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Wikileaks Booted From Amazon
dakameleon writes "Wikileaks has been booted from its Amazon hosting, and has now shifted to being hosted in Europe. Senator Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement, 'This morning Amazon informed my staff that it has ceased to host the WikiLeaks website,' which raises the question whether this was requested by the government. Senator Lieberman said Amazon's decision to cut off WikiLeaks 'is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.'"
Nice that amazon have shown their colours... I shall no longer trade with them. Vote with your wallet, it's the only way they'll learn.
"If you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn't object to us searching you car, or home, or spying on your internet."
You've been telling us that for years Mr. Senator. Are you now saying you no longer believe that? Hmmm. First you spied on us, and performed unconstitutional/illegal searches ... and now WE are spying on you. The wheel turns does it not Mr. Politician?
Fucking asshole.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Boo Amazon
I clicked on wikileaks site last night just to see if it worked. The main page worked but when you clicked on a link about the Diplomatic Cables, it re-directed me to a graphical chart page which had nothing to do with it.
I guess they were still moving data at that point.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
but someone leaked my intention to post & ive been booted from my isp
Wow, how did Wikileaks get an Army of its own to "Seize" material illegally?
If you want to keep data secret, you hide it and lock it away.
Another example that all the talk of "Security" in this country is a joke...
I was actually considering buying a Kindle despite its nonstandard format, but this makes me reconsider..
If they cave this easy, how can I trust that they won't remotely remove any books the US government deems undesirable?
As owner of a hosting provider myself and the talks about the DDoS and such, I can see why a hosting provider might want to rid themselves of a problem that would cause issues for other customers, but at the same time, isn't Amazon big enough? At least everyone likes to say how big they are. Where are those zealots now? Some people are realizing that corporations are in control of freedom of speech, not the government. Well that's nothing new.
Hack the planet!
The information WANTS to be free!
~~~ There is no Wikileaks.
Guess it's gonna be harder for Wikileaks to find a host for politically relevant, shocking revelations such as Nicolas Sarkozy chasing a rabbit around the office.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
If I were Amazon I would not want to burn my fingers on hosting something as controversial as Wikileaks. Amazon is a company after all, and they can miss trouble like toothache.
-- Cheers!
Helping to cover-up illegal and immoral deeds is not acceptable.
My business will never use Amazon again.
I'm going to keep asking them why 'till I get satisfactory responses and then I will publish them.
From Lieberman's wikipedia page,
"On June 19, 2010, Lieberman introduced a bill called "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010",[75] which he co-wrote with Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE). If signed into law, this controversial bill, which the American media dubbed the "Kill switch bill", would grant the President emergency powers over the Internet. However, all three co-authors of the bill issued a statement claiming that instead, the bill "[narrowed] existing broad Presidential authority to take over telecommunications networks".[76]"
"We are also investigating whether the prosecutor's application to have Mr Assange held incommunicado without access to lawyers, visitors or other prisoners - again a unique request - is in any way linked to this matter and the recent, rather bellicose US statements of an intention to prosecute Mr Assange."
Emphasis mine.
The majority of the classified information they've dump has been the sort of shit that the federal government produces in reams and forgets about. It's not "whistle-blower grade" materials like the Pentagon Papers. All it's likely to do is make the politicians more paranoid and to impose security theater on federal agencies. There's already enough of that within the federal government itself. The last thing we need is more.
What Wikileaks needs to do is focus on stuff like exposing Bank of America which it says it plans to do. What the big banks have done to this country and world is actually worse than what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their behavior has quite literally crippled the ability of the housing market in the US to function, ever, without radical political intervention to clean up the title disputes, and that is only the tip of the iceberg. It's more likely than not that their manipulations have us on the precipice of a depression that is far worse than the Great Depression. Sure, we found out that an extra 15k Iraqis died than we were officially told; the big banks have laid the foundation for an economic environment in which a lot of people in our own country may very well starve to death before it's all said and done.
If Assange's goal really is to clean house, then there are many targets that are softer, more inviting and more damning when exposed than most of what Wikileaks has accomplished with the DoD. If I had his ear, I'd tell him to go after Goldman Sachs. Go for the mother load of information from them. Get someone to hand over all of the server logs of communications between them and federal officials. Or better yet...
Target the Federal Reserve.
I know it happens all the time.. but I strongly believe that business shouldn't get involved in politics, and politics should not get involved in business.
Because of the strong opposition from especially the USA, Wikileaks has become a political faction (rather than just media)... the line between media and politics is thin anyway.
so, it's a good decision for Amazon to break all ties with Wikileaks. It's just that the timing makes it a political decision in itself.
