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Senator Joseph "Joe" I. Lieberman


Self Description

December 2005: "Now in his third term representing Connecticut in the United States Senate, Joe Lieberman has earned a national reputation as a thoughtful, principled, and effective legislator. He is perhaps best known as the Democratic candidate for Vice President in 2000. More than that, he is a national leader who works across party lines to find common ground, who speaks his conscience, and who gets things done for Connecticut and the country...."

Senator Lieberman was born in Stamford, Connecticut, on February 24, 1942, and attended public schools there. He received his bachelor's degree from Yale College in 1964 and his law degree from Yale Law School in 1967. Senator Lieberman was elected to the Connecticut State Senate in 1970 and served there for ten years, including the last six as Majority Leader. In 1980, he returned to private legal practice for two years, and from 1983 through 1988, he served as Connecticut's 21st Attorney General. As Attorney General he took on polluters of Connecticut's environment, went after deadbeat dads by strengthening child support enforcement, and earned a strong reputation as a defender of consumers' rights.

Senator Lieberman was first elected to the United States Senate in 1988, scoring the nation's biggest political upset that year by a margin of just 10,000 votes. Six years later, he made history by winning the biggest landslide victory ever in a Connecticut Senate race, drawing 67 percent of the vote and beating his opponent by more than 350,000 votes. In 2000, Senator Lieberman was elected by another overwhelming margin to a third term.

Senator Lieberman is Ranking Member and former Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (formerly the Governmental Affairs Committee), which is responsible for assuring the efficiency and effectiveness of the Federal Government. In addition, he is a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee; Senate Armed Services Committee, where he is Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on AirLand Forces and sits on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities; and the Small Business Committee.

Senator Lieberman is also a former Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which is "an idea center, catalyst, and national voice for a reform movement that is reshaping American politics by moving it beyond the old left-right debate." The DLC, like Senator Lieberman, advances public policy that honors the core American values of responsibility, opportunity, and community.

http://lieberman.senate.gov/about/

Third-Party Descriptions

July 2012: 'And this is more than just some idle speculation by hawkish members of the judiciary subcommittee: As Timm points out in his EFF post, a senior Justice Department official told the Washingtonian recently that journalists who speak to government sources about top-secret information should be careful, because doing so could “put them at risk of prosecution.” In the wake of the diplomatic-cable incident, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) also proposed something called the SHIELD law, which would make it a crime for anyone to publish classified information that might be “contrary to the national interest,” legislation he continues to promote.'

http://gigaom.com/2012/07/24/first-they-came-for-wikileaks-then-the-new-york-times/

December 2010: ''The U.S. military will for the first time in history allow gays to serve openly...."This is one of the days where you really feel privileged to be in the U.S. Senate," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), the other co-sponsor of the bill. "There's been a lot of difficult times the last couple of years because it's so partisan to get anything done. But here we are, it came together."'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/18/AR2010121801729.html

December 2010: 'The announcement came from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Lieberman said in a statement that Amazon's "decision to cut off Wikileaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies Wikileaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material."'

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/how_lieberman_got_amazon_to_drop_wikileaks.php

November 2008: 'IT’S NOT ONLY FOREIGN COUNTRIES that are eager to restrict speech on Google and YouTube. Last May, Senator Joseph Lieberman’s staff contacted Google and demanded that the company remove from YouTube dozens of what he described as jihadist videos. (Around the same time, Google was under pressure from “Operation YouTube Smackdown,” a grass-roots Web campaign by conservative bloggers and advocates to flag videos and ask YouTube to remove them.) After viewing the videos one by one, Wong and her colleagues removed some of the videos but refused to remove those that they decided didn’t violate YouTube guidelines. Lieberman wasn’t satisfied. In an angry follow-up letter to Eric Schmidt, the C.E.O. of Google, Lieberman demanded that all content he characterized as being “produced by Islamist terrorist organizations” be immediately removed from YouTube as a matter of corporate judgment — even videos that didn’t feature hate speech or violent content or violate U.S. law. Wong and her colleagues responded by saying, “YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view.” In September, Google and YouTube announced new guidelines prohibiting videos “intended to incite violence.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.htm

July 2008: "Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking Republican on the panel, had asked the GAO in 2006 to investigate the DCAA's audit practices."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/23/AR2008072301437.html

June 2008: "Senator Boxer, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, is presenting an amended version of a bill first sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I) of Connecticut and John Warner (R) of Virginia. The bill proposes establishing a trading system for carbon-emission credits that supporters say will give companies a market incentive to reduce greenhouse gases. Critics say it creates a vast new federal bureaucracy at a high cost to the US economy and taxpayers."

