Senator Wants 'Terrorist' Label On Blogs 370
itwbennett writes "Terrorist suspect Jose Pimentel had a blog on Google-owned Blogger. And so it follows that Senator Joe Lieberman sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page taking him to task because 'Blogger's Content Policy does not expressly ban terrorist content.' Lieberman also pointed out that YouTube does ban terrorist content and added that 'Google's inconsistent standards are adversely affecting our ability to counter violent Islamist extremism online.'"
Hey, guess what! (Score:5, Insightful)
Those 'founding fathers' must have been a bunch of rag-heads or something.
Yo Joe (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Honorable Senator Lieberman:
May I interest you in an important Historical Document [wikipedia.org] that, I might add, you were supposed to have read and understood when you were sworn into the Senate?
Reading comprehension is important for everyone.
Geez, it's already done... (Score:4, Insightful)
Illegal content isn't allowed on Blogger.com at present.
Terrorism is illegal at present.
Therefore nothing new to see here, just move along and stop wasting our time.
Maybe Senators could focus on something important, like the economy and trillions in debt instead.
Lieberman is the terrorist (Score:4, Insightful)
Who is trying to terrify us here? Why, Joe Lieberman and his ilk, of course. What is the biggest terrorist organization in the US? The Department of Homeland Security, who wastes no opportunity to further terrify the populace (terror alert! new scanners! we are at risk! etc.)
Free speech and all that... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about Christian extremism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is this yet another case of "one law for us, another for anyone who doesn't agree with us or fit our agenda-du-jour"?
Re:Hey, guess what! (Score:5, Insightful)
American revolutionaries are considered heroes today. But they were looked at as terrorists by the British at the time. It's a shame our representatives today have little knowledge or understanding of history.
Re:Hey, guess what! (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe they have better understanding than you give them credit for...
Re:Yo Joe (Score:5, Insightful)
He read and understood it. He's not an idiot, he just doesn't give a shit.
Re:Sign, sign, everywhere a sign... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a bit much, don't you think? Perhaps instead we should just make them wear some sort of symbol on their clothes. A nice yellow star, or a pink square, perhaps?
A nice big red cross on the door.
testing our elected representatives (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yo Joe (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if that's the case ... then he's clearly a terrorist.
Upholding and defending the principles of the US constitution is part of the job description, isn't it?
So, if he's against the Constitution, he's against America, and therefore a terrorist. He should be publicly flogged, and then hanged until dead.
Of course, I'm not seriously advocating violence towards him ... but I find it appalling that lawmakers have been stomping over enshrined rights to keep up this farce of Homeland Security ... hell, even the term dredges up images of Nazi's and their Fatherland.
The US Has Become a Cartoon-Parody of Police-State (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like watching "Brazil", as reimagined through "The Simpsons".
Re:testing our elected representatives (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hey, guess what! (Score:5, Insightful)
The official content policy of the US of A starts with "Congress shall make no law".
It doesn't say "Corporations shall may no policy..."
Re:Politicians (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.Albert Einstein
This is actually not correct, as there is one thing that is worse and much more dangerous: Passing laws that have no support in the general population. You can NOT uphold laws against the will of your subjects. A law that has no support will be ignored at best. Subverted at worst.
It's also not so much the bad law that's dangerous. What makes it so dangerous is that people start to question upholding the rest of the legal code as well. If I ignore this law, why not that one, too?
Once you made someone a criminal, he's prone to ignore other laws because, hey, why bother whether I go to jail? For reference, see the 1930s and prohibition.
Re:Hey, guess what! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hey, guess what! (Score:2, Insightful)
The WTC attack was to spread terror.
Worked, didn't it? The american populace is scared shitless of terrorists, and it's trashed the economy in the process.
I keep saying the terrorists won years and years ago, but somehow the general consensus would disagree.
Re:Yo Joe (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hey, guess what! (Score:5, Insightful)
blow up shipping docks to intimidate British merchants and military.
