WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, calmly trying to interpret social cues
Deep in this New York Times article about Julian Assange’s sexual assault charges is another, more interesting story about Amazon’s decision to stop hosting the WikiLeaks website on its servers—a decision apparently prompted by a call from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. According to committee chair Joe Lieberman, staffers asked Amazon to explain its business relationship with WikiLeaks. They didn’t tell them to terminate that relationship, of course; that would be borderline-unconstitutional, and certainly creepy. They just called the multibillion-dollar web-based retailer and pleasantly inquired how many of their web servers might be connected to the activities of a publicly-declared enemy of the US government. By sheer coincidence, Amazon shut down WikiLeaks’s site a few hours later.