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Amazon Bows To US Censorship Pressure: Refuses To Host Wikileaks
- lukev 16y agoWe wouldn't allow Amazon to host DVD rips. Doesn't classified government information deserve a bit more protection than mere copyright, not less?
- chc 16y agoThat's a matter of opinion. It may well deserve the opposite, or it may be preferable to protect it but inappropriate to force non-government parties to stay quiet about it once the information has leaked.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rdtsc 16y agoActually that is not true. Documents are not automatically declassified if they are leaked. Intuitively they are, but 'officially' they are certainly not. Specifically, those who hold a US govt. clearance should not be accessing any of those docs as they could be in (potential) deep trouble.
- jrockway 16y agoOur tax dollars at work. And people complain about healthcare being too expensive...
- rdl 16y agoMerely leaking something doesn't necessarily damage security as much as publishing it and having the government confirm it as accurate. Imagine if someone leaked "Super Top Secret: You can be invisible to the M1A2 tank by wearing a hello kitty t-shirt inside-out". Without official confirmation (implied by the government officially declassifying the tech report), you wouldn't know for sure, and would attempt to test this theory, and would end up in pieces.
- pyre 16y agoBut government officials are throwing around political pressure and making statements in public that confirm what the documents are. How is declassifying them going to do anything worse at this point?
- Dove 16y agoWell, it's one thing to confirm that some of the documents are real and that the principle of the thing is outrageous. It's something else entirely to confirm that all of the documents are legitimate, or to identify which ones are, for example, drafts or notional. And it's something else again to clarify individual statements, give context to conversations, and to discuss which of the revealed facts are current and relevant. It's not as simple as saying, "these documents are unclassified". You have to look over the facts they reveal and decide which might still be worth the effort of keeping secret, and which it's okay to talk openly about. There's also the possibility that the documents may contain misleading information or even disinformation written specifically for Wikileaks. I'd be surprised if such a thing has never happened, and surprised further still if it never does. A policy of never confirming or commenting on leaked information means those who would like to make serious use of it must always wonder.
- krschultz 16y agoI've read several reports about specific cables saying something to the effect of "this was one piece of intelligence being reported home, but we actually don't think its true". I.e. a bunch of papers ran with the news that Iran had missiles from North Korea we had previously said they didn't have, but it turns out the one cable saying that was incorrect information. (or so they say).
- krschultz 16y agoOut of curiosity, is there an official policy on that?
- rdtsc 16y agoIt is just basic policy on how classified info is handled by the government. The only time automatic declassification happens is when its time window expires (and that can be overridden too). It is usually about 10 years. Otherwise surprisingly it still stays classified even if it leaks all over the internet. Those who hold a clearance have agreed and signed, under strict penalties, not to process, view, or download classified information on unauthorized machines (their home laptop for instance). In doing so they would be committing a willful security violation -- a serious offence according to the current laws.
- patrickaljord 16y agocopyright laws != 1st amendment
- nostromo 16y agoThe New York Times posted classified government information a while back -- "Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials." Do you think their hosting facility should drop them?
- bediger 16y agoYou mean this story: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html It ran Dec 16, 2005. Apparently, "Late October 2004: Top Administration officials convince NYT to spike the NSA domestic spying story." from http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/timeline-collection/warrantless-wiretap-memos-timeline/ http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/timeline-collection/warran... The NYT did publish it, but one guesses they did it when the government agency(s) in question permitted them to. Or after someone else broke the story, and NYT would look stupid for not covering it.
- brown9-2 16y ago"The NYT did publish it, but one guesses they did it when the government agency(s) in question permitted them to." No, not at all. The difference here though is breaking a story of huge interest to every citizen versus merely making public previously private and confidential communication between diplomats, indiscriminately.
- adambyrtek 16y agoMaybe you are right, but the point is whether Amazon (or any other hosting company) should act as a judge and decide whether the leak was justified or not.
- krschultz 16y agoNo, they're acting as a property owner saying "get this shit off my lawn, we didn't ask for you to have your fight here". Once again, the freedom of speech does not give you the right to abuse other people's freedom to control their own property. Amazon's servers are their property, why do they have to let their brand image go down in the mind of people who are anti-Wikileaks?
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y agoChoose your news source: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959697 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959697 - techdirt.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959655 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959655 - cnn.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959633 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959633 - arstechnica.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959607 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959607 - bgr.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959335 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959335 - npr.org http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959328 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959328 - guardian.co.uk http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959308 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959308 - readwriteweb.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959305 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959305 - reuters.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959257 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959257 - techcrunch.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959142 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959142 - foxnews.com
- bobds 16y agoIf this is Hacker News, why is there no similar-story clustering algorithm (among other things)?
