space from a company called Hypervine, a subsidiary of telecommunications company Skynet.

A holding page has replaced the original site informing listeners of the removal, and suggesting that Cosmic's server space suppliers at Hypervine may be indulging in censorship. A Hypervine representative, according to Cosmic's founder Travis E. Towle, told him and his lawyer that iraradio.com and two other radio archive websites, "Al Lewis Live" and "Our Americas," "had to go," after the company had been "strongly advised" to take them down by the Office of Homeland Security because the sites were perceived to be supporting terrorism.

All of the radio shows are broadcast by WBAI out of their Wall Street offices. The Homeland Security office was created by President Bush in the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on Sept. 1, and will be headed up by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. According to a message posted on the iraradio.com site, the Office of Homeland Security can seize all assets "with or without notice and/or any real or unreasonable evidence of any company or person that helps, supports or does anything that can be called or labeled terrorism or is found to be connected to terrorism in any way or means possible."

However, the Office of Homeland Security has only this week acquired office space in the west wing of the White House, and the task of marshalling more than 40 government agencies under a single umbrella has yet to begin.

Indeed, according to sources in Washington, D.C., Ridge will not take up his new post until Oct. 8, and the precise nature of the new department is still the subject of intense debate on Capitol Hill -- nor does it yet have a telephone number.

Saturday's "Radio Free Eireann" show went ahead as normal, according to host John McDonagh. The subject of debate was the hunger strikes in Turkey and also the free speech issues involved in the predicament facing the show and its website. "Radio Free Eireann," originally called "Behind the Green Curtain," has been broadcasting since 1980.

"We got into the topic of why the site went down," McDonagh said. "Cosmic Entertainment's lawyer got a call from Hypervine, telling them that the sites had to go." McDonagh speculated that there was a degree of self-censorship going on after the Sept. 11 attacks, perhaps among employees of Hypervine and its parent company, Skytel, and suggested that the likelihood of the order coming from the Office of Homeland Security was slim. Neither Hypervine nor Skytel representatives were available for comment to the Echo and did not return telephone messages.

Towle of Cosmic Entertainment acknowledged that he had received hundreds of emails since Sept. 11 condemning his company for "supporting terrorism," and he said that Hypervine had received emails and telephone messages to the same effect. Towle said that "Radio Free Eireann" was "25 percent of my business."

"I would put the site back up again, but I need guarantees that someone won't come after me again," he said.

Towle has posted one of the emails that he received at the iraradio.com website, which apparently came from Sweden.

"To my astonishment you are advertising a radio station promoting terrorism with a thinly veiled disguise statement, which states the occupied six counties of Northern Ireland by the British." "After the recent terror tragedies that have happened in the country that you are based in, that is a disgrace that you are promoting such a hateful and inaccurate, talk show site 'IRA Radio Free Eireann.' "

"We're a news-gathering service," McDonagh said in response. "We have voices on our show that our government and other people don't necessarily like to hear."