The USA growled so loudly about wikileaks that a lot of organisations that wouldn't care about it now chose that it's wiser to be against wikileaks.
When the MI6 operatives list was being mirrored by American citizens, MI6 said that it would "endanger the lives of agents", and yet the U.S. government did not take down any web sites, and American citizens were not threatened with prosecution for publishing the list. Now an Australian citizen releases data that the U.S. government would rather didn't see the light of day, and U.S. politicians are calling for censorship, internet kill switches, and executions and assassinations of everybody involved. If China or Russia did the same, these politicians would be crying crocodile tears for the death of freedom. Hypocrites.
Correct link: MI6 operatives list.
... they were taken down for violating Amazon's "Acceptable Use Policy":
http://aws.amazon.com/aup/
No Illegal, Harmful, or Offensive Use or Content
You may not use the Services or AWS Site for any illegal, harmful or offensive use, or to transmit, store, display, distribute or otherwise make available content that is illegal, harmful, or offensive. Prohibited activities or content include:
* Illegal Activities. Any illegal activities, including advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available gambling sites or services or disseminating, promoting or facilitating child pornography.
* Harmful or Fraudulent Activities. Activities that may be harmful to our users, operations, or reputation, including offering or disseminating fraudulent goods, services, schemes, or promotions (e.g., make-money-fast schemes, ponzi and pyramid schemes, phishing, or pharming), or engaging in other deceptive practices.
* Infringing Content. Content that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property or proprietary rights of others.
* Offensive Content. Content that is defamatory, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy, or otherwise objectionable, including content that constitutes child pornography, relates to bestiality, or depicts non-consensual sex acts.
* Harmful Content. Content or other computer technology that may damage, interfere with, surreptitiously intercept, or expropriate any system, program, or data, including viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, or cancelbots.
All attributes marked above could be argued by any of the parties affected by the leaks.
My favorite is "being offensive".
Fuck. I could demand 90% of the Internet to be turned off permanently on account of that alone.
You see, I'm very easily offended by a wide variety of things.
And don't you get me started on otherwise objectionable. Cause... Oh boy...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
They tought that where in the cloud, but now looks like coming from a smoking gun.
not even with thunderous applauses. with some senators prosecuting those who give information to the public, and some private companies obeying. all is well.
Read radical news here
im an ecommerce developer, who implements numerous technologies. from now on, ill be advising my customers to stay away from anything amazon. not to mention that, im now less inclined to use their api to do anything with them.
let them enjoy their a few bucks a sale cut from the right-leaning, democracy-unfriendly hardliner sellers they have there.
Read radical news here
What the big banks have done to this country and world is actually worse than what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I suggest you ask the people who really know the answer to this: the dead innocents and their family members. Gee, it's not exactly the same answer you arrived at, is it?
No matter how you spin it, those people are infinitely more qualified than you to provide the answer.
Sure, we found out that an extra 15k Iraqis died than we were officially told
Just read that line back to yourself a few times........ THAT is why this is important.
Thank you wikileaks.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Well I had a read of the Acceptable Use Policy above and I can't see any grounds under that unless you include embarrassing officials as offensive. They're doing nothing illegal, mainly it's a question of extent compared to what newspapers do every day of the week. I guess they must have an 'or any other reason why' clause somewhere or else have just done it knowing they won't be sued.
thou discernest my thoughts from afar
because the angsty crowd which has taken over /. in the last few years is the last group I want to be associated with. I mean, really, if the amount of protesting, chest thumping ,wearing sackcloth, that you see expressed on message boards like this translated into the real world it would really have to be a different place. Yet it isn't. Why not? Because this is where the effort ended for those angst ridden posters.
When working a friends election campaign we didn't have any of those types around, oh sure some would show up ONCE. Apparently they are more "idea people" and the foot work is best left to other people. We just nod our heads when they showed up, and promptly ignored them knowing they would not return. Pretty much for the same who posted on his site. Its really easy to know who is worth paying attention to and who is not.