- fab13n 16y agoCool, they'll have to distribute their content over hard-to-control media (Tor, P2P etc.), thus helping such technologies becoming widespread. Throw in a P2P-based DNS sponsored by COICA, and those elder, digitally illiterate baby-boomer leaders will have done a lot for a freer Internet, although unwillingly.
- aw3c2 16y agoWikileaks has been accessible in TOR for ages (as .onion site). Content is usually available as torrent too.
- Mithrandir 16y agohttp://gaddbiwdftapglkq.tor2web.com/wiki/Wikileaks http://gaddbiwdftapglkq.tor2web.com/wiki/Wikileaks is down.
- aperiodic 16y agoMaking wikileaks.org inaccessible by default still has tremendous impact. Not that many people have the technical proficiency to use Tor, use P2P software, or even know what the hell DNS, whereas almost anyone knows how to type "wikileaks.org" into their address bar.
- krainboltgreene 16y ago"Not that many people" is a vast understatement.
- ladon86 16y agoA surprising number of people don't know how to even do that (my mum included, though I've tried to explain). They can type 'wikileaks' into Google though.
- cjoh 16y agoEven fewer people know how to take wikileaks.org data and do anything with it. Wikileaks, in general, serves intermediaries. Wikileaks.org is useful for fundraising though...
- joshes 16y agoThis is completely and utterly preposterous. If you are a citizen of Connecticut, or, hell, anywhere, please email Lieberman and tell him that his actions and comments are completely ludicrous and, in fact, anti-Democratic. http://lieberman.senate.gov/index.cfm/contact/email-me-about-an-issue http://lieberman.senate.gov/index.cfm/contact/email-me-about...
- jrockway 16y agoBut these leaks might make him look bad, and that hurts the next re-election. Welcome to Amerika, where anyone who speaks out against you is branded a terrorist. (I have downmodded this exact comment a number of times, because I never thought it was really true. But this time, that's exactly what's happening! There is a well-established legal precedent in the US that you can publish anything that has been leaked, regardless of how you got that information. The person who leaked it gets in trouble, not the person who tells everyone about it. But now... we want to throw away our freedoms and call wikileaks a "terrorist organization". What the fuck? Terrorists fly airplanes full of people into buildings full of people. This is a collection of documents that say China hacked Google. NOT THE SAME AT ALL!) </rant>
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoI'll give you nice counter-rant. Downvote if you like, but somebody needs to put what you said in context, so I'll play American Joe Sixpack for that purpose. What did you expect? Did you honestly think you could dump years of State Department cables on the internet and what? Somebody would come give wikileaks an award? They'd win the Nobel Peace Prize? (yikes, that still might happen) This is not wikileaks reporting that the war is going badly, ie making a point that we are being lied to by showing the lies. This isn't honorable. If you'll remember, when the Pentagon Papers happened the leaker was fully willing to take whatever punishment came to him. As he should have. This isn't that, either. This is some asshole with a computer connection hooking up with somebody else with a grievance and destroying billions of dollars of my collective property. His stated mission is to destroy the structure of my country by making it impossible for various nodes of the country to communicate with each other. No amount of ranting is going to make an anarchist into a superhero. We need leaks for society to function, not crazy self-centered promoters bent on single-handedly redesigning our way of life. </rant> (wink) On a more serious note, I told you guys when this happened that there aren't actions without reactions. If Assange is just getting started? Well the other side is just getting started too. Expect more of this.
- guelo 16y agoLieberman is an authoritarian scumbag and a traitor, his loyalties lie with Israel over the U.S.
- awt 16y agoThis sounds like a job for freenet. http://freenetproject.org/ http://freenetproject.org/
- jrockway 16y agoNah, BitTorrent is fine for this sort of thing. It's much more illegal to distribute a new movie than it is to distribute a bunch of now-public government documents.
- scrod 16y agoPerhaps the U.S. State Department should think about hiring the MPAA's legal team.
- awt 16y agoNot sure why Freenet is less appropriate than BitTorrent.
- burgerbrain 16y agoHas to do with how much data can be effectively pushed across it to a large number of people.
- sespindola 16y agoAs an Argentinian who admires the entrepreneurial spirit of the USA, I'm amazed and appalled at how quickly it is becoming politically intolerant and borderline fascistic. I can't help but draw parallels between cablegate and watergate and wonder if, had watergate occurred nowadays, would there be Senators trying to declare the Post a "terrorist organization" and wanting Bob Woodward dead. Assange should zip all the documents and release them on Tor. Although I doubt the onion routers could whitstand that ammount of traffic.
