UK Pressures the US To Takedown Extremist Videos 629
chrb writes "BBC News and the Telegraph are reporting that the British government has pressured the US government to take down privately hosted extremist web sites and videos, particularly on YouTube. The request follows the conviction of a 21-year-old woman who attempted to murder MP Stephen Timms after watching YouTube videos of radical American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. YouTube hosts more than 5,000 videos featuring al-Awlaki, but has begun to remove them following the British government's complaints. The issue obviously raises First Amendment issues in the US, but Security minister Baroness Neville-Jones has said 'Those websites would categorically not be allowed in the UK. They incite cold-blooded murder and as such are surely contrary to the public good. If they were hosted in the UK then we would take them down but this is a global problem. Many of these websites are hosted in America and we look forward to working even more closely with you to take down this hateful material.'"
not incitement (Score:2, Interesting)
Can someone show me a specific example of where he incites violence in his videos?
Blatant Hypocrisy. (Score:1, Interesting)
People all over the US & the UK criticized Muslims for wanting to silence van Gogh's anti-Islam propaganda film.
But when some Muslim cleric makes propaganda films (presumably about the UK government,) the UK government lashes out and wants the Muslim cleric(s) silenced.
And don't even say, "Well, the difference is that someone, motivated by the Youtube videos, attempted to commit murder." We've been bombing their countries for decades now and have murdered millions. That argument is a thousand times stronger for them against us than it is for us against them.
Don't get me wrong, Muslim cultures are not free of problems -- I am not trying to defend Muslim countries here, but rather point out that the same flaws we scold others for having, we have ourselves. The rhetoric of the US & the UK is completely hollow and hypocritical.
Free speech? Hardly (Score:3, Interesting)
There's this little thing called treason and it is defined in the constitution as follows: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
Alwaki's videos most definitely fit this description and are thus treasonous speech. Treasonous speech is not protected by the constitution. I find it pathetic that any American would support treason against their own country. No wonder the terrorists think they can win.
FOX brodcasts promote the same behaivor (Score:5, Interesting)
Reasonable, legal, and likely... (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, the request from the British government, both to YouTube (and other companies) and to the US Government is all three: reasonable , legal, and likely to happen.
Reasonable in that these videos (and, yes, I went out and looked at a couple, I'm not going to say where), have no redeeming social value. They're strictly (a) war propaganda (b) pure hate speech and (c) active statements of intent to commit violence. None of these characteristics provided any value to our societal discussion of ideas (which is what the 1st Amendment enshrines, but does not define). No one in either the US or the UK needs to see these for any reason other than military intelligence (which, we can get without allowing them to be made for public consumption).
Legal in that according to both UK and US law, these videos fit within the various exceptions to protected speech (that is, they fit into well-defined categories of speech NOT afforded protection). Thus, it's entirely likely that the UK request to the US government will see some sort of follow-through by the US Executive branch, as the content of the videos isn't reasonably up for discussion as to the legality thereof - it's not like they have to be parsed for obscene vs offensive categorization, and I don't see any court ruling in favor of these videos being protected speech (here in the US). It's actually a pretty cut-and-dried case of Incitement to Violence.
Likely as both the above cases point out, it's pretty much a no-brainer request to the US, as it doesn't run afoul of any of our laws, or even likely to produce a court case. In addition, for private providers, its very clear that they violate pretty much any T-O-S I've ever seen for posting public video or images.
Free Speech is great, but there are well-defined (for very good reasons) exceptions to protection, and this stuff very clearly fits inside those exceptions.
But, I do expect the various TLA agencies to continue to listen to al-Awalki - after all, he's giving them plenty of rope to hang himself by.
Nothing has been taken down due to US government? (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I misreading something? The article says that YouTube has policies to take various videos down, and says that "the British government has pressured the US government to take down privately hosted extremist web sites and videos", but it doesn't actually say that anything has been successfully taken down due to pressure from or legal actions by the US government.
Re:The British are now like the Terrorists... (Score:3, Interesting)
No, really, it's all politics [globalresearch.ca], not religion.
As an American Muslim... (Score:2, Interesting)
I approve of removing that trash from YouTube.
Re:Reasonable, legal, and likely... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, no, NO.
Speech as a whole must be evaluated for content before consideration of its legality. Simply because speech contains some political manifesto or content does NOT ipso facto mean it is (or should be) automatically covered and protected. As a flip side, simply because a picture shows a naked form (let's say a child), does not automatically mean it's obscene (or non-protected). The speech/work must be viewed as a whole.
Please, people, take a look at the original founder's writings. No where in there is there any mention that completely unrestricted speech is a universal good or even desirable. There have always been mentions that some speech is simply worthless, and indeed, harmful to society. Free Speech is not just something to have because it's Free. The purpose of having Free Speech is to encourage an open society of ideas, thus enabling a flexible and free society. If some speech conflicts with this goal, then it should NOT be tolerated. The founders were actually quite explicit in their stated intentions behind promotion of Free Speech - they were after the benefits a much more unfettered exchange can provide, but very much mindful that certain forms of speech caused more harm than any (possible) good.