Nah, I will stick with Amazon. Their decision has no effect on me. Wikileaks by its very nature needs to stand on its own. We have no right to expect any other companies to support them nor do we have a right to require them to do so. Frankly and publicly traded company would be nuts to do so. Wikileaks needs to rat on the banks they claim they will very soon because once they get their guy all this will vanish.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I have to agree. I think WikiLeaks has a case of target fixation. They made a name for themselves for the Iraq documents and then again with the Afgan documents. Both of these releases honestly just seemed like huge dumps of data with some cursory investigation to make sure names were blotted out. I honestly thought the point of Wikileaks was to point out specific problems and back them up with evidence. In all three of their data dumps, they seem to have lost this objective. There is too much data to be going through for most people, so instead you get a few incidents that people stumble across. I would have rather that they spent the time to look at the documents, identify what they believe are problems, illegal behavior, etc, and then build a package / case of evidence. If they had released a "package" of documents that showed how the US was spying on the UN and focused completely on that, it would have had a much bigger impact than "oh noes, your state department data isn't secure. Ha ha ha"
...setting up a private EC2 cloud for them has NOTHING to do with this I am sure.
While I agree that Wikileaks should have done a much better job of auditing and redacting information that identifies sources in the recent leak, I think the anger directed at Wikileaks and Julian Assange is misdirected and blown way out of proportion.
As far as I know, Wikileaks does not actively investigate anything. They simply provide an anonymous publishing method for whistleblowers.
They have published information about many private companies and countries other than the U.S. in the past.
After the Iraq and Afghan leaks, it appears the U.S. has gone after him ("alleged rape") and his site. I don't know why the previous leaks are missing, but it may be a technical issue or maybe it's a reaction to the (apparently U.S. led) witch hunt.
I would suggest that people direct their sense of patriotism against the people/person who leaked the info to Wikileaks instead... and (as with everything) don't believe everything you hear on Fox News, MSNBC, or any other single media source.
As for why other less-democratic countries secret info hasn't been leaked on the same scale, I can't say for sure. But I can speculate that it is in part due to stronger repercussions against such leaks. I'm sure some countries would have no qualms about silencing a leaker and their entire family in ways our rule of law would not condone.
What the big banks have done to this country and world is actually worse than what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan
No, a hundred thousand people killed by a country with no right to even be in their hemisphere is a million times worse than the loss of economic productivity. Not one single Iraqi ever physically harmed an American outside of their sovereign border. The same goes for the Afghani people.
And you wonder why no one has respect for the American culture anymore? Go fuck yourself.
"I don't give a fuck about what happens outside US territory. "
No surprise there since people like you can barely even find "outside the US" on a map.
"What I want is a government that is weak w/ most of the power belonging to the people ("
Yeah , right on brother! Hows it going down in your bunker in Montana these days? Or should I say your bedroom in your parents house?
"It should be out in the open, not hidden, otherwise representative government Can Not work."
So touchingly naive. Never mind , you'll grow up one day.
"What you are supporting is basically a return to the European Dark Ages, where the leaders operated in the dark without the people's knowledge,"
Whatever. I think I heard your mum calling you for dinner...
US: "Sooo we hear you've been getting off pretty light in the tax department eh Amazon?"
Amazon: "Er... yes that's right, thank you..."
US: "Be an awful shame should we start trying to enforce some tax law, or perhaps create some new ones wouldn't it?"
Amazon: "Yes that would be a shame, hold on a sec I think we have some guy violating our 300 page service agreement in someway our lawyers just found"
Amazon: "Wikileaks we regret to inform you that you have violated section 12.4B paragraph 32, page 211 of our EULA, and have terminated our agreement"
Wikileaks: "Buggers!"
US: Smiles.
US Diplomats have always been singing like canaries all the time. From the time of Kissinger till now. Only now it is more in you face (thro' the web). I can't understand the witch hunt...
To paraphrase the words of Nicolas Cage in Con Air - it's THEIR barbecue.
In other words - those are Amazon's rules FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS. They don't apply for Amazon itself.
Kinda like how the store owner can open a pack of crisps and start eating them right there, while a buyer doing the same thing might be accused of shoplifting.
But you are free to get a lawyer and contest in court that you are offended by Christmas.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed or critically injured, and those that weren't are living in worse conditions than under Saddam Hussein's rule, but I'm 10% underwater on the suburban McMansion I bought in 2006.... I'm the victim I tell ya!"
Target the Federal Reserve.
And buy gold coins to bury in your backyard!
We're not in Great Depression II. We're not even as bad off as in the 1970's. Lots of people are really hurting economically, through little or no fault of their own, and they do need help. I agree that the "too big to fail" banks are culpable, but the only way lots of people in the US are going to starve is if the "de-regulate everything" and "drown government in a bathtub" folks get their way.
What's more interesting to me than the specifics of the leaks and the political fallout from them is the social engineering, as it were, that seems to be going on.