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/06/01/warm-up-for-a-global-warming-law/

May 2008: "Sen. Joe Lieberman wants YouTube and its rivals to delete any videos produced by al-Qaida, other Islamic terrorist groups, and any suspected sympathizers. But because there's no U.S. law requiring deletion--at least not yet--there's not much the onetime veep candidate can do except complain."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9947500-7.html

October 2007: Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who plans a hearing on the report today, says 'serious hurdles remain if (the list) is to be as effective as we need it to be. Some of the concerns stem from its rapid growth, which could call into question the quality of the list itself.'

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-23-Watchlist_N.htm

October 2007: A bill intended to lower emissions of greenhouse gases, introduced last week by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, sets goals that would be virtually impossible to achieve without new nuclear plants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/washington/23nukes.html

October 2007: The allegations of ICE forcibly drugging deportees were raised last month by Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, during the re-nomination hearing of ICE chief Julie Myers.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/12/doping.immigrants/index.html

January 2007: The incoming chairman of the committee, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, was re-elected in November as an independent — after losing the Democratic primary — with help from Mr. Bloomberg, who sent field operatives to help the senator.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/washington/09cnd-homeland.html

January 2005: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), one of the law's key sponsors, said yesterday that the new system is an improvement over earlier drafts but still "will undermine key employee protections that prevent workplace abuses and improve employee performance." He also called the limits on collective bargaining "excessive."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39934-2005Jan26.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Director/Trustee/Overseer (past or present) Center for Jewish and Christian Values Organization Dec 12, 2006
Organization Executive (past or present) Committee on the Present Danger Organization Feb 6, 2007
Organization Executive (past or present) Connecticut (State Government) Organization Dec 23, 2005
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) Organization Dec 23, 2005
Member of (past or present) Democratic Party / Democratic National Committee (DNC) Organization
Member of (past or present) US Senate Organization Dec 23, 2005
Student/Trainee (past or present) Yale University Organization Dec 23, 2005
Colleague/Co-worker of (past or present) Ambassador Daniel R. Coats Person Dec 12, 2006
Advised by (past or present) Supervisor of (past or present) Dan Gerstein Person Dec 2, 2008
Colleague/Co-worker of (past or present) Vice-President Albert "Al" Gore Jr. Person Dec 23, 2005
Opponent (past or present) Successor to Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr. Person Oct 21, 2007

Articles and Resources

60 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Jul 24, 2012 First they came for Wikileaks, then the New York Times

QUOTE: There are signs that the U.S. government wants to target mainstream journalists and media outlets for the same kind of investigation that WikiLeaks has been subjected to for publishing classified information, which makes it even more important to defend WikiLeaks’ status as a media entity.

 GigaOM
Feb 02, 2011 Senate Rejects Repeal of Health Care Law

QUOTE: "Senate Democrats on Wednesday defeated a bid by Republicans to repeal last year’s sweeping health care overhaul, as they successfully mounted a party-line defense of President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement."

 New York Times
Dec 19, 2010 'Don't ask, don't tell' is repealed by Senate; bill awaits Obama's signing

QUOTE: The U.S. military will for the first time in history allow gays to serve openly after the Senate voted Saturday to repeal "don't ask, don't tell," the policy that has required such troops to hide their sexual identity or risk being expelled from the services. While opponents said repeal would create a battlefield distraction that could endanger troops, supporters drew parallels to the military's decision to end racial segregation in the 1950s and the admission of women to military service academies in the 1970s.

 Washington Post
Dec 01, 2010 How Lieberman Got Amazon To Drop Wikileaks

QUOTE: [Amazon's] terms of acceptable use include a ban on illegal activities (it's not yet clear whether Wikileaks has broken any laws) and content "that may be harmful to our users, operations, or reputation." It also prohibits using Amazon's servers "to violate the security or integrity of any network, computer or communications system," although Wikileaks obviously obtained the cables long before hopping on Amazon's servers.

 Talking Points Memo (TPM)
Jul 09, 2009 Federal Protective Service Faulted After GAO Sting With Bomb Parts

QUOTE: The recent sting by the Government Accountability Office exposed lax security procedures by the Federal Protective Service,

 Washington Post
May 24, 2009 A Fight to Protect Americans From British Libel Law

QUOTE: Some free-speech advocates in the United States say that so-called libel tourists are using the global-distribution argument to justify suing for libel there....Similar bills are advancing in other state legislatures, and stronger measures, allowing American defendants to fight back against adverse foreign libel rulings.

