I find the following article to be of interest and important because it highlights the fagility of peoples right to expression on the net and likely other modes of expression.
Fred's Want to Know Newsletters would be in the target area too. Check out what the following bill includes.
“Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
Lieberman Demands YouTube CensorshipPublished on Tuesday, May 20, 2008.
“Today, Islamist terrorist organizations rely extensively on the Internet to attract supporters and advance their cause. The framework for much of this Internet campaign is described in a bipartisan staff report released last week by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which I am privileged to chair, titled Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat,” writes Lieberman. “The report explains, in part, how al-Qaeda created and manages a multi-tiered online media operation that produces content intended to enlist followers in countries all over the world, including the United States. Central to this media campaign is the branding of content with an icon or logo to guarantee authenticity that the content was produced by al-Qaeda or allied organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam (a.k.a Ansar al-Sunnah) or al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb.”
Or how about an “allied organization” such as the CIA, military intelligence or one of its cutouts? “An expert computer analyst has presented evidence that so-called ‘Al-Qaeda’ tapes are routinely digitally doctored and has also unwittingly exposed an astounding detail that clearly indicates a Pentagon affiliated organization in the U.S. is directly responsible for releasing the videos,” Paul Joseph Watsonwrote last August. Neal Krawetz, a researcher and computer security consultant, examined the image quantization table of a 2006 Ayman al-Zawahiri tape and made a fascinating discovery — al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab logo (supposedly the media arm of al-Qaeda) was placed on the tape at the same time as the IntelCenter logo. As it turns out, IntelCenter, notorious for releasing al-Qaeda videos, is run by Ben Venzke, former director of intelligence at a company called iDefense, a Verisign company. Jim Melnick, a senior military psy-op intelligence officer who worked directly for Donald Rumsfeld, is billed as iDefense’s director of threat intelligence. In short, there is a distinct possibility the al-Qaeda videos mentioned by Lieberman are fake.
“Searches on YouTube return dozens of videos branded with an icon or logo identifying the videos as the work of one of these Islamist terrorist organizations,” Lieberman continues. “A great majority of these videos document horrific attacks on American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. Others provide weapons training, speeches by al-Qaeda leadership, and general material intended to radicalize potential recruits,” that is to say patsies and useful idiots, easy marks for “the process of radicalization,” basically a Goldstein process. Emmanuel Goldstein is a character from Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, a terrorist created by Big Brother’s party, the subject of two minute hate sessions. Like Winston Smith’s fictional character, Comrade Ogilvy, Goldstein does not actually exist. “Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar,” writes Orwell.
Lieberman, speaking for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wants Google to “immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations from YouTube. This should be a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance. In addition, please explain what changes Google plans to make to the YouTube community guidelines to address violent extremist material and how Google plans to enforce those guidelines to prevent the content from reappearing.”
Joe is simply preparing the way for the introduction of the so-called “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” passed in the House by a 404-6 margin and now awaiting action in the Senate. “If passed in the Senate and signed into law by George W. Bush, the act would establish a ten-member National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, to study and propose legislation to address the threat of possible ‘radicalization’ of people legally residing in the US,” writes Matt Renner. “The commission would have very broad powers. It could investigate anyone. It would create a public perception that whoever is being investigated by the Commission must be involved in subversive or illegal activities. It would give the appearance that whoever they are investigating is potentially a traitor or disloyal or a terrorist, even if all they were doing was advocating lawful views,” Renner quotes Odette Wilkens, executive director of the Equal Justice Alliance, a constitutional watchdog group. Rep. Jane Harman, who sponsored the bill in the House, has said the Commission would not only investigate al-Qaeda inspired terrorists, but “gangs” too, as we all know street gangs are basically terrorists at heart.
It is no mistake a House Committee on Homeland Security lumped terrorists and 9/11 truth activists together last November. During a presentation held before Jane Harman and the committee, Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center — and his colleagues from the RAND corporation — made a point of including two 9/11 truth websites as evidence of “homegrown terrorism,” as 9/11 truth research and websites are now to be considered “incubators for hate,” as Weitzman would have it, because, of course, questioning the official orthodoxy is always considered hateful (see AE911Truth Response to Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center). Add to this a concerted effort on the part of the corporate media to demonize 9/11 truth, viz., Glenn Beck comparing truth activists to Timothy McVeigh and Geraldo Rivera stating his belief the large firecracker set off on the doorstep of a military recruiting center in Times Square was the work of “‘9/11 was an inside job’ kind of guys,’” who Rivera compared to “eco terrorists.”
In fact, Weitzman and crew made a direct link between jihadist terrorism and 9/11 truth “extremists”:
Some of these are conspiracy theories that present a closed view of the world, such as blaming 9/11 as an “outside job”(?) or blaming outside groups such as the U.S. government, or er the Jews etc, some of these are pro-Iraqi insurgency videos, some of them are media portals that people can enter into, ones that you saw earlier with the flags, the U.S. flags show that they were based on U.S. servers… (see Steve Watson & Paul Watson, House Subcommittee Presentation Equates 9/11 Truth With Terrorism.)
Joe Lieberman’s letter to Eric Schmidt and Google concentrates exclusively on “videos produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups,” never mind questions about the authenticity of these videos, but as the presentation of Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center held before Harman’s committee reveals, so-called jihadist terrorists are not the only target of this proposed scrubbing — let’s call it what it is, censorship — of the internet. Beck, Morning Joe, Rivera, et al, have provided the required propaganda equating 9/11 truth with terrorism and as we have seen, most recently at the Louisville Exposition Center, it is now apparently acceptable for cops and private security goons to attack truth activists, same as they might attack Timothy McVeigh, had they the chance.
But then, like fake al-Qaeda videos passed off as the real McCoy, it appears McVeigh was directed by a high-level FBI agent, according to Terry Nichols, who was long ago gagged by John Ashcroft. In a 19-page declaration filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City early last year, Nichols said “that the whole bombing plot [of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City] was an FBI operation and that McVeigh let slip during a bout of anger that he was taking instruction from former FBI official Larry Potts,” according to the Desert Morning News.
As usual, things are not exactly the way the government tells us they are.
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Editor’s Note: Google has refused to honor Lieberman’s “request” (or intimidation, take your pick). “While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view,” the company said in a statement. “We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate, we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds.”
John Morris, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said Lieberman’s letter was a practical impossibility and having sites such as YouTube pre-screen content would radically change how the Internet is used.
But then that’s the point, no?
Obviously, Google and Morris are with al-Qaeda