London, Dec 2 (IANS) Amazon, after facing criticism for hosting WikiLeaks, has cut off the whistleblowing website from its servers, it was reported here Thursday.
Following calls from US senators for a boycott of WikiLeaks by US companies, neither the main website or the sub-site were available to internet users in the US or Europe Wednesday due to a refusal by Amazon servers to acknowledge data requests, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Joe Lieberman, a senator and chairman of the homeland security committee, said: ‘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 material.’
‘I call on any other company or organisation that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them.’
WikiLeaks tweeted in response: ‘WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free – fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe.’
WikiLeaks, which is under US criminal investigation for the release of classified documents, turned to Amazon to keep its site available after hackers tried to flood it and thus prevent users from accessing the classified information posted.
Amazon, the US-based online retailer, is a major provider of web-hosting services, renting out space on its computer servers to customers around the world.
Amazon.com would not comment on its relationship with WikiLeaks or whether it forced the site to leave.
The latest expose of WikiLeaks was the release of more than 250,000 secret US documents Sunday, which exposed years of diplomatic communications and provided candid assessments of world leaders.
The leaking of confidential and sensitive diplomatic documents has been met with outrage and anger in some parts of the US.
According to the daily, there have been calls in the US for the death penalty to be imposed on the person who leaked documents to the WikiLeaks. At present Private First Class Bradley Manning is in custody as the chief suspect in the inquiry.
Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and ex-Pentagon official K.T. McFarland were among those claiming the guilty party should face execution for putting national security at risk by leaking the inflammatory information, the report said.
Meanwhile Sarah Palin, who is tipped to run for the American presidency in 2012, has called for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be hunted down ‘with the same urgency we pursue Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders’.
The Obama administration has said that it ‘deeply regrets’ the leaking of the embarrassing cables that have disclosed exactly what American diplomats think of foreign leaders and promised to take ‘aggressive steps’ against those who ‘stole’ them.