 New York Times
Nov 28, 2008 Google’s Gatekeepers

QUOTE: As more and more speech migrates online, to blogs and social-networking sites and the like, the ultimate power to decide who has an opportunity to be heard, and what we may say, lies increasingly with Internet service providers, search engines and other Internet companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook and even eBay....some House Democrats and Republicans have introduced a bipartisan bill called the Global Online Freedom Act, which would require that Internet companies disclose to a newly created office in the State Department all material filtered in response to demands by foreign governments.

 New York Times
Sep 28, 2008 For McCain and Team, a Host of Ties to Gambling

QUOTE: A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table....As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations....Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as “birds of prey.” Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.

 New York Times
Jul 23, 2008 Report Says Pentagon Pressured, Intimidated Auditors

QUOTE: Auditors at an oversight agency of the Pentagon were pressured by supervisors to skew their reports on a major defense contractor's work, hiding wrongdoing and charges of overbilling, according to an 80-page report from the Government Accountability Office.

 Washington Post
Jul 09, 2008 Senate Passes Surveillance Bill With Immunity for Telecom Firms

QUOTE: The Senate today approved a sweeping overhaul of rules governing secret government surveillance in terrorism and espionage cases, voting to effectively grant immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

 Washington Post
Jun 01, 2008 Warm-up for a global-warming law: Congress to begin work on a bill the next president would be willing to sign.

QUOTE: The top presidential nominees in both parties back a cap-and-trade system to limit US emissions of greenhouse gases. President Bush opposes it, and the White House is expected to detail objections to the 494-page Senate bill on Monday.

 Christian Science Monitor
May 19, 2008 Senator targets YouTube, but law not on his side

QUOTE: On Monday, the chairman of the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee suggested in a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt that the company wasn't doing enough to remove videos that are violent or could be used by terrorist groups to enlist followers.
Oct 24, 2007 Terror watch list swells to more than 755,000 names

QUOTE: The size of the list, typically used to check people entering the country through land border crossings, airports and sea ports, has been growing by 200,000 names a year since 2004. Some lawmakers, security experts and civil rights advocates warn that it will become useless if it includes too many people.

 USA TODAY
Oct 23, 2007 ’70s Echo in New ‘No Nukes’ Campaign

QUOTE: Although they oppose nuclear energy generally, they have focused on the loan guarantees. The critics say the market should render a verdict on atomic power, compared to wind, solar and other renewable sources.

 New York Times
Oct 12, 2007 Lawsuit: ICE drugged detainees

QUOTE: Former detainees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement accuse the agency in a lawsuit of forcibly injecting them with psychotropic drugs while trying to shuttle them out of the country during their deportation.

 CNN (Cable News Network)
Aug 16, 2007 Review of Radiation Detectors Questioned

QUOTE: The Government Accountability Office has questioned the department's testing of the detection equipment, spurring Congress to delay funding last year pending further review and certification of the department's test results this fall.

 Washington Post
Aug 07, 2007 Fundraisers Tap Those Who Can't Say No: 'Bundlers' Look to Associates, Employees for Campaign Cash

QUOTE: for the most part, it is not illegal,[former Federal Election Commission chairman] said. The Federal Election Commission prohibits corporate executives or labor leaders from "facilitating" contributions from their subordinates. But that's as far as the language goes, he said.

 Washington Post
Aug 03, 2007 Border Computers Vulnerable to Attack: GAO Report Details Problems in System

QUOTE: Homeland Security officials said that many vulnerabilities exist throughout the network... These vulnerabilities could, in turn, spread the risk of cyber-attacks or data losses to some of the government's most sensitive security databases, the officials said.

 Washington Post
Jul 20, 2007 Radiation Detector Program Delayed: DHS May Have Misled Congress, GAO Audit Finds

QUOTE: [Michael Chertoff] said [new radiation monitors] would improve radiation scans at borders and ports, while sharply reducing the number of false alarms .... But the department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office did not know whether the detectors would work effectively, according to documents and interviews.

 Washington Post
Jul 15, 2007 Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics: Lawmakers Doubt Voters Would Fund Big Carbon Cuts

QUOTE: Energy and climate experts say the world already possesses the technological know-how for trimming greenhouse gas emissions...[but] Because of the enormous cost of addressing global warming, the energy legislation considered by Congress so far will make barely a dent in the problem.

 Washington Post

60 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]