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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?
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.
"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.
... 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
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.
... or Visual Basic developer.
Oh god, there are children on this site, watch your language!
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
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.
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.
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.