The Classic Liberal Blog

Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who is always full of good ideas when it comes to cracking down on Internet freedom, is now urging Google to "expressly ban" all "terrorist material" on Blogger, or at least provide a "flag feature."

In a November 22, 2011 letter sent to Google CEO Larry Page, Lieberman whined:

On Saturday, the New York Police Department arrested Joe Pimental for constructing a pipe bomb to be used against U.S. military service members. Pimental allegedly used the Internet to access instructions to make bombs and share his support for violent Islamist extremism.

Pimental's Internet activity – both his spreading of bomb-making instruction links and his hate-filled writings – were hosted by Google ... As demonstrated by this recent case, Google's webhosting site, Blogger is being used by violent Islamist extremists to broadcast terrorist content. Pimental's site is just one of the many examples of homegrown terrorists using Google-hosted sites to propagate their violent ideology.

In September 2008, in response to a previous request that YouTube not allow terrorist content on its servers, Google changed its YouTube Community Guidelines to expressly ban terrorist content. In November 2010, Google introduced a "flag" button for terrorist content on YouTube. I continue to appreciate and commend these important first steps but I am disappointed that Google has not developed a consistent standard throughout its many platforms. Unlike YouTube's Community Standards, Blogger's Content Policy does not expressly ban terrorist content nor does it provide a "flag" feature for such content.

Google sets its own standards for materials allowable on its servers. Through your updated YouTube standards, Google has affirmatively stated that terrorist content will not be permitted on some of your sites. I strongly believe that Google should expand that standard to include your other platforms.

Are you serious?

Now I'm sure this "flag" thing would only be used by "responsible adults" spying on their neighbors to report genuine terror threats, and that organized political groups wouldn't engage in concerted efforts to hunt down blogs they disagree with to flag as "terrorist material." Nope, that'll never happen. No worries of fevered "knee-jerk" speculation and false accusations (with dire consequences) here either.

Lieberman's "flag" policy couldn't possibly be manipulated by people determined to shut down the free exchange of ideas. No blogs will be flagged for political content. No blogs will go missing. After all, our benevolent Washington Overlords have no interest in monitoring dissent. "Do No Evil" and all.

Blame it on Jose Pimentel!

Never one to let a non-crisis go to waste, Lieberman found himself a boogeyman!

Sen. Joseph Lieberman Calls for Google to Enact Flag Feature on Blogger to Prevent Terrorist Activity

The drive for making this request seems to be the recent arrest of Jose Pimentel, who built a pipe bomb to be used against military members and posted bomb making instructions and extremist positions on his blogsite hosted by Google.

Lieberman makes his case to Google that many blog sites are hosting material of "homegrown terrorists."

As of Tuesday this week, Talking Points Memo notes that Pimentel's site (www.trueislam1.com) was still active, although as of today, Friday, it has been taken down. But The Verge reports that as of Thursday, Google had not responded to Lieberman's overall request for the "Blogger kill switch."

That's right. Joe Lieberman is demanding Internet censorship under the guise of "protecting us" from yet another unemployed Department of Homeland Security patsy:

A 'lone wolf' American citizen becomes radicalized on the Internet, a paid "informant" escorts him to buy bomb-making material, and authorities arrest him in the nick of time to save us from a dangerous terrorist plot.

How many times are we going to read this exact story? The details are seemingly always in short supply and never independently verified, but the rhetoric is identical and half the article always refers to older cases as if to give credence to the same tired plot.

Even those in the mainstream media are calling BS on these staged arrests. Not too long ago, Geraldo Rivera schooled Bill O'Reilly about patsies and fake terror.

And as recently as last week, the Guardian ran an article article exposing FBI entrapment cases of recent terror patsies where the same pattern of "the organisation, money, weapons and motivation for this plot did not come from real Islamic terrorists. It came from the FBI."

The Idiot Jihadist Next Door

As with the May 2011 plot, the NYPD's characterization of the Pimentel plot also reeks of exaggeration and alarmism. A close examination of the details so far indicates that Jose Pimentel is yet another example of a growing group of idiot homegrown jihadists.

If the best the al Qaeda movement can do is to inspire terrorists that are the caliber of Jose Pimentel, the threat homegrown jihadists are likely to pose will be a lot like Faisal Shahzad's attempt to blow up Times Square: all boo, no boom.

Censorship and Control

All boo and no boom ... but Joe Lieberman wants you to be scared anyway.

I wonder why?

Lieberman and the rest of his ilk (like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)) have no real interest in "Hate Speech," "National Security," or "Violence," what they want is the power to censor - the power to control. As Lord Acton famously said, "Great men are almost always bad men," because "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Still think Lieberman is a "good guy" who's simply trying to make the "bad guys" go away?

Censoring the Internet won't make bad guys go away

Senator Joe Lieberman and his like-minded friends in government seem to think that censoring swathes of the Internet will somehow make all of the "bad guys" go away. The real problem? They actually expect the public to believe them.

[A]ccording to Lieberman's logic, we could get rid of all of the bad things people do by simply enacting a strict government censorship policy.

Don't like commies? All we have to do is use Lieberman logic and censor the results of every popular search engine so that the philosophy of communism never comes up. And then we can just sit back and watch while all of commies die off.

Because if people don't know that different ideas exist, they won't ever challenge the status quo. Right?

I don't believe for a second that censoring everything that government says is bad will lead to a better world. Does anyone honestly think that by disallowing people to read the ramblings of suspected terrorists that it will become easier to eliminate the terrorists in the world?

Lieberman's logic is too simple for it to actually work in the real world and the fact that he's an educated man who is pushing his simplified perspective on the public raises many concerns for me. I don't think that Lieberman even believes that banning terrorist content will eliminate terrorism.

I think he just wants to expand the government's ability to control the most used medium for communication in the world.

Censoring the Internet will not make the bad guys go away. It will take away the freedoms of regular Americans and our enemies (if they even exist anymore) will laugh at us.

With America itself now a "battlefield," where American citizens can be declared "non-persons" and/or "terrorists" and detained indefinitely by whim of the president ... It's only a matter of time, I guess, before Joe Lieberman, or somebody else, crashes this site.

I hope I get a nice cell next to yours.