If you go to most legitimate "unbiased" (for what the claim is worth) news sites around the world and read articles on wikileaks even the most rational, balanced news stories are full of outrageous, unsupported claims against wikileaks, Assange, et. al. in the comments from the readers. A simple example is the oft-repeated charge against Assange of being a child molester. I've seen comments in fully half of the stories I've read in UK media, US media, Canadian media, and asian media along the lines of "He looks just like a pedophile that lived down the road from me" followed by an assertion that Assange = Wikileaks.
I've even noticed that for the first 2 or 3 /. articles on this most recent Wikileaks leak that for the first severals hours the vast majority of +5 comments were anti-WL and anti-Assange, which seems out of place for here.
So the question I'm left wondering is this: Is the US gov't, or some other powerful enemy of Wikileaks, performing proactive character assassination by bombing the web with libelous comments, or are people so hopelessly under the control of Gov't=>Media that they willingly spout off whatever they're told to?
If it's the latter we're all in a lot of trouble...
I think Wikileaks should get Nobel Peace Prize.
But...we need to separate Wikileaks from Assange. The messenger is not more important than the message.
No one is going to prison for being good or evil or inhumane or anarchist or conservative or liberal...but for the mistakes they did. Or for the mistakes which were leaked.
And Assange was stupid. He should have controlled his Wiki.
Wikileaks should disown Assange and find a new messenger. If not, I do not see any hope for Wikileaks.
Tat Tvam Asi
Goodness me you're dim. Yes, they have the right to change their mind... ...and we have the right to criticise them for that decision - whether they had the 'right' to do it or not.
That's what most people here are doing.
Your observation added nothing. No doughnut for you.
The market decides. In this case, Amazon would have suffered a bad Christmas quarter if they continued hosting.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
We are not talking laws or legality here. We are talking HOUSE RULES.
If someone with authority at Amazon finds that they MAY be breaking any of the Amazon's RULES - they can kick them out. Simple as that.
Don't like that? Get a lawyer and argue your points in court.
THEN you can call upon laws and illegality or absence thereof.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If Assange had taken advantage of the myriad ways of distributing information so that we'd never have heard "wikileaks" or "Julian Assange", how would governments be responding to it now?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I have never been a huge fan of Amazon. I use a reader everyday and chose the nook because of amazon's ham-fisted way they lock down the kindle.
All that being said, I will be making several purchases this Christmas season specifically because of their action with wikileaks. I praise that they booted them!
Go ahead and flame away, I don't really care. I feel wikileaks broke the law and that they have a vendetta against the United States. All you America haters would side with wikileaks even if they were stomping on puppies, as long as they continued their jihad against America.
As for the freedom of speeh crowd, yes, freedom of speach is important. But there are limits and releasing classified information is not one of them.
IMO, not buying from Amazon is not the clearest message. A clear message is to CANCEL your already placed order and then them WHY in the cancel reason.
I am not particularly in support of WikiLeaks, but what I protest against is how Amazon simply bend over for the US Govt. It means if the US govt wants to get the book order history of me, or more likely, get the massive database of order histories of all Amazon customers, Amazon will also likely just bend over and give them that.
I have nothing to hide, but I value my privacy also, so I won't be buying from Amazon anymore.
Oliver.
Netcraft has been tracking the shifts in Wikileaks' infrastructure, and notes today that one of its post-Amazon hosts is Swedish ISP Bahnhof Internet, which operates the "James Bond Villain" data center housed in a nuke-proof bunker 100 feet beneath Stockholm.
"which raises the question whether this was requested by the government."
This is exactly why wikileaks exists. To answer these questions.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Just read that line back to yourself a few times........ THAT is why this is important.
I think you missed the critical section as to why it is not important. To quote the full sentence
Sure, we found out that an extra 15k Iraqis died than we were officially told; the big banks have laid the foundation for an economic environment in which a lot of people in our own country may very well starve to death before it's all said and done.
See if people die somewhere else, they are not as important as the people in their own country. People in "the land of the free" are more important than others. Ah well ...
But I am guessing that there is something written somewhere about distribution of illegally obtained information or material that is the property of United States of America.
And Amazon being a U.S. company, situated in the U.S. is very much under the influence of any laws and regulations that might be pertinent to the case here.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for Wikileaks and what they are doing. I'm just saying that they are HIGHLY vulnerable to various legal attacks.
And all this that is happening right now is about documents that were mostly not even deemed secret.
Imagine if it was something actually BIG and "eyes only".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
but in some sort of secret national security letter
No need for secret letters when you are three-letter-government-organization.
Just call the person responsible directly and "ask politely".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I shared a plane with the Senator one time. His skin seemed to glow is was so smooth. But perhaps Master Windu will be coming for him now.
