When he wasn’t smoking pot with the New York Police Department’s confidential informant or trying to manually cut off the tip of his penis, “lone wolf” terror suspect Jose Pimentel was running a jihadist website on Google’s Blogger platform.
Now Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) wants Google to implement a policy explicitly banning terrorist material on their Blogger servers and set up a YouTube-style “flag” system to bring such material to Google’s attention.
TPM obtained a letter sent by Lieberman, chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, to Google CEO Larry Page on Tuesday calling for him to make some changes to their policy.
“Pimentel’s Internet activity — both his spreading of bomb-making instructions links and his hate-filled writings — were hosted by Google,” Lieberman wrote.
“On his site www.trueislam1.com, Pimentel stated, “People have to understand that America and its allies are legitimate targets in warfare. This includes facilities such as army bases, police stations, political facilities, embassies, CIA and FBI buildings, private and public airports, and all kinds of buildings where money is being made to help fund the war.’ As demonstrated by this recent case, Google’s webhosting site, Blogger is being used by violent Islamist extremists to broadcast terrorist content,” Lieberman continued.
Unlike YouTube’s Community Standards, Lieberman writes, “Blogger’s Content Policy does not expressly ban terrorist content nor does it provide a ‘flag’ feature for such content.”
He continues: “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.”
A Google spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pimentel’s website was still online as of Tuesday afternoon.
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
This idiot is essentially openly advocating for less terrorists being discovered via the web by the security services.
I mean, even the most simple thinker ought to be able to figure this one out: you drive them underground with such nonsense. Better to allow them to show their hand where they are easily located.
But no, Joe wants to make them harder to find - becasuse Joe wants another excuse to kill a few thousand brown people and sacrifice our soldiers.
Because he's a tough guy and 9/11.
Although Lieberman accuses Pimentel of "broadcasting terrorist [views]" (*), the quotation from Pimentel's site that Lieberman presented as an example does not sustain his claim.
The expression "legitimate targets in war" distinguishes war, waged in accord with the laws of war, from terrorism or war crimes. It appears that Pimentel advocates war against the US, but only following the laws of war -- rejecting terrorism, at least as he understands it.
The ACLU reports that police "fusion centers" investigated dissident groups as "terrorist suspects". Republicans in the past decade accused Dubya's political opponents of supporting terrorists. It looks like Lieberman defines "terrorism" as "opposing my side".
Stretching the word "terrorism" is a bigger danger to the US than a thousand Pimentels.
* I reject the word "content" as a way to refer to publications or statements.
Uh, there's already a Report Abuse link at the top of blogs. And that's not good enough?
snafu_ed No, he needs an ego boost. Therefore, what aint broke must be fixed.
Because 9/11 and he knows what's best for the entire planet because he's a tough guy who considers all Arabs and dissenters a threat to Mom, Pop and the kids.
They must be rooted out - and Joe knows just how to do it, being so obviously tech savvy and all...
Given Leiberman's age and general look of ill health, I have to question whether he isn't suffering some kind of serious mental deterioration. His ideas and actions are increasingly dysfunctional.
Maybe I don't know: he's been that way for years.
Sounds fun! I can flag every post that supports illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank....
This has to be one of the year's stupidest ideas. I'm not surprised of course, but wow, what I would give to watch Lieberman hang out on XboX Live for an hour and see if he thinks it's still a good idea to let anyone flag content as 'terrorist', might as well just flag the entire Internet as 'terrorist'.
Google needs to add a Lieberman button so we can flag any news stories whenever a Rent-A-Senator post is spotted.
It boggles the mind how stoopid this man truly is when dealing with the fact that it's 2011 - NOT 1865.... Go home JoJo... Your IDIOT is showing...
+T'd
It's a good thing that there is virtually zero chance of such a system being misused. /snark.
Hey, Joe. There already is a system to flag terrorist content. It's called the FBI. I hear they even have email nowadays.
Sigh. Poor Joe. Trying to maintain relevance.
11 months to go. How much damage could he do?
the first 3 letters of his name is LIE.............JUST MORE USELESS i want to be relevant DRIVEL .....
It seems like a good idea but if Lieberman said it, I don't trust it. At this point, Lieberman couldn't sell the idea of eating turkey on Thanksgiving to Pilgrims.
Susan Buettner Not a good idea. First, people are not trained to evaluate information about terrorist threats. Two, a lot of people consider anyone whose political ideas differ from theirs to be a terrorist threat. Three, encouraging citizens to spy on one another has had some bad consequences historically (purges, persecution, etc.)
Apropos of this conversation - the lobbying of government by religious groups has soared in recent years and AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) holds a commanding lead - they spent $88 million in 2008 alone. Their next-closest competitor was the US Conference of Catholic Bishops with a paltry $27 million in 2009.
<a href="http://www.pewforum.org/lobbying-religious-advocacy-groups-in-washington-dc.aspx">Lobbying for the FaithfulReligious Advocacy Groups in Washington</a>
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life | D.C.ANALYSIS November 21, 2011
derekdevries What's especially ironic about the Israeli lobbying is that they're likely doing it with our money. I support Israeli's existence, but I don't want them running our government.
Maybederekdevries AIPAC is supported by private donations by American Jews, and is in fact forbidden by law from lobbying with Israeli government funds.
