Where, exactly, did the attack on the freedom of the press occur, and by whom?
Don't say it was when the government had Amazon shut down Wikileaks, because there's no proof of that. Bloggers allege it, as does Assange. Assange goes as far to state that Amazon's press release does not accord with the facts on public record, but no one other than Assange seems to know what those fact actually are. Amazon has flatly stated why it shut down Wikileaks. Unless there is actual proof to the contrary (and not believing them doesn't constitute proof), then there's no freedom of the press attack at or by Amazon.
People like to think the DoS attacks are perpetrated by the government, egged on by the hilarious claims of Assange, but anyone who understands what a DoS attack is knows better. Assange certainly knows better. He also certainly knows that people are gullible. "I'm being persecuted! I'm the victim here! The government is trying to silence me!" and people eat it up.
For one, these DoS attacks were DDos (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks deployed using Stacheldraht botnets with classic smurph and SYN floods.
Two, the government has far easier ways of taking down a Web site, like simple redirection off the backbone (of which they have direct access) and they do it all the time for pirate (and torrent) Web sites. It's quick and simple, no need for a DDoS attack on a system as large as Amazon.
The DDos is the method of the hacker, of which Assange is one, because it's very effective on small systems and for targeted computers. But it's only marginally effective on large systems, especially on a server farm the size of Amazon's. At most it's an annoyance. On small and medium systems, it could be a problem, tho. But only a goober hacker (a.k.a. Friends of Assange) would launch a DDoS attack on Amazon.
That Assange is blaming the government for these DDoS attacks, and people are buying into it, has many a script kiddie roiling with laughter.
But the Bloggers roll on.