"I don't think it's fair to expect Amazon to keep them on"
Your argument made rational sense until you claimed it was about "fairness". Not quite sure why you confused your own argument when in the next sentence you were probably closer to the truth - that Amazon have decided it doesn't make financial sense to host Wikileaks any longer.
Fairness in business is up there with all that "invisible hand of the market" fairy tale stuff. It's down to fallible people making judgements on what they think will make most profit for their businesses.
Yes, and almost all of them were killed by their own people. Some things don't change. Before they had Saddam Hussein and his government killing people, now it's extremist groups. That leak actually provided more rationale for the U.S. remaining in Iraq (I'm not saying we should, I'm just saying that the consequences of these leaks is far more complex than people think). It's the same thing with this cables leak - it gives more justification for overthrowing Iran's government (that's something many of the Arab nations want the U.S. to do) as well as North Korea's (that's something that China wouldn't stop; they might just even encourage it). Further, most of the leaked cables are far more condemning of other countries than they are of the U.S. Lastly, there will likely be more secrecy now with fewer paper trails.
Governments need some secret dealings (not as much as we have) but one of the problems with Wikileaks is that we cannot predict the consequences. Sure, some consequences will be positive but some will be negative. Do the positives outweigh the negatives? We won't know for many years.
What gives the US the right to declare a foreigner is violating it's laws when the said foreigner is a) not a US Citizen and b) not residing in the US?.
All attackers were foreign citizens without permanent residence in US.
Come on. Get serious here. Legal is what the government(s) SAY is legal. Illegal also.
And when you find the time, go and ask around about "democratically elected" governments toppling regimes of other democratically elected governments just because it suits them so and providing nothing more for an excuse than "we REALLY don't like their ideology".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... The chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee?
Gee... I don't know. Maybe their kids carpool to school together?
Or maybe it has to do with all that "security" shtick of his. Can't really say. Go ask him.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
And after you have cancelled all outstanding orders, close your account to drive home the point.
I stopped patronizing Craigslist after they removed the erotic services section after intense political pressure.
The exact same reason, stop looking at me like that...
I must say I still haven't heard anything too relevant in those leaks but if they're as bad as the US government made them sound, then I'm glad wikileaks is losing ground and I think the government would be justified in doing what they can to shut them down.
Let's not be naive people, the diplomacy of any country can be destroyed with leaks so this is a national security issue. To those people saying they don't care about what's going on outside the US, well guess what, diplomacy matters for what happens inside USA. We can't live alone anymore in this world.
Don't get me wrong, I also want to know all the gossip in the highest levels of diplomacy but that's our nature, we're curious creatures, don't let that get in the way of your security. I'm not even american but I see a lot of ingenuity here.
Why would this be any different than website in the US that already get a pass for hosting material, based on the idea that "they have no responsibility for material posted to their site by others? Is this not the same thing? As for the government having the traction to shut the down, I disagree. I'm a veteran, a US citizen, but I am also 'the government' or the body politic, and I think its great. Im kind of tired of 'the gubmint' doing all sorts of things in 'my' name, keeping it from me because it may be unpalatable to my delicate sensibilities. Wahhh.....if people realized how much of this was going on maybe they wouldn't be so ignorant about things like how world events are handled or how conflicts are resolved and restructure their responses (or approval of those responses) accordingly.
If it's not broken, let's fix it till it is.
If Amazon can handle such a public disaster, what kind of `other favours` can they do or already do behind closed doors?
Let me be more clear. They have a device that is completely closed, even a pdf must pass from device software and mega ironically we already know it is under _their_ control as they could wipe 1984 over there.
For example, I got a French designed e-book reader which is powered by Linux/Open Source and can also do DRM commercial books using Adobe DRM. So, a little company can do it but Amazon can't? Of course that design has a flaw (!), it can't be tracked that easily as there are multiple stores and accepts standard epub.
Also does Amazon "cloud" use any FSF/GPL software? As free software is way more than "saving couple of bucks", GPL software has very specific terms that you can't deny its usage to anyone, including "enemies".
ps to Assange if he reads this: (attempt to) Publish the entire archive in e-book format, via Amazon kindle store. Let people see their real faces, their customers especially.
NPR radio had a piece on this yesterday. Primary acquirers of information violating the espionage law have been successfully prosecuted. Re-distributed have been unsuccessfully prosecuted. May require a Supreme Court decision eventually.
So, if USA growls loudly at BBC, it will also 'become a political faction' and can be cut off from the Internet by all USA ISPs?
BBC is a real interesting entity, they were even blamed by "iron lady" herself for serving enemy interests in _active_ war. E.g. people firing to each other, not cold war BS.
