Senator Lieberman Says NY Times Should Be Investigated For Publishing Wikileaks Documents

by Mike Masnick
Techdirt
Dec. 07, 2010

Senator Joe Lieberman continues to expand his desire to piss all over the First Amendment and the very concept of a free press. He's already been pressuring companies to stop working with Wikileaks and has already introduced an anti-Wikileaks bill that appears to be pure censorship, but he's now extending his lack of understanding of the First Amendment to the press: stating that the NY Times should be investigated for criminal activity in publishing the Wikileaks documents.

Beyond the blatantly troubling statement that appears to go against the very principles of a free press (which we thought Lieberman was supposed to be upholding), it would appear that the bill Lieberman himself introduced shows that he already knows the NY Times did not, in fact, violate any laws in publishing that info. That's because the bill would seek to add liability for such actions, and we all know that you can't violate a law before it's actually been turned into a law.

In the meantime, when did Joe Lieberman become the reincarnation of Joe McCarthy? It's amazingly depressing to see a US Senator so blatantly in favor of direct censorship of the press.