Sen. Joe Lieberman Attacking Free Speech on the Internet

It’s no secret that many Democrats don’t like Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. We don’t want him spouting off ideas that sound like they came straight out of Dick Cheney’s mouth while simultaneously claiming to be one of us. So, we’re glad he’s now technically an Independent.

From truthout.org:

HR 1955, “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007″ passed the House in October 2007 with almost unanimous support. The bill immediately came under fire from civil liberties watchdogs because of what many saw as a deliberate targeting of Muslims and Arabs and the possible chilling effect it might have on free speech.

The original bill intended to set up a government commission to investigate the supposed threat of domestically produced terrorists and the ideologies that underpin their radicalization. The ten-member commission was to be empowered to “hold hearings and sit and act at such times and places, take such testimony, receive such evidence, and administer such oaths as the Commission considers advisable to carry out its duties.” The bill also singled out the Internet as a vehicle for terrorists to spread their ideology with the intention of recruiting and training new terrorists.

Needless to say, the public didn’t like that. After a lot of pressure, the bill stalled in the Senate and wasn’t passed. However, Lieberman doesn’t want to let it go. On May 19th, he sent Google a letter asking them to immediately remove content “produced by Islamic terrorist organizations” from YouTube. Google refused, citing its respect for free speech laws, with the exception of videos that violate its community rules against violence and hate speech.

Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology asserts that Lieberman, “no friend of civil liberties”, is displaying a fundamental lack of understanding about how the internet works, saying “take the videos off YouTube and they’ll appear elsewhere.”

Lieberman claims that censoring the internet is essential to our country’s self defense. His committee’s recently released report, “Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, And The Home Grown Terrorism Threat”, blames the internet for radicalization.

What Lieberman fails to grasp – or perhaps, doesn’t care about – is the fact that one step toward censorship leads us down a slippery slope that could easily turn all sorts of nonviolent dissent on the internet into ‘terrorism’. Who would they come after next – snarky green bloggers with strong opinions?

Link [truthout.org]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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