Boycott Amazon.com

Earlier today, Amazon.com took down the cloud servers that were being used by WikiLeaks to serve their site. One of the products Amazon sells is space on their cloud servers at a very competitive rate. Thousands of websites, including WikiLeaks, use their service.

Amazon.com gave no notice to WikiLeaks. Normally, in an ethical and legal business relationship, notice is given when contracts are terminated to allow for smooth transition. In fact, if WikiLeaks had chosen to terminate the contract with Amazon, they would have been required to give 30 days notice.

Amazon.com gave no such notice, they just unplugged the servers. As a result, WikiLeaks was down for several hours today.

Why did they do this? Amazon.com got a call from Senator Joe Lieberman who threatened to start a boycott. Other officials reportedly leaned on Amazon. I can understand Amazon’s fear of the government, but that is no excuse to unethically target a customer without notice.

In the past year, Antiwar.com has received about $10,000 from Amazon.com for referrals on the sale of books and merchandise. We cannot continue to profit from or deal with Amazon.com. We are removing the Amazon ads and book widgets from our website, and urge other supporters of WikiLeaks to join the boycott.

7 thoughts on “Boycott Amazon.com”

  2. This has to stop. Lieberman was Gore's running mate who was Clinton's VP. Can we connect the dots yet? There appears to be a large, powerful machine at work in Washington. It is terrifying to hear public officials talk openly about how a human being should be murdered. Scary times we live in folks.

      1. And I'm looking at an FBI recruitment ad on this page. Methinks Antiwar doesn't possess complete control over what's advertised on their site.

    2. I can no longer in good conscience shop at a book retailer that doesn't believe in the first amendment. Cancel my account at once and send a confirmation to my email address; stop all email offers being sent to the above-listed email address. Sincerely, and with disgust, MY NAME/YOUR NAME.

  12. I will stop buying from Amazon right now and BOOYCOTT AMAZON due to ethical principles!

  14. Pingback: Amazon removes Wikileaks from their servers, Boycott ensues.

  15. Just cancelled my Amazon.com account specifying unannounced shutdown of Wikileaks as a threat to freedom of speech.

  17. Great – I will join your boycott of amazon for caving in and oppoing free speech
    and for opposing Wikileaks which has done the world a GREAT service in exposing
    top down corruption and neo-fascism in many governments, in particular the United
    States federal government.

  18. accounts closed. i actually did buy a looooot there, thinking about it. Nah, will find other stores…

  20. You guys talk the tlak but don’t walk the walk. There are two Amazon ads on this page!
    Antiwar.com, what a bunch of loosers.

  21. Pingback: Amazon-Boykott « Kshatriya – Tradition und Metaphysik

  24. It seems to me Amazon is just a victim of the state — see http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald… and http://blog.mises.org/14838/a-public-service-mess…. I disagree with piling on them. They are the victims. There is no duty to be a martyr or altruist.

    It's predictable that the left-libertarians would pile on Amazon; after all, they hate capitalism and are suspicious of any successful corporation anyway. But i'm surprised you are doing this too.

    1. Stephan, I think you're missing an important point. I don't believe I could blame them for complying with a court order if it came to that, but I certainly blame them for responding to an inquisition of staffers from Joe Lieberman.

      They have no duty to be martyrs, but they do have a duty to their contract, and they have no obligation to anticipate the government's prosecutors successfully obtaining a court order, or to respond with servile alacrity to Joe Lieberman's usual respect for due process, and rights. WikiLeaks was not served any legal papers and neither was Amazon.

      We should show Amazon that there is a cost among consumers for playing toady to the police state. We should also give them opportunity to correct themselves and regain business. That is how corporations decide to change course. Consumers showing concern certainly worked with environmental appeals; now they all want to tell you exactly how planet-friendly they are, so why not apply a method that works to resisting the state, too?

      Here is a draft of the letter I would like to send to Amazon (particularly if I can find a better email access method than generic customer service):
      http://wisdomdancer.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/draf…

      1. "blame" them? I don't blame victims. Ever. That's my libertarian animating principle.

        boycotting IMO is ridiculous. Activism gone amok.

        As for their contract–what business is it of yours? This is private contractual dealings.