As an aside, does anyone see Free Speech mentioned in the Declaration of Independence (which, is mostly a document defining the inherent rights of people)? As a real good example of this, take a look at the Declaration of the Rights of Man - it notes the powerful good that Free Speech can provide, but also notes the EXCEPTIONS to which Free Speech must be held.
-Erik
Re:The government is not our father. (Score:4, Interesting)
One led to the other. His power of oratory whipped up the anti-semitic feeling that made the holocaust possible.
Re:Know Your Enemy (Score:3, Interesting)
That's right, most of the horrors of WWII was due to atheist principles.
"There is no god, therefore we must kill people"?
"This is how the different species came about, therefore we must kill people"?
the atheist argument of evolution
[Not believing in the existence of a god] and [believing in what your senses tell you] and [believing only in what your senses tell you] are three distinct things. They tend to overlap in people, but they are different.
Hitler may have conflated them for rhetorical purposes. I don't know, I don't have the primary sources at hand.
Also, based on my understanding, evolution is (and at the time was) a descriptive theory---it tries to explain how the world works and why (in some sense) we observe what we observe. It is not a suggestion of policy, it doesn't say "you should do [something]".
Compare with economics: the basic theory of microeconomics assume the existence of positive-sum games (i.e. win-win trades) and informed trading agents, and comes to the conclusion that if markets are free, the sum of all wealth will be maximal. This is a descriptive claim, "if you do A then B happens". There's a related policy claim, "B should happen" (i.e. wealth should be maximized) which people can have an honest disagreement about, but it's somehow different from the factual claim.
I hope this helps someone put parent into perspective.
Re:Lol, no worries. (Score:1, Interesting)
One does wonder, because all religions, and it's obvious to see why, contain open ended threats. Is that protected speech then ?
Even if the quran is the only book going so far as to actually say to exterminate jews, all "holy" books contain threats against unbelievers. In the new testament it may remain vague threats about what will happen in the afterlife. However most religions, even the old testament contain clear-and-present threats.
Again islam is the champion of openly threatening eternal war on anyone who doesn't agree with them (and e.g. stones women with those disgusting standards of proof it demands), but most religions contain clear threats. Islam does go quite a bit further demanding tortuous deaths for any prisoners they make (e.g. the paedophile prophet buried prisoners in the sand until they died of thirst. If he didn't have the time to wait for them dying like that he ordered horses to be driven over them. This, just to make things clear, is "perfect good behavior" for any muslim*). The results are also open for anyone to see : there has not been a period of 10 years in 1500 years where islam wasn't perpetrating at least 1 genocide (and plenty of periods when they were doing several).
* again this sort of thing is not very strange. Just because Christianity cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered a militaristic faith, doesn't mean it is not a huge exception in that. Most religions are methods to keep armies operational, and are not meant to sustain a stable society. Why ? Because that's how these religions came to be. In Judaism, islam, buddhism, hinduism, and dozens of others there was first an army of "Jews" without the religion. An army of "muslims" that weren't even monotheistic (they were polytheists, revering a pantheon of gods, of which allah was the moon god, with three daughters, one the godess of prostitution. You see, they believed daddy allah and daughter had a game : the daughter would "appear" at night, naked, luring men away from the camp (even giving them some love if she liked them), and she delivered them to daddy allah, who would devour them and consume their souls, somehow appropriate that the symbolic origin of islam is a whore luring men into the hands of satan, and it's little wonder muslims don't want to discuss it).
But the point is, nearly all of these religions have grown out of an army into a society. They aren't societies first, they're armies first, and society is an afterthought when they won (there are many religions who've lost too, but ... well ... you've never heard of them, except perhaps Christianity, which is again a huge exception starting with what would arguably be a huge defeat).
Judaism demands Jews "burn the houses* of unbelievers" * there is disagreement whether "houses", or "cities" is meant. If one takes it to be "cities", it might even mean that Jews are demanded to destroy any non-Jewish state, apparently through some form of burning ... (raids is the word used, but the descriptions of raids are quite clear) until there is a muslim government 2) "tolerance" with an absurdly high racist tax, and all sorts of humiliating measures (like "symbolically" decapitating all non-believers), and please understand that this includes a child tax, which is exactly what it sounds like, until the numbers of non-muslims shrink 3) again open genocide. Muslim history is filled with baffling amounts of genocides.
Islam, well, the quran is 80% or-so threats, and the remaining 20% of it's stories are (weak) copies of new testament stories (including, ironically, the immaculate conception of Jesus). But the quran very clearly demands unceasing war against anything deemed even subtly in disagreement with islam, and basically prescribes this method of war. 1) terror attacks, genocides, sabotage,
Buddhism, again, clearly demands it's numbers wage war against others, under the direction of "the buddha" (and yes, historically they have actually done this. There was a time when