I think USA should consult with UK PM before doing such action. Funny is, it is nearly impossible to "stop" BBC. At last resort, they boot their SW transmitters which were very carefully placed.
Another thing is, we speak about some kind of prestige that actual active enemies of UK, actual terrorists fighting against UK choose for sending their declarations.
I thought they were hosted at PRQ?
I know it happens all the time.. but I strongly believe that business shouldn't get involved in politics, and politics should not get involved in business.
Because of the strong opposition from especially the USA, Wikileaks has become a political faction (rather than just media)... the line between media and politics is thin anyway.
so, it's a good decision for Amazon to break all ties with Wikileaks. It's just that the timing makes it a political decision in itself.
The USA growled so loudly about wikileaks that a lot of organisations that wouldn't care about it now chose that it's wiser to be against wikileaks.
Now everyone will think twice about the fancy sounding "cloud" services and off loading their stuff to them.
The real hit will be e-book services they provide. Nobody would want to be recorded/archived by an entity who disrupts such a publicly known service with a single phone call.
I will be a total troll when I see any open source (in spirit of FSF) uses Amazon services especially s3.
Nice that amazon have shown their colours... I shall no longer trade with them. Vote with your wallet, it's the only way they'll learn.
What they will learn is that there is nothing to be feared from a geek screaming "Boycott!"
The sad part is, we don't need Wikileaks to know that the Fed should be abolished
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Debt-Ellen-Hodgson-Brown/dp/0979560888/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291296798&sr=8-1
From the above link:
The Fed makes money ex nihilo, pulling it out of thin air rather than taking it from its coffers. Then, it pushes the money into the economy by buying up assets from banks.
So the banks get all this free money at the same time we talk about "deficit reduction" in the form of extending the retirement age, cutting medicare/medicade benefits and a host of other spending (except wars of course). Maybe if we didn't give the banks free money we would have money for things like health care.
If a site can disrupt such a service, can't they respond to some Govt. agency or a large bank when they want to learn every single information about people buying those "evil" books? Especially people using Kindle? Hell Kindle can even send location data, no super secret tech required.
Who would know? Just look at the amazing amount of tracking data on your link. Not blaming you, it is their dark system which does it.
The funniest thing is the huffle puffle overreactions by the self important nobodies of the intertoobs.
Like this:
let them enjoy their a few bucks a sale cut from the right-leaning, democracy-unfriendly hardliner sellers they have there.
YEAH! Fight the power, Homer! Woot! Raise you fist and cry "Enh!"
Well, I'm off to cheezburger land to express my discontent in a tersely worded LOLCat caption!
There were about 250 combat deaths during the First Gulf War. The vast majority of those were in Iraq.
I did not find any information to support any other deaths caused by Iraqi citizens. Nevertheless, you are correct.
Oscar Swartz is the founder of that company, and seems like a pretty cold guy.
Blog here (swedish): http://swartz.typepad.com/
Emotions! In your brain!
I'll be spending extra at amazon, and telling every little self-important, ideological punk I can find so I can watch them go into a fit and begin to shake their little fists in rage. And then I'll put dirt in their hair. :-) And then I'll enjoy my cool stuff from amazon.
Only: Which Judge has declared the material illegal. As it is Amazon made themselves Juge, Jury and Executioner which is not democratic. But then: Amazon where never Democratic and it was not the first time that Amazon took the law into their own hand.
I aways thought that one is innocent until declared guilty by a appointed Judge and Jury. Or if time is on the essence there should at the very least be an Injunction.
Sure. But punishing without court is vigilantism. And that is just as illegal.
Rely on an out-of-house entity for your hosting and you're subject to getting the plug pulled on you. Nevermind if they decide you're a "bad guy" and just shut down your access or hand over your assets to some government entity.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Been down this road with customers at various collocation vendors. If the customer isn't on a metered or tiered bandwidth agreement and doesn't have a dedicated server, then when they exceed whatever shared limits the company sets, then we offer them the upgrade(s). If they don't take it, they stay at the current service level as long as they're not impacting other customers.
A case could be made for economics having been the driving factor. Hard to know for sure, but if some Amazon insider wants to tell the story, at least they know where to go to do so.
Yeah! Mod me down! Remember to shake your fist at the screen as you do it! Hey, I'm just wikileaking the truth about Slashdot here.
Great. As did I. In case someone wants a ready made cancellation note, here's my best shot:
"I hereby close my Amazon.com account. All orders have already been canceled.