        I understand activist-minded libertarians, for whom everything is a cause, for whom there is an altrustic duty on the part of everyone to be good comrades and be martyrs for the cause, being upset with Amazon. And it's your right to boycott them; cut your nose off to spite your face if you want. Of course you are joining with the left-libertarians who are hostile to any business that has a profit and that is bigger than a local kibbutz or coop. Hey, libertarians can disagree. I side with the victim. And anyway, I don't plan to harm myself by shunning Amazon just b/c of a "call to action" by a bunch of libertarians. But people can do what they want.

        1. "Of course you are joining with the left-libertarians who are hostile to any business that has a profit and that is bigger than a local kibbutz or coop."

          See if you can tell why this brings to mind the logical fallacy of guilt by association.

          Also, see if you can back up and find my point. a) Amazon collaborated unnecessarily when there was no legal reason to do so. Your black-and-white talk of victims is absurd. b) This is an opportunity to show Amazon that their calculation was wrong, because customers care about free speech. "None of my business" is not a sentiment that will bring down the State, or resist it.

    2. I see your point, Stephan, but I also think that the only way to convince businesses to stand up to the tyranny of the fascialist State that seeks to drain them of their lifeblood is by hitting them in the wallet from "the bottom up." After all, the "lifeblood" of most businesses is the "lifeblood" of their customers. Too often businesses will "roll over" in the face of the latest lawless government edict (of which I have to assume the Wikileaks server shutdown is an example), no matter how profoundly such edicts hurt their customers because there is no immediate negative sanction against the bottom line associated with compliance. But once the customers begin to say "Oh, HELL NO!" and start shutting their checkbooks and wallets, it suddenly becomes in the business's best interest to say the same thing to the State. If enough businesses suffer because of sanctions and boycotts by angry customers, a collective muscle can be flexed that can at least temporarily check the State's totalitarian impulses.

      So will a boycott of Amazon.com change anything? Who knows, though I'm not optimistic that anything in the immediate future will change. But if the general trend continues and enough of a disruption to business occurs (Amazon.com is especially vulnerable during the Christmas Holiday season), then change from "the bottom up" just might have a chance.

    3. Sen. Lieberman says Amazon's behavior (instant knuckling under) sets the standard for web hosts dealing with content the government finds objectionable. It's clear this is a business decision by Amazon and not a philosophical one (otherwise they'd have never hosted WikiLeaks to begin with) and its vital we change the calculations that sort of decision is based on before it happens again.

      This isn't really about "piling on" Amazon, its about making it clear that even if there is a price to pay in defying a Senator's call for censorship there is also a price to pay in complying. It does put Amazon into a crummy position but I'd much rather they be afraid of their customers leaving en masse than afraid of some random Senator.

      1. Well said, except that we can't be sure precisely what their thinking was, and they have not issued any proper responses—part of the problem. This sort of veiled threat followed by compliance all too often happens in secret. And in fact, it may very well be that it was an empty threat on Lieberman's part without legal recourse that got them running scared (and, apparently, some dramatic libertarians over at the mises blog, too).

    4. Come on Stephan. If every company simply caved to all governmental pressures, then where would we be?

      If all firearms companies started making only single shots, if all food manufacturers started only selling fat free, salt free, taste free food, if all car manufacturers started only making slow steel boxes and if all cell phone manufacturers started tracking us and recording all of our conversations just because the government pressured them to do so, where would we be?

      It's easy to see why Amazon did this. It's even understandable. That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean that we should not hold them accountable for their helping the government in marching us toward tyranny.

      Boycotting companies that voluntarily ascent to tyrannical policies is just another healthy market function.

        1. If every company simply caved to all governmental pressures, then where would we be? (see hypothetical examples above)

          Should we not sometimes use our power in the market to hold companies accountable for their helping government in marching us toward tyranny?

          If so, as I think is obvious, why does this important case not warrant such a boycott?

          Is the boycotting of companies that voluntarily assent to tyrannical policies not just another healthy market function?

    6. I have to agree with Stephan on this one. I wish they had least given WikiLeaks 30 days notice too, but they're a business not an individual. While an individual can make a principled decision and stand by it despite the flack, businesses always need customers to survive and any further good Amazon can do in the world would be canceled out by Leviathan taking out their aggression against WikiLeaks on a physical and TAXABLE entity like Amazon.

