Political pressure forces Amazon to dump WikiLeaks

by Steven Mostyn - Dec 2 2010, 12:00

With an arrest warrant out for Julian Assange after his infamous whistle-blowing website unleashed more than 250,000 potentially sensitive government documents upon the world, the week has just gone from bad to worse for WikiLeaks.

More pointedly, online giant Amazon has dumped WikiLeaks off its servers after succumbing to mounting political pressure from the likes of independent U.S. senator Joe Lieberman, who serves as the chairman of the Senate’s committee on Homeland Security.

“[Amazon’s] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized materials,” said Lieberman in a statement. “I call on any other company or organization that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them.”

In response to the decision made by its Web host, WikiLeaks took a sideswipe at Amazon by saying its move is a breach of freedom of speech as outlined in the U.S. constitution’s first amendment.

Clearly upset despite shifting to an ISP in Sweden, WikiLeaks also used micro-blogging service Twitter to point out that Amazon “should get out of the business of selling books” if it’s so uncomfortable with the first amendment.

It also added that it’s more than happy to spend its dollars to employ people in Europe rather than North America.

In terms of the political fallout caused by the leaked documents (a.k.a. Cablegate), the Obama administration has ordered an investigation to uncover the leak’s source.

It has also said all government agencies must develop tighter security protection systems to prevent outside access to classified information.

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