I close my account in objection to Amazon.com's recent removal of wikileaks content from their servers without clarification, let alone due process. This cancellation is not meant as an endorsement of the actions of wikileaks per se, but expresses my discontent with Amazon.com's
hosting policies. By removing content at whim, Amazon.com expressly takes a political stance. It is my belief that a provider should offer services equally to all, except those found illegal by the courts".
With EC2, S3 and other AWS, Amazon repeatedly pushed the envelope technically and I loved them for it, but after the 1-click patent and their ironic silent removal of 1984 purchases from Kindles, this is the last straw.
If in doubt, remember that having an account buys you nothing (except 1-click).
Hey asshole, go back and reread what I actually wrote.
You see to think it's "oh noes, Johnny won't be able to buy the latest XBox 360 game."
What I wrote was that "Johnny, his family and much of his community will literally have the economy collapse around them."
Like most people, you seem to have no clue how badly the banks have screwed up. Well, let me clue you in...
1) They've literally destroyed the majority of the West's saved capital.
2) They've nearly destroyed the enforceability of the land title laws in at least the United States which means private home ownership, heck even eminent domain, is legally precarious since the system can longer resolve who owns what.
3) They've destroyed most of the capital that backs both private employers and governments alike.
You know what that means, sparky? It means that they've got a spasming finger resting on the reset button of our economies and political systems.
When that reset button finally gets hit, it means there won't be an efficient supply chain to get you munchies to eat while you get pissy on Slashdot. It means that if you live in an area that depends on a regular food shipments, there won't be anything to trade with and keep the shipments going.
It means most of the West will be looking at the worst depression it's ever seen. The sort of thing that used to exist only in the realm of academic theory and horror movies.
No, that's just your own ideological filters altering reality until it fits into your tiny, tiny bubble.
That the American Government had 1) Chosen to shoot the messanger and 2) used government influence peddling to promote censorship is disgusting. Wikileaks is a whistle blowing website. The American Government promotes itself (and bills itself to other countries) as the strongest proponent of democracy. Freedom of speech!, they cry out. Freedom of the Press!, they cry out. But when the rubber meets the road, the free speech is censored. Some idiots have called for assassinations. Boy, talk about wanting to shoot the messenger! Did Wikileaks make anything up? Are they to be convicted of publishing untruthful accounts? Who made up the damning information? THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT! It sure isn't 1776 anymore is it! Freedom of the Press? Freedom of Speech? Oh, I see. Only if it doesn't embarrass anyone in a position of power. How is this different from all the pocket dictators, fifth columnists, communists, and junta artists in the world? Its no different! The US Government had a chance to practice what it preaches. Instead, they get a big fat F for this one. They failed. Everyone is watching, and they failed. Sarah Palin is one of the lead flunkies, but there are politicians on the left who are flunking out too. I'm disgusted!
I was quoting myself where I've explained why your post makes no sense.
But if you want another analogy...
Think of it as a storekeepers kid coming into the store and, while lazily talking to his parent, munching on a piece of candy he just took off the rack - and then walking out without paying.
And by kid, I mean a "sub corp".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
1. Amazon, a commercial cloud hosting provider, has, it appears acted pre-emptively and capriciously
to take down content based on political pressure from a single government.
2. This has been done before any court has ruled on the legality of the distribution of the content in this
particular case.
3. Legal precedents, such as USA vs New York Times, indicate that, at least according to
current precedent, this distribution should not be presumed illegal.
This rights-violating conduct by a commercial cloud hosting provider demonstrates the need for
a viable alternative solution for the hosting of controversial content. It is time that software geeks
interested in a generally open information climate devote considerable effort to creating a
non-commercially controlled, decentralized-responsibility, globally distributed encrypted information
infrastructure layer. Something along the lines of freenet but easier (dead simple, no config)
for anyone at all to host.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It is not about "law" but Amazon's in-house RULES.
"Otherwise objectionable" is just another way of saying "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone".
The burden of proving some kind of illegal discrimination by Amazon and seeking monetary or other reimbursement is now on the Wikileaks.
My guess is that they are not going to pursue that lawsuit any time soon.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Holy mothereffing baby Jesus in a hot rodded pram, did you ever read things into my post. I mean... wow!! Absolutely LOL!
Did you remember to shake your fist at the screen when you posted? C'mon! Shake your fist for the Rebellion!
Then there is a public backlash against such a corporation
where is the public backlash against amazon now ? if you have missed, amazon diligently informed lieberman of their action. it would be stupid not to think that there was some pressure involved.
before you even utter out anything regarding 'legality of distributing that information', i have one word to say to you ; watergate.
with the moron logic this administration and senators are using, publishing watergate scandal would be impossible, and illegal.