      Amazon's decision sucks, but is understandable.

  25. Bend over n take it from Joe Lieberman if you wish Stefan. Some people are over it and will stand for principle over profit. If some polls are to be trusted Amazon would have come out on top by sticking with WikiLeaks.

    1. Never bend over and take it! Never! ever ever! Don't pay taxes. Don't obey speed limits. Don't fly! Pretend like the state doesn't exist. It's all a state of mind! Shirley MacLaine is our savior!

      1. Stated like a good lil lawyer slave and servant that has taken an oath of fealty to the Constitution and the State. You profit of the system so you have no reason to actually endeavor to change it.

        1. Sam, he's being realistic. Unless you're not paying taxes, income or sales, you're contributing to the war machine too, so get off the imaginary moral high ground.

          1. Stephan,

            "Libertarian IP lawyer"? Are you fucking serious?

            Might as well be a libertarian DEA agent.

  26. Amazon's unseemly haste to comply with Commissar Lieberman's directive makes me think there was a quid pro quo in there. I've asked Amazon directly; I doubt I'll get an answer, but you never know…

  28. This is tough. They certainly have no obligation to be martyrs and nobody at this point knows what, exactly, they were threatened with. I have no problem imagining all kinds of threats that might have been uttered by the criminals in DC.

    1. Or, it is also possible it was just a bunch of staffers from a rogue neocon senator, without any real oomph behind this attempt to scare Amazon off.
      http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12…

      Let's not just give Amazon a free pass to fold instantly because there may have been threats. It's important to ask the company to respond to clarify the situation, in any letters sent to them.

  29. Before, the warmonger sympathizers threatened to boycott Amazon over their hosting of Wikileaks, now our side threatens to boycott them for dumping Wikileaks. It's not fair to Amazon to be put into this position by any of us. Like it or not, Amazon is a public firm with shareholders at stake and a threat from a very powerful congressman must be taken seriously. It's not about whether or not I agree with their decision, the point is to oppose the real enemy here, not otherwise innocent bystanders.

  31. Pingback: Re: Should We Boycott Amazon.com? « LewRockwell.com Blog
  32. Pingback: Re: Should We Boycott Amazon.com? | The Libertarian Standard

  33. Just shut down my account. Shame on Amazon for quashing freedom of speech. Don’t expect any business from me anytime soon.

  34. It's not about being "cowardly" or "brave". Amazon is a public company with shareholders and fiduciary obligations, and those are the company's–any company's– main priorities. It's naive to think anything otherwise. Let's focus on the real enemy here, the government that would lie, cheat, steal and blackmail in order to protect its secrecy and corruption.

    1. Amazon is a great company that does not need to do any political grandstanding.They already take risks by avoiding state sales taxes.As Libertarians, we must not fall for the "Divide and Conquer" tactics of the state.Sen Lieberman's bullying of a publicly traded company to disengage in political activity is just one more smptom of the warfare state.

      I am asking Justin and the Antiwar.com folks to reconsider their stance on Amazon.This is one of the most Libertarian companies in this Nation.We must not give in to emotional reflexes.If Amazon was truly cowards would they have hosted the site of a group that many in the government believe to be a terrorist organization and whose leader is an assassination target.

      Most companies would not have hosted the site in the first place.Also consider that Amazon offered to do so of their own free will.They were NOT approached by Wikileaks.

      A company has a duty to its shareholders, who want to invest in a company that sells stuff online, not engages in political activity.

      This Knee-jerk response that is threatening to divide the movement.Do we as Libertarians believe in blaming the victim, or do believe the true perpetrators, the state, should be our target.

      We must distinguish between victims of state bullying and the true shills for the regime.

  36. I sent the following note to Amazon.com when closing my account last night.
    "My conscience demands that I close my Amazon.com account because of your complicity in the censoring of Wikileaks. Think of all the people who have been killed, crippled, maimed and tortured because of the lies of American political and military leaders. The people of Amazon.com should stand for the light of truth and not collaborate with the cover up of evil, hideous and despicable war crimes."

