Wikileaks.com, the site which has awakened the wrath of the U.S. government for leaking classified information, was removed from Amazon‘s hosting Web servers yesterday. According to Senator Joe Lieberman, shortly after Amazon was questioned about its relationship with Wikileaks, the online retail company cut its ties with the whistle-blower website.
(Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing platform, a service that allows users to rent as many virtual servers as they want.)
In response to its expulsion from Amazon, Wikileaks accused Amazon of violating free speech:
“WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech – the land of the free–fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe.”
and
“If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.”
However, the quote demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of the first amendment – understandable, given that most of the Wikileaks folks aren’t from the U.S. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects US citizens from the government infringing on their freedom of speech. However, it’s perfectly legal in the U.S. for businesses to kick you out and deny you access to their property if they don’t like what you’re saying.
WikiLeaks has repeatedly found itself in trouble with the U.S. government over its leaking of sensitive information. But the latest release of classified and in many cases embarrassing documents from the U.S. State Department has prompted calls among some politicians to brand the site a terrorist group, putting it in the same category as al-Qaeda.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is among those looking to clamp down on the site, saying that “WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.”
