Joe Liebermann

Senator Joe Lieberman Asks Google For A Terrorist Flagging Button On Blogger

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You can’t make this stuff up!

– Senator Joe Lieberman asks Google for a terrorist flagging button on Blogger (The Verge, Nov. 24, 2011):

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has taken a few hits over the years in technology circles. The Democratic Party’s nominee for VP in 2000 is most recently remembered for having proposed an “internet kill switch.” Well, that wasn’t exactly what he proposed at all, but it didn’t earn him any fans in the tech community, that’s for sure.

Well, Joe’s at it again, and this time, it really is as embarrassing as it sounds. The Senator has taken pen to paper and written a letter to Google asking that its blogging platform Blogger be equipped with a flagging feature… for terrorists. This is largely because Jose Pimental, a man suspected of attempting to build a pipe bomb to attack the US military hosted his blog on Blogger. Now, there are a lot of terrible Blogger blogs to be sure, but is this really the best way to deal with such a problem?

Talking Points Memo acquired the letter and published it earlier today. “Pimentel’s Internet activity — both his spreading of bomb-making instructions links and his hate-filled writings — were hosted by Google” writes Lieberman, going on to add that, unlike YouTube, “Blogger’s Content Policy does not expressly ban terrorist content nor does it provide a ‘flag’ feature for such content.”

Google has not yet responded to Senator Lieberman’s request for the Blogger kill switch.

Sen. Joe Lieberman: Yemen will be ‘tomorrow’s war’ if pre-emptive action not taken

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Don’t you love the Bush doctrine of preemptive war?

– War President Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen Terrorists

Preemptive action to root out al-Qaeda? Sure!:

BBC now admits al-Qaeda never existed

– Rep. Dennis Kucinich: US War Presidents ignore Congress and Constitution

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Senator Joe Liebermann

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) Sunday said that Yemen could be the ground of America’s next overseas war if Washington does not take preemptive action to root out al-Qaeda interests there.

Lieberman, who helms the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the U.S. will have to take an active approach in Yemen after multiple recent terrorist attacks on the U.S. were linked back to the Middle Eastern nation.

The Connecticut senator said that an administration official told him that “Iraq was yesterday’s war, Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.”

Lieberman, who is known to be hawkish on security issues, said that Yemen needs to be a focal point because two recent attacks were linked back to a growing al-Qaeda presence there.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan — the Army officer who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in November — was linked to Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric now based in Yemen.

The senator said that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian accused of attempting to set off a plastic-explosive device aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Friday, “reached out to Yemen” but was “not sure” if he contacted al-Awlaki. Abdulmutallab reportedly told authorities he traveled to Yemen and met al-Qaida figures there.

The U.S. earlier this month launched cruise missiles at two al-Qaeda targets in Yemen. The attacks represented a major escalation of U.S. efforts against al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), also on Fox, agreed that preemptive strikes should be “one [option] we ought to be considering” but added that “it’s a big, complex subject.”

Read moreSen. Joe Lieberman: Yemen will be ‘tomorrow’s war’ if pre-emptive action not taken