Read radical news here
I keep checking the news releases portion of their web site, but I haven't seen anything yet.
When I heard about this, I wrote to amazon and told them that they would no longer enjoy my business if they had just decided to roll over after getting a couple of phone calls from a Senator's office and someone at the DHS "asking" them to take down the material. If they had received a court order demanding that they stop hosting the material(doesn't look like that's the case) I can't blame them. Perhaps they can make a convincing argument that their terms of service were being violated? I'm waiting for word directly from them before deciding what to do.
If their policy is to simply bow to the whims of federal authorities, it makes you wonder if they'll simply turn over the personal data and purchase history of their customers if some authority figure just "asks".
Nah, I will stick with Amazon. Their decision has no effect on me
do that. people did like that too, in between 1928-1939 in germany. corporations were supporting nazi party, and discriminating against minorities. it didnt affect germans, so they just stuck with the same corporations. household names now, a lot of them, you know ? name a famous german company, and chances are 80% that it was a nazi party supporter back in the era.
then what happened ?
the idiots who just stuck with the corporations which suppressed minorities and supported nazi party, died in eastern front, or in city bombings.
well deserved. dearly bought.
Read radical news here
Thanks. My list was not complete. Amazon make the "law" as well.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Have you been on heise's web site recently? I guess Amazon lost some customer in Germany.
Oscar Swartz is the founder of that company, and seems like a pretty cold guy.
We do have heating here in Sweden, you know.
It is impossible for a corporation to be a 'pure tyranny' as it must receive revenue through voluntary transactions with the market.
As an European security consultant I'll have to use this case as reminder to my customers that there are serious unpredictable political risks in using US-based cloud services.
I like EC2. This was a very bad advertisement for them and all cloud providers.
Lieberman simply lets Amazon know that a bill requiring internet tax collection is under consideration.
Nojå, annars vore jag död. Ty vintern som lagt sig över de norrländska skogarna är den mest obarmhärtiga på tio år, och bjärvarna hukar dreglande utanför pallisaderna.
Emotions! In your brain!
WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material
That's an idea! Sue Wikileaks for copyright infringement. I wonder why they haven't done it yet.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
That would allow anyone interested in WikiLeaks to assure it's existance by becoming a Custodian of WikiLeaks documentation to share with others through any redundancy of networks; keeping an Organic network allive that can't be DDOS's out of existance by a foreign Foe in a govern-mental position.
I've been experimenting with this, in the hopes that a simple low-bandwidth static HTML webpage could get a Peer2Peer application in Javascript to allow people to access all of WikiLeaks as like a Peered swarm to constantly CRC audit original content in each of their shares while allowing Peers to redundantly host WikiLeaks from their computer to be accessed as a gateway to the HTML over redundant Peers.
It needs to be done, better than DynDNS yesterday before that Internet Kill Switch can prevent the mirror from arriving.
Hi, corporations exist of law, are animated by strawmen at-law, not in-law as Natural persons.
Take note that many lawsuits are brought by contracts between corporations and Strawmen-artifice of Natural persons, and the attornies are writing into the contract that the corporation is become equal to a person.
Notice how the status of a corporation becoming equal to a person is in-fact a 14th amendment status that exists only in the contract at-law but not in-law by Statutes.
HINT: Legal is not Lawful, because even a criminal felon can sign a contract with you.
Just a matter of time till it becomes self-aware.
why does anybody pay attention to the slimeball, joe liberman? He represents everything that is rotten about politics, and yet i keep seeing his name in the press. Are we really that hard up for celebrity?
I've got a better one. Why won't Jeff Bezos sign over all his money and assets to me?
I mean... since it's obviously the "Ask stupid rhetorical questions day"...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Bowing to Chinese Pressure to silence dissent against the government and their corrupt Bureaucrats: Bad
Bowing to United States Pressure to silence dissent against our government and their corrupt corporate overlords: Good
Just so we're all on the same page here.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
What is the source of that quote?
It's not a quote, it's a joke. "Yah, otherwhise I'd be dead. For the winter that has descended upon the northland forests is the most merciless one in a decade, and the hunched and drooling shapes of (unholy mythical combination between a bear and a wolverine used in the swedish comedy series "pistvakt" or "ski slope guard") circle the pallisades."
This sounds funnier in swedish, because if you say something in swedish in this manner it not only sounds over-the-top serious, but also something like if you just waltzed in from a "Beowulf" set - people from the north are often regarded as humorously crude and naive hillbillies.
Emotions! In your brain!