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.
For all you hysterical wusssies , wikileaks violated Amazon's terms of service- WikiLeaks was not following them. There were several parts they were violating. For example, our terms of service state that “you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content… that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.” It’s clear that WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren’t putting innocent people in jeopardy. Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments.
— Amazon Web Services
Do you sell sharp knives on Amazon? How can you be sure that I, after having both one from you, won't use it to harm somebody?
"Hysterical wussies"? Very businesslike and professional. Not trollish at all.
Also, if your BS is true, you *let* Wikileaks violate you for all this time, just like you're taking it long and hard for the government.
-We’ve been running AWS for over four years and have hundreds of thousands of customers storing all kinds of data on AWS. Some of this data is controversial, and that’s perfectly fine. But, when companies or people go about securing and storing large quantities of data that isn’t rightfully theirs, and publishing this data without ensuring it won’t injure others, it’s a violation of our terms of service, and folks need to go operate elsewhere.
We look forward to continuing to serve our AWS customers and are excited about several new things we have coming your way in the next few months.
— Amazon Web Services
That is Amazon's statement -with the exception of my own comment calling you all hysterical wussies.
Since all of you are so concerned about the well being of ..you know ….innocent people and all , looks like Amazon's got the moral high ground far above wikileaks , and most of you . For all your "anti-empire blather " …I haven't heard , not one single concern for anyone who may get hurt ….but I guess that's ok huh ….as long as you can stick it to the "empire " .
Bloody HYPOCRITES ! .
just closed my account, well done guys
Hey Stephan,
I guess IBM was a victim too right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaus…
And I guess I hate Capitalism if I don't support what IBM did either. Right?
If Capitalism is representative in aiding War Criminals to protect their bottom line then I have no use for THAT kind of Capitalism.
And yes, aiding the US War Criminals by kicking off someone exposing their Genocidal murder sprees is not any different than what IBM did in the example above IMO.
ahha, The fact that you people think that closing a couple accounts with Amazon.com is going to do anything. Its unbelievable how naive you people are. Hey everyone, lets support wikileaks cause we think America sucks, woo! <—- The last part is sarcasm for people that don't get it.
Bravo, antiwar.com!
Also, amazon.com charges $4 to download public domain e-books that it gets for free from Project Gutenberg that you can download free directly from Project Gutenberg or from Apple's iBooks.
The American^ is of, by, and for the Fortune 500
American Government…
and it is no more American in its operation than the United States of America is made up of independent states. No one believes that any more.
I cancelled my account today. I was a long standing customer from old but I would rather pay a bit more for books and other things but have a clear conscience. Very easy to cancel
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display….
I cancelled my Amazon.com account as well. Its just plain immoral for me to continue to giving this company my business when they are contributing to the media fueled witch hunt against these Wikileaks people. I've read over alot of what Wikileaks has published and its completely absurd that anyone can seriously believe that the information they published could seriously place anyones life in danger. Its clear that whats going on is that politicians are attacking Wikileaks because they don't want the public to know whats going on in world affairs and stuff that may portray themselves in an unflattering light. As far as people's claims that one should be sympathetic to Amazon.com because they are being threatened by the government, I must say I find this laughable. In the USA business executives are virtually immune to any personal liability. The only thing they could have been threatened with was a lawsuit. In other words they risked loosing money over a baseless lawsuit. Well you know what, moral principles are more important than money. So it makes sense for any customer who finds their assistance in this onslaught against societies Freedom of the Press/Speach to show to Amazon.com that they also risk losing money from loyal customers not just government lawsuits. As for me, I probably purchase $300-400 worth of books from each year. Unless they somehow redact what they did, that will no longer be the case.
Haven't gone quite so far to delete my Amazon account, but I removed all my profile information, photo, and deleted my Listmania lists…(Which have been there for 8 years)..and a guide I wrote. Removing the stickiness of Amazon is a step…maybe my purchase the other day is the last one…..I've written a ton of reviews…but perhaps ashes to ashes, dust to dust…COWards…
ghdj
Some buisinesses can do without some customers anyway . Again , not one iota of concern has been expressed by anyone thusfar in your sanctimonious self righteous screeds about Amazon .
So boycott Amazon , they'd be better without you or your buisiness , you hypocrites . You would allow your " moral proinciple s " to overide any concern for the safety of innocent lives . And YOU will now PONTIFICATE on moral principle ? Who in the hell are you to condemn Amazon ?
So you buy what ? $300-to$400 worth of books ? You read alot and learn NOTHING . You wouldn't recognize moral principle if it fell out of a tree and struck you on the head , you hypocrite .
many thousands of dollars of books and other products… :) what anger you show…
What a pathetic bunch ! You are so obssesed with your animus towards the US , you have little concern [if any ] for anyone or anything else .
Amazon should be glad to rid itself of such a clientele .
I was going to get a kindle for christmas but not anymore. They will sell a book about being a pedifile claiming free speech but not host wikileaks? Thats messed up.
Oh my the hypocrisy abounds here , Garris says he's dumping Amazon , wants nothing to do with it due to Amazon's cutting off wikileaks . Gee ! …wondering why that pedophile book didn't cause the same stir ???