- Perceval 16y agoAs an Argentinian, you should be well familiar that your country took in scores of actual fascists from Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy, giving them safe harbor from war crimes prosecutions. There remain entire towns in Argentina where German is the primary spoken language, where still-living Nazis are residing undisturbed. Calling America "borderline fascistic" because private companies aren't allowed to harbor illegally obtained diplomatic documents is less an accurate characterization of the United States than it is a display that you have little or no understanding of what fascism is. This should be particularly embarrassing because of your country's historical entanglement with fascists. You could talk to some of your German-speaking countrymen if you're still unclear as to why Godwinning this thread is idiotic.
- exit 16y ago> where still-living Nazis and their children are residing undisturbed why shouldn't their children reside undisturbed?
- Perceval 16y agoEdited so you'll no longer miss the point.
- sespindola 16y agoI'm not calling the USA borderline fascistic for this incident alone, but for a sequence of events dating back to 9/11. Actually we got quite late to the postwar Nazi garage sale. The URSS and the USA[1] got the lot, including the guy who almost decimated London's civilian population[2]. The best one we could get was Kurt Tank[3]. ODESSA, a former SS officers organization created in 1946 to assist Nazi war criminals, had ramifications in Argentina. It was mostly backed here by Walther Darre's[4] family, german companies (e.g. Siemens) and a few right-wing politicos. Thankfully, MOSSAD was able to partially correct that black page in our history in 1960.[5] Although Peron was quite an intolerant person, he had a soft spot for human rights and opened the doors to Jewish inmigrants in 1946. We received 463456 jewish inmigrants between 1947 and 1951.[6][7] Also we were one of the first countries to recognize Israel in 1949. There is one famous town founded by Germans in 1930, Villa General Belgrano[8]. Many of their original inhabitants are survivors from the Graf Spee sinking[9], although I challenge you to find a fluent German speaking person there under the age of 80. If you want to check it out, go during the first weekend of October so you don't miss their amazing Oktoberfest. All Nazi related government files have been declassified in 1992, and can be freely accessed. Although they haven't been digitalized. After the tenths of thousands of deaths caused by our last dictatorship[10] in the 70's, we started to develop a politically liberal, more tolerant and more agnostic world view. This led us to be the first country in Latin America to legalize gay marriage and marihuana, among other things. Sorry for the excessive length of this comment, just wanted to dispel some common myths about my country. Links: [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Tank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Tank [4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Walther_Darr%C3%A9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Walther_Darr%C3%A9 [5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann [6]: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Argentina.html#WW2 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Argentina.ht... [7]: http://www.lavozylaopinion.com.ar/cgi-bin/medios/vernota.cgi?medio=lavoz&numero=abril2¬a=abril2-6 http://www.lavozylaopinion.com.ar/cgi-bin/medios/vernota.cgi... [8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_General_Belgrano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_General_Belgrano [9]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cruiser_Admiral_Graf_Spee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cruiser_Admiral_Graf_Spe... [10]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reorganization_Process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reorganization_Process
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ck2 16y agoHomeland Security Theater - keeping you "safe" by covering your eyes.
- nikcub 16y agoAmazon defended the child pedo guide based on free speech rights. They completely collapsed here to political pressure. Hypocrites.
- edanm 16y agoI'm pretty sure they took that down as well. They initially defended it, but a few hours later they took it down. As is their right. They're a private company, they're entitled to do whatever they want.
- aagha 16y agoThey're actually a public company. But that doesn't matter unless you hold enough shares in the company to make them care the way you want to.
- dunmalg 16y agoPrivate as in "not a governmental body subject to the whims of politicians", not private as in "not traded on the stock exchange".
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoWell, they succumbed to political pressure, thus, quite close to if not indeed at the whims of politicians.
- ataggart 16y agoIt will be interesting to see the overlap between those decrying this government pressure to infringe upon the free speech rights of an organization, and those decrying the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United that such organizations are protected by the First Amendment.
- rprasad 16y agoAmazon didn't bow to political pressure. It made a business decision to protect its other clients from interruption of services that constant, government-level DDOS'ing would cause.
- rapind 16y agoGovernment DOSing of Amazon would get a lot of attention... An organized attack bringing down ec2 / s3 would risk the attention of some pretty clever individuals who's businesses and hobbies were affected and produce some interesting fallout.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoWell, I say they bowed to political pressure, what say you? Opinions are one a plenty.
- roboneal 16y agoHonest question: Based on the general sentiment here, is there anything that a government should be legitimately allowed to keep secret?