  37. There are other online book and merchandise seller that might offer antiwar.com the same kind of deal that they had with amazon. Books A Million is a large site. I don't know if they offer the kind of arrangement that amazon offered, but it might be worthwhile to explore this. Books A Million seems to have a very large stock, though I don't know if it has the specific titles that antiwar readers would be interested in.

  38. I just checked at the Books A Million site and they do have an 'Affiliate's Program" which works similarly to the Amazon program you had.

  39. I think you ought to be giving Amazon credit for having the guts to host Wikileaks in the first place.

    1. Amazon is a business, not a political tool for warmongers. A business is open for everyone, not for those that a senator likes. The US is not a kingdom and Lieberman can move to the middle east if he likes dictating to businesses.

  40. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS is really very bad these days. As United States Citizens we have every right to know what OUR GOVERNMENT… THINKS AND DOES BOTH LEGAL AND ILLEGAL as we have an absolute right to discipline that government even to the point of it being disbanded. No secrets are required in a Free Republic. WIKILEAKS SHOULD BE PRAISED!!!!

  41. email to Amazon-
    "You're licking the wrong hands. Please close my account."
    alternate sites-
    abebooks.com
    ebay.com

  43. I am an avid reader, but will no longer buy from amazon. We have closed our accounts and explained our reasons for doing so. We have swithched to Barnes & Noble

    1. Hmmm, is Barnes & Noble hosting Wikileaks now? If not, why do business with them? I'm not hosting Wikileaks. Should you boycott me? Antiwar.com has a server. Will Antiwar.com be hosting Wikileaks? If Antiwar.com doesn't host Wikileaks, will you boycott Antiwar.com?

      Why do business with anybody who doesn't support Wikileaks?

      Hmmmm?

  44. So you're going to shoot yourself in the foot and say goodbye to $10,000 a year in income for Antiwar.com because Amazon wasn't willing to fight a US Senator. I'm not willing to fight the IRS. I send them thousands of dollars a year which the USA uses to mass murder civilians all around the globe. I'm complicit in these murders, because I help pay for it. I could take a principled stand and refuse to give the US war machine my money, and then go to jail, but I don't. I guess that makes me a coward, sort of like Amazon.

    So Eric Garris, tell me this. Are you going to take the principled stand and not support the war machine with your money? Are you going to stand up to the DC creeps and not play ball? Are you going to do what Amazon and I are too cowardly to do?

    If you do, drop me a line when you're all settled in in your prison cell. We can be pen pals. ;-)

    1. The sad fact is that all of us who post on these Antiwar stories (and on other freedom-minded websites and forums) are probably already traced and those concerned are sitting and waiting for the go-code to come round us all up as being Enemies of the State for daring to read what's published here and having the gall to put in writing our own opinions on said subjects. Sure, it sounds all Conspiracy Theory and all that, but you mark my words- when the balloon goes up and we find ourselves fighting the Second American Revolution, you can be sure the majority of us will find ourselves as cell mates or prison pen-pals. As was said in a different context, "We must hang together, or surely we will all hang separately".

    1. Is there proof offered of Leiberman's call? Is there proof offered that Leiberman's call (if it was made) is the reason Amazon caved?

      THINK you dim-witted fool. THINK!

  46. This was the best opportunity for me to close my Amazon account that I opened 12 years ago.
    They never gave me any discounts for being a loyal customer in the first place, and now they show me that they are not a business but a political tool for some extremists who are very proud of ordering the death of those who disagree with them.

  47. I deplore Amazon treating a paying customer in that manner- be it WikiLeaks or any other bona fide customer- but what really galls me is that they caved in to Lieberman, of all people. On who's authority did he threaten Amazon? His own? And just where does the Constitution give Senators the authority to threaten private companies with anything? We've seen his stripes beofre this, though, and anyone who has half a brain knows what he's all about. Amazon should have just said thank you for your concern and hung up on him. Sadly, corporate interests nowadays nearly ALWAYS take a back seat to money and influence, and Amazon is no different from any number of other companies who cave in to government meddling and influence on any given day.

  50. Pingback: Amazon.com’s Excuse: WikiLeaks ‘Harming People’ -- News from Antiwar.com

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