LOL….and here's a bit of "strange irony" ….that book rose to #65 of Amazons top 100 best selling books …..kinda says something about Amazon's clientele dont it ….?
Pick and choose morality , otherwise known as "situational ethics " .
Bad comparison , and incorrect . China simply closes the internet , China throws people in jail for even tweets that are critical of it .
BTW , liability is in fact a real issue , and there is litigation regarding internet content and copyrights , presently underway , and have been . And finally , yes , therte is a difference between liability and responsibility .
Uh oh… PayPal is now restricting Wikileaks: http://mashable.com/2010/12/04/paypal-permanently…. Are they to be boycotted next?
had many hundreds of items on my wishlist / shopping lists…more stickiness from Amazon. Down to 140 items now…(long overdue cleanup anyway – thank you Wikileaks!)…goal to get down to well below 100, below 50….heck…just go to zero is my goal.
it'll all be coming to a head in 2012 anyway…know WARries…heheheh…
yea , now lets boycott pay pal !
I notice you still take donations via PayPal.
Hypocrites.
Why is there still a Paypal option for donations? Where are your principles now?!
Even better , taker all your paper money with images of this evil empire on it …AND BURN IT !!! That'll show'em how much youy hate this land . That'll PROVE "PRINCIPLE " ! Take down the Jefferson Memorial , and build one for Assange , this way we can remember , the true icon of Liberty .
Assange , a disilusioned idealist , realizing that "utopia " is not possible , in a world filled with people not nearly as perfect as himself , decides that the best course of action , in order to "improve the world , attempts to , in his own way …destroy it . It can then be rebuilt in his own image . The information he has stolen , now to be used as a HAMMER against all those he considers less than perfect , maintaining his desired imager of moral superiority .
….and now "Julian the Just " is down to threats ……to anyone who attempts to discover the source of his thefts of confidential information leaks , proving himself to be the self-righteous extorsionist that he IS .
too late to the party, but BOYCOTT Joe Lieberman. All private businesses should refuse to sell to, rent to, nor conduct any business nor even converse with Joe Lieberman nor his family members nor cronies. Too little, too late, but if any weasel deserves it it's Joe
i’ve canceled my account with amazon too.
Eric,
Why have you not called for a boycott of Paypal?
Lets add Swiss Banks …no wait ! lets boycott the Swiss . My Swiss Army knife ? it's in the trash can by gum !
Allright …get out your scissors , and let's get them Visa and Mastercards cut up .
Hey, you are still keeping the "Antiwar.com and Amazon Books" ad on your Shop Antiwar.com home, with Amazon logo and links and all!
I have requested Amazon.com to close my account. I have been a customer for more than 10 years. The effect of closing individual accounts may be small but it is the right thing to do considering how easily Amazon cave in to Washington's preassure. I will shop someplace else.
I posted (in a product review) that I am done with Amazon and their Visa card. I do feel some regret toward their vendors though.
I once worked for Amazon.com. I quit a week ago. Not for the whole wikileaks thing…if you heard how they treat their employees you'd quit too…
Is the boycott worth continuing any further? We are a small group of activists in perhaps the thousands at best. Many of us didnt really shop at Amazon that much (I did, but I am probably a minority in scope). Collectively, our boycott may have cost Amazon at most a few thousand dollars over the past 8 weeks. That is a drop in the bucket to their billions. On the other side of the coin, Amazon has some of the cheapest book prices in existence. Combined with the above, it appears we are only hurting ourselves with this boycott. I want to end it, but I feel like that is cowardice and weak. On the other hand, the boycott has, arguably, failed and it is hurting me more than Amazon.
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Are all of you retarded? Where's the proof that Amazon took down the cloud severs that were used by Wikileaks? Where's the proof that they took them down because Wikileaks used them? Where's the proof Amazon "just unplugged" the servers and it wasn't a case of Wikileaks having data stored on a server that actually went down? Where's the proof that Amazon took the server down because Senator Joe Lieberman threatened a boycott? Where's the proof that Antiwar.com received, "about $10,000 from Amazon.com for referrals on the sale of books and merchandise." and that Antiwar.com has stopped all Amazon.com-related activities?
See, you all take things at face-value and never think. This article basically said, "Amazon is evil. We are righteous." But never offered any proof to back-up those claims.
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I've been boycotting Amazon for well over two years now, ever since they declared their intent to use their power to silence journalism and protect the interests of criminals.
In that time, Wikileaks has revealed further information revealing diplomatic cables that show, among other things, that the US was conducting air strikes in Yemen and Somalia while getting the governments there to claim credit and provide cover. Wikileaks has revealed the collusion between large private security companies and spying on the public in the Stratfor files. The amount of evil being funded by our tax dollars is truly remarkable.
Even more remarkable is that nobody cares.
The most die-hard "liberals" and "conservatives" love Amazon more than ever even knowing what they do. I've had this conversation a thousand times with people. When push comes to shove, Americans place no value on freedom of speech or the press or of the evil done in their name and with their tax dollars.
None of this stuff is hidden, yet nobody is looking. The daily occurrences are hidden in plain sight. I guess it's true what they say, "Freedom will not make you free". Giving information and choice to those who support fascism will not remove fascism. People, especially my fellow Americans, have a moral crisis that will pre-empt any move towards life, liberty, and justice.
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