Joe Liberman calls youtube a terrorist website

Yeah, I do understand the difference. However, I believe, by labeling an entity a "terrorist organization", you could by default, make the entity vulnerable to libel under current homeland defense type laws, i.e. (Un)Patriot(ic) Act. I'm not a lawyer, so not sure if I'm on the right track here. Now, if some type of legislation is passed, then we're in a totally different ball game.

I like how Lieberman (I prefer the Liberman spelling though) uses "radicalize" to infer some sort of change that happens to people just by watching videos. If watching videos had that sort of powerful effect on people I'd be getting all sorts of steamy sex resulting from the wackiest unexpected scenarios. And I am not. Frankly, I might even question whether watching too many terrorist videos might reduce one's own ambition to go out and stir up some hot terror action of his own.

next you'll be saying that Doom isn't a murder simulator.

Doom is an armageddon training program best played when drunk.

Oh but CNN has Anderson Cooper.

Mr. Salt-and-Pepper Integrity?

nobody's seen War, Inc. yet, so i can totally claim i came up with that myself. unless it's not funny.

anyone called dibs on Soledad O'Brien yet?

'cause if not...

Total babe.

Maybe not, but he is a CIA operative. Really.

If Liber-Man only wants to express his opinion on the matter, fine. But you'll notice, at the end of the vid, just before they have to go to hard break, he suggests writing a law if google doesn't voluntarily comply. If you look at Joe's history, he's quite the champion of censorship.

indeed.

No. There is virtually no danger of that happening just because Joe Lieberman wrote a letter.

Again, to motorfirebox, I understand that in theory COULD become a First Amendment issue at some point, but I think it cheapens the discourse a bit and confuses people to shout the First Amendment every time someone asks someone else not to say something. In reality the First Amendment is actually implicated in a tenth of a percent of those cases.

Keep in mind, I'm about as much of a First Amendment absolutist as one can possibly be and still believe in the social contract. I'm just saying it's not all that productive to everyone's understanding of the law to invoke it inaccurately.

And if that happens, then there's an issue.

shouting "First Amendment!" every time someone cries "terrorists!" certainly isn't the ideal way to protect free speech, but i think it's one way to keep free speech in the public's mind. i mean, let's face it--Someone From The Government has just told us that Youtube is teh terrars. that's a pretty powerful sound bite. it's unfortunate that free speech has been reduced to a war of sound bites, but i think we need to maintain our own arsenal while we work towards a less slackjawed future.

You are of course correct, Subrosa, my 1st Ammendment assertions were incorrect. However, I find this type of self censorship even more insidious. Look at what happened to NC-17 movies. Major retailers such as Wal-Mart refused to carry them. Practical result, there are few if any NC-17 rating issued, or the movies are re-edited to get an R rating. The objective of censorship has been achieved, without the force of law, therefore there is no legal recourse against it. Imagine if you owned an erotic art site and the US attorney general got a hard on (pun intended) about prosecuting pornography? What if he said he considered certain types of erotic art pornography, and launched a war against it? You (the site owner), respond by removing images that may be considered offensive by the AG, even there is no specific law against them, nor were you specifically threatened. Outcome, censorship achieved, and no legal recourse. At least if there were a law passed, there could be challenges to it's constitutionality, but this thuggish intimidation seemingly has no defense.

That's pretty much why I was bringing up the 1st Amendment, his mentions of possible legislation.

And that's a fair point, though it's worth noting that the AG has the power to enforce his whims against pr0n if he so chooses. Even if the letter of the law says he can't (or, as is the case in real life, the "letter of the law" is so ambiguous that it's unclear whether he has the power to or not), he can still press charges that are intended to intimidate or harass someone into compliance. Joe Lieberman doesn't have such authority (or not until John McCain appoints him Secretary of Porn Snuffing-Outing or something).

Again, there's nothing wrong with saying that Youtube is protected here by the First Amendment. Of course they are (and, with their money, have wayyyy more powerful lawyers at their disposal than are necessary to deal with something like this). But if we're going in that direction its also worth noting that Lieberman has First Amendment rights too (even if he chooses to express them in totes stupid ways). That's all. Fair enough?

RudieCantFail said:
The shape of her mouth and jaw reminds me of:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

and

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

You have to admit he has a point.
That, and that it looks like she hasn't been eating her prunes lately, if you know what I mean...

In regards to FOX news there is an amazing documentary that exposes FOX news for what it really is a sitcom with actors paid to be journalists who whore themselves out to further their own careers. It is called Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism and you can get it here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6737097743434902428.

One Keith Olbermann > The entire FOX news network.....

he knows how to kill a man 56 different ways with his chiseled good looks.

God I love her.

and Julie Banderas

I know I'm a little late to the party here, but I just wanted to say that Lieberman's aim is off. It's not the videos that are the problem, it's the comments. Those things are a fucking terrorist attack on literacy.