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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
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.
The data wasn't hosted on Amazon, only the front page.. Which makes this even weirder, they weren't even hosting the leaked material on Amazon.
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!
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
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
If you were really a good consultant worth your wage you would do what's best for your clients regardless of your personal political agenda. You can decide what clients to take, and you certainly make choices based on your ideals when its your own business. You should make that choice and not take the client if you know you won't be able to steer them towards what is really the best solution for them.
Sure if you client wants to run a politically sensitive website you might be very correct in advising them that Amazon might not be a good choice because they have a history now drop customers that attract what in their view is the wrong kind of traffic and attention. For the vast majority of other clients who want pretty basic hosting and commerce services Amazon is probably at least as good a choice as anything else and should at least be considered. Be a good consultant and take care of your customers. Do your think every defense attorney really thinks their client is innocent, you think the civil guys always think their client is in the right? No they think they can win or if they are on retainer they do their level best to win putting their personal feelings aside. You should try being a professional and doing that.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If you were really a good consultant worth your wage you would do what's best for your clients regardless of your personal political agenda.
Freedom of speech is best for ALL of your clients. Putting them on a hosting provider which will terminate them if they elect to use their website as a soapbox is limiting their options and not in their best interest.
You should try being a professional and doing that.
You should try being a patriotic citizen, and stand up for your rights. Either you have principles or you don't. Anyone willing to compromise their "principles" never had them in the first place, they were just nice ideas they had no intention of living up to.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So if I break into your house, take all of your personal records and put them up online... its good right? Free speech and all that. Wikileaks isn't doing anything but prove to the government that their data isn't secure. In retaliation, the government needs to prove to itself and its allies that it can secure data. Most of the documents they've released don't prove anything, they are just documents. Sure, a few of them do point out things that the US government is doing wrong, but wikileaks itself doesn't seem to be building a case against that wrong. They're merely putting your credit card statements online and waiting for someone else to go through them to see if they can find inconsistencies that prove that you're cheating on your wife.
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 guess "received via email" isn't nearly so sensationalist. You're right, this whole furore exists precisely as a ruse to hide embarassment over the fact that such huge gaping potential for leaks exists in the first place, and if that means blurring the lines between someone being sent information and someone somehow illegally obtaining it through means of a seizure, I guess that's what they'll resort to (hell, there's probably a cable to that effect flying around).
Angst? There's no angst here, maybe you've been working in politics too long and now you just color what you say out of habit. As in your sideways way of calling people who disagree with you childish. The thing about politicians is they get to make statements like that and then walk away from the podium...bullshit statements like yours (and theirs) don't fly in any face-to-face conversation with any intelligent person.
And what is this "...by it's very nature needs to stand on its own" bs? You saying that if wikileaks accepts help from anyone it invalidates something? What the hell premise is that based on?
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
You say that like being a whore is a bad thing.
It isn't. It's certainly a job that's more reputable than many others, such as telemarketer or Visual Basic developer.
But it's also a job many wouldn't like to exercise...
"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...
... or Visual Basic developer.
Oh god, there are children on this site, watch your language!
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
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.
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
Does the world seem more peaceful to you now? I mean, damaging diplomatic processes between China and North Korea when NK and SK are at the verge of war that would cause death on a scale not seen in decades? That's what qualifies for a Nobel peace prize these days? Since when did Nobel Peace Prize = "I agree with what they're doing". You can agree with wikileaks, but understand the process that they are putting the world through is not causing peace.
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.
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.
I'm half sure I'm contractually prohibited from saying this, but I will tell you that I know for a fact that we don't do that.