I bet one of the rules in the algorithm is to red-flag any food blog that mentions "falafel" or "hummous."
Can we get a dumber-than-a-sack-of-potatoes flag?
Once upon a time, a Prince asked a beautiful Princess,"Will you marry me?" The Princess said, "No!" And the Prince and lived happily ever after, he rode motorcycles and dated skinny long-legged full-breasted women and hunted and fished and raced cars and went to naked bars and dated ladies half his age and drank whiskey, beer and Captain Morgan and never heard bitching and never paid child support or alimony and banged cheerleaders and kept his house and guns and ate spam and potato chips and beans and blew enormous farts and never got cheated on while he was at work and all his friends and family thought he was frikin cool as hell and he had tons of money in the bank and always left the toilet seat up. The End
An incredibly stupid and unworkable idea, but it sure beats another of Joe's worthless wars.
Mickey Bitsko Yes. Good point.
Well sure. Let the flagging begin.
For my part, I'll start flagging anything to do with Lieberman, Faux News or the general Rethuglican establishment. I mean, one person's fascist is another person's terrorist. They're all the same anyway.
"A Google spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment."
Waiting for the laughter to die down. May be awhile.
Joe Lieberman is the worst thing to happen to Judaism since grape flavored matzoh.
Yes, they make grape flavored matzoh. No, I have no idea why.
Flying Squid Is it possible to deport him to Israel? What? US Passport holder? Well, At least it sounded like a good plan.
Dirtbag Considering he's to the right of most Israelis, I doubt they want him either.
Flying Squid Better idea. Rendition to Hezbollah. Maybe they can get him to tell us why he ever ran as a Democrat.
DirtbagFlying Squid Maybe Texas would take him. I mean, look who they've got for governor.
What a great way to label every internet user as a terrorist so that the "tools" government has to prevent terrorism can be applied to anyone.
Nice little end run around the Constitution there, Joe. The government can't suppress free speech, so just strong-arm the private sector into "volunteering" to do it.
How much longer have we got to put up with Sen. Douchebag? Another whole year? Gak.
To think this idiot could have been the Vice-President...
mastertruism Palin might have been worse. Maybe. It's a tough call.
1. Lieberman's party designator needs to be changed: Sen. Joe Lieberman (Joe-CT).
2. He's beyond parody at this point.
lordrasputin All you need to know about Joe is that he named his Third Party Conneticutt for Lieberman and not Lieberman for Conneticutt. He stopped even pretending it was about something bigger than him, maybe something related to public service. Sociopath is not too strong, the dude is a legend in his own mind.
We desperately need, and I've said this on many boards, a douchebag flag.
The only useful contribution Joe Lieberman can make to this country is to put his pasty ass where his mouth has been for the last decade by suiting up and patrolling the mountains in Afghanistan on foot like the other American soldiers are doing.
bluestatedon I have serious doubts about the usefulness of Joe in uniform, with a loaded weapon in a combat zone. Although - the uncontrollable laughter it could generate in the Taliban and Al Quaeda fighters might incapacitate them. Then again, our soldiers would likely be subject to the same danger... never mind.
Joe, the only candidate ever of the Joe for Joe Party, is a jerk wad of the first order.
The question is which fat lobbying contract is he pandering to now that's leaving the Senate for sure in January, 2013, largely as a result of the disgust in which citizens of CT (me and millions of others) other this repugnant piece of horse crap. If he's written the bill so that I can list him as a terrorist, I might consider it, provided it goes no further. Few people have done as much damage to the United States --and Israel -- as Joe for Joe. Remember the guy who wanted to keep the Iraq going on until eternity neared an end. Joe the jerk is on of the idiots responsible directly for thousands of american deaths in the theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan, most of the corruption, and the enabling of the worst part of the extreme right. So they bought his election for him under the table in 2006, but the guys who were bought have enough conscience to tell him to find a fat job with his lobbyist wife who's been pulling this strings. His mother is on Medicare and his wife already has lifetime health insurance for them that avoids any of her supposed reforms.
You're been bought and sold, Joe, and you're among the most shameful people in any legislative body in the world. You're really just an anti=people terrorist.
Joe's simply a jerk on payroll of his next employer under the table.
Is this dude still alive!!!
cholly6214 It's debatable. I mean, look at him.
Heyyy Joe....Where you goin' with that poorly-thought-out-subject-to-massive-abuse-kneejerk-reaction in your hand?....
Shutting these guys down seems like about the stupidest thing you'd want to do. Giving them enough rope to hang themselves with their own words in addition to making themselves nice big visible targets to turn over to the FBI? Probably the more efficient use of Google's time and energy here.
Why on earth would you want to push a person like this underground? Oh wait, if you're Joe Lieberman, it's because EVERYBODY'S A TERRORIST!!!
Seriously Joe, epic fail for making me use this link on you.
Don't tell Joe that the The Anarchist Cookbook is available on Amazon...
Google's response will be, sorry Joe, but No.
This won't control the right to free speech, but it underlines that what you say will have consequences. I think this would cut down on the pile-on replies that are so frequently seen at partisan forums, epsecially the ones where outright bigotry is the norm.
Actually, it has the potential to be a good thing, if it's used properly. Consider that this "Flagging" doesn't immediately ban it, simply reports it for investigation, so that actual trained individuals can review it. If it is terroristic, then the authorities have the information, and if not, they take the flag down.
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