Sounds more like good guerrilla warfare than terrorism to me. If the supply lines of your much larger enemy have a chokepoint (as it was during the Revolutionary War; the enemy depended on naval transport for everything) that's exactly what you want to target, mainly for the material and personnel effect (the latter assuming most of the people working in the shipyard accepting British transport were on the side of the enemy). Psychological effects at most are a tertiary bonus, if you were lucky...blowing up a dock in the Revolutionary War would be a really inefficient way to instill enough fear in the public of Great Britain to change public support of a war.
Modern examples of the difference:
Terrorism: Flying jetliners into buildings in a way sure to get good media coverage and keeping the threat of the possibility of it happening again ambiguous.
Guerrilla tactics: Attacking supply lines of your enemy in Afghanistan, rather then wasting your personnel in a head-on attacks against a much stronger enemy.
Guerrilla warfare != Terrorism
Re:Yea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Politicians (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite the opposite, for the average person personal moral standards and conscience are the primary reasons to uphold or to break a law.
Do you kill someone for fun or profit? I guess not. Why not? Because it's in the law that killing is wrong? If so, I question your morals, to be blunt. I don't kill people because I consider it wrong. That it's in the law is a coincidence, and I'm quite happy about it since it fits my moral codex, but that's not the primary reason why I don't go over to my neighbor, bash in his head and take his stereo (since, well, when he's dead it's not like he needs it anymore).
Would you turn in someone who you know kills for fun or profit? Even a friend? Maybe so. Even if he's a friend, but killing someone is simply wrong. And I wouldn't consider someone my friend who goes about and kills people 'cause he doesn't like their looks.
How about copying a movie or a song? Is it wrong? It's also in the law that it's not allowed, but how high is your inhibition to do it compared to murder? Same level? And if not, just because the punishment is lower? Ok, then how about nicking your old granny's purse? Same punishment (in my country) as for downloading a bunch of songs and movies. Same inhibition? Same level of "wrong"? It's the same punishment, and given that gramma is nearly blind, the chance of getting caught is also pretty much the same.
Laws and morality have nothing to do with each other? Do you really think so?
Career Politicians = Political Products (Score:5, Insightful)
Since career politicians are bought and sold should we refer to them for what they truly are: Political Products.
Re:Hey, guess what! (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, now, you have to interpret that based on what the Founders really intended. And just as when they said "free exercise of religion" they clearly meant "you can believe anything you like as long as you believe in Jesus", when they said "no laws abridging the freedom of speech" they meant "you can say what you like as long as it doesn't threaten the government or entrenched corporate interests, oh, and this 'copyright' thing is really supposed to last forever so what you can say without being sued for infringing it will gradually shrink too".
It's right there in the text. Just point your eyes between the lines and squint real hard.
Re:Hey, guess what! (Score:4, Insightful)
Those revolutionaries authored the basis of all of our laws.
They aren't just figments of history. Their legacy remains quite intact even to this day. In some ways they serve as a cautionary example of where certain sorts of slippery slopes lead.
That is why the whole revolution happened to begin with.
People will only take so much before they tar and feather the tax man and parade him through the street.
Re:Lieberman is the terrorist (Score:4, Insightful)
very true.
I don't fly much anymore, but I'm far more terrified of my own government and its paid thugs (blue and other colors) than I am of ANY islamic scary-beard-guy.
my chances of having a problem with mr scary-arab-beard-guy are nearly zero. my chances of having a problem with 'one of my own americans' is probably higher than 50% (pick a unit of time, probably will still hold true).
face it, our own people terrorize us far more than foreigners do.
Re:VOTE! "WHO'S WRECKING AMERIKKKA?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I find the fact that some people like to hate on George Soros particularly telling. As you already pointed out, he is one of the most successful capitalists in the world, and spends a lot of his wealth on various causes, chief among them promoting self-determination, less government influence, and more independent media. Makes you wonder what people opposing him are in favor of ...
Looking at the American political landscape, I would think that Republicans would be cheering for Soros. Weren't they for small government and self-determination, too? It appears to me that some of the more vocal Republicans actually support the opposite now: more government (to protect us against the terrorists), and more government meddling in your personal affairs (enforce Christian restrictions).