legal cases

The major legal databases that large academic libraries have access to: Lexis Academic, Westlaw, and Hein Online appear to have VERY little on actual legal cases regarding Indymedia. Lexis Academic does get 89 hits for the search: indymedia and attack* in "Major World Publications" (News); one as far back at April 14 2001. But a search of federal and state law cases gets nothing for indymedia, and nothing even for: independent news, alternative news, alternative press, or independent reporters. Alternative media gets one irrelevant hit ("alternative media" for supplying legal reports).

But European law search does get 4 hits for the search: Indymedia:

1. Copyright 2006 EUR-Lex, European Communities, Preparatory Acts, November 21, 2003, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee - First Report on the application of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (Directive on electronic commerce), July 17, 2006
... Deutsche Bahn v. Indymedia, judgement by Rechtbank ...

2. Copyright 2006 EUR-Lex, European Communities, Parliamentary Questions, 2002 OJ C 229, March 04, 2002, WRITTEN QUESTION E-0546/02 by Ilka Schroder (GUE/NGL) to the Council. Raid by the Netherlands Police on the Vrankrijk Building in Amsterdam., July 17, 2006
... at http://www.indymedia.de/2002/01/ ...

I talked with a law library colleague about this question. The answer is not as cut and dried as the answer "70" above makes it seem. The LexisNexis results are basically how many cases cited 18 USC 2101, not how many people were charged under 18USC2101. Additionally, Lexis results have some duplication as the same case may have been tried at several different levels (all the way up to the Supreme Court) and cited the same law each time. This is a subtle but critical difference. My law library colleague said there's no way to really do that search directly using the current tools available (LexisNexis and WestLaw). Looking at each case in depth is really the only way to get that number. I've attached the searches for 18USC2101 (rioting) and 18USC2102 (definitions).

Please let radref know if you've got other questions, or you can visit the NYC public law library (map). FYI There are public law libraries across the country with knowledgeable reference librarians.