The Obama Administration has formally asked YouTube “to review” the anti-Muslim film “Innocence of Muslims.” In a perfectly incoherent position, White House press secretary Jay Carney stressed that the White House was not asking for it to be removed . . . only “reviewed.” I have been discussing this controversy on NPR and CNN. The latest White House move appears to be an effort to get YouTube to remove the video without taking responsibility for expressly asking for the removal. For civil libertarians, the announcement leaves an uneasy — and all-too-familiar — feeling with this Administration. The White House has repeated compromised on civil liberties in favor of political advantage in areas like torture, immunity, and surveillance policies.
Carney announced that “The White House asked YouTube to review the video to see if it was in compliance with their terms of use.” Despite asking for such a review, Carney insisted “We cannot and will not squelch freedom of expression in this country.”
We have seen this type of double talk before — in the aftermath of the Danish cartoon violence. The Administration has joined Muslim allies in trying to develop what has been called an “international blasphemy” standard. (For prior columns, click here and here). The West has steadily yielded to the demands of religious groups that free speech must be curtailed in the name of faith. At the same time, Western governmental and religious leaders have denounced agnostics and atheists as one of the greatest threats facing the West (here and here and here and here). President Obama and Hillary Clinton have been facilitating this trend by working with Muslim nations to develop an international standard allowing for the prosecution of those who insult religion. The Administration has drawn a dangerous line with Muslim countries in first supporting the concept of an international blasphemy standard. As I have mentioned before, the efforts of the Obama Administration to work with these countries on an international blasphemy standard is a threat to free speech around the world. After first supporting an international blasphemy standard, the Administration sought to get Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other countries to adopt the Brandenburg standard as the basis for such prosecutions. This case also shows why the use of the Brandenburg standard is so dangerous in the hands of such officials who view free speech as the cause of imminent violence. Past cases show that even the suggestion of blasphemy is enough to trigger violent riots in some Muslim nations. Because any joke or image of the Prophet can trigger violence, the standard is immediately satisfied in countries like Egypt and Pakistan, which can then claim some legal legitimacy under the standard created with the United States.
YouTube should resist such efforts to withdraw the video in my view. Today in an exchange with Howard Kurtz on CNN is disagreed with his view that the video should be at least withdrawn from the sites on other countries. This suggests that free speech is an American value. Civil libertarians believe it is a basis human right. YouTube does not produce cars or widgets. It supplies a unique forum for a global dialogue. While it clearly has the right to remove material from its site, such an act (even with the obvious encouragement of the White House) would be an act of private censorship. If this video is removed, then why not any video that is deemed insulting to a given religious or religious figure. These deaths were not caused be any film. They were caused by religious extremism. It is not a question of whether the film is “worth” these lives. It isn’t. Free speech is.
The request from the White House reflects the same dishonest approach of some of our closest allies who refused to punish the Danish cartoonists while then quietly cracking down on anti-religious speech. The correct and only answer is that he filmmaker has a right to express his views of Muhammad and Islam. Muslims have a right to respond in kind. However, we cannot allow murderous mobs to turn this into a debate over free speech. These mobs are in countries that have long killed and arrested those who speak out against their beliefs. We cannot yield to such demands.
Source: Politico
To the people saying that YouTube has a right to remove it: Yes, they do.
However, the problem here is that the government is making a polite suggestion that they do. That is not the job of the government. They should be protecting our freedoms, not attempting to step on them.
Commonsense, commentor above, makes a lot of sense. I say flood the internet with Islamic satire and perhaps they will get used to it. Send them lots of sex shows and anything deriding their being controlled by clerics. I would pull the ambassadors out of Libya and Egypt. If those pukes wont put some troops in front of the embassy to protect us then we need to leave and kick them out of America toute suite. The timing of these terrorist attacks were to commemorate 9/11 and had nothing to do with Utube. Iran is behind this. ” Bomb, bomb, bomb, … bomb bomb Iran.” –Saturday Night Live Song 30 years ago. To the tune of the Beach Boys song called Barbara Ann. Play the old Saturday Night Live comedies from that era on the internet.
by indirectly asking youtube to remove this is to reward the killers and reinforce their violence so there will be more events like this where our ambassadors will be killed to limit freedom here.
Media For Christ owner was one of the speakers at the ground-zero “mosque” protest put together by anti-Islamist Pam Geller:
From the Daily Beast:
“The office of the California secretary of State confirmed to The Daily Beast that Media for Christ is an active corporation established in June 2005 and that the owner is listed as Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, who often goes by Joseph Nassralla or Nasrallah. Abdelmasih also is listed as owner of The Way TV, a TV network established in 2005 that includes a talk show hosted by Steve Klein, who has said he was one of the consultants on Innocence of Muslims.”
Abdelmasih is no stranger to controversy. After delivering a passionate speech at the 10,000-strong protest against a proposed ground zero mosque on Sept. 11, 2010, he was escorted off the premises by police. According to media reports, Abdelmasih and a friend were speaking Arabic to one another, which inflamed members of the rally.
“He was a Coptic Christian who spoke against the brutal oppression, subjugation, and persecution of Coptic Christians under the Sharia in Egypt,” Pamela Geller, one of the rally’s organizers and co-founder of the group Stop Islamization of America, told The Daily Beast.” …
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/14/media-for-christ-company-allegedly-behind-innocence-of-muslims.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_afternoon&cid=newsletter;email;cheatsheet_afternoon&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
Pam Geller:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Geller
The Willard ought to keep quiet on foreign afairs issues. Otherwise the people will start talking about his grand dad’s foreign affairs down in Mexico when he made eight wives all proud. A new poll now has The Willard behind Obama on economic issues. Yikes, maybe he should talk about terrorists. Whose your granma Mitt? Saw that on a bumper sticker.
This isn’t about some film, it’s too big, to dispersed and now other targets of opportunity are being attacked. Check out the interactive map- this is a wildfire with a lot of arsonists:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/09/201291482159758224.html
Embassies under attack over anti-Islam video
“Protesters have attacked Western embassies in Tunisia, Yemen and Sudan, as a wave of demonstrations against an anti-Islam film swelled and swept across much of the Muslim world after Friday prayers.
The US embassy was the common target while the UK and German embassies in Sudan were stormed by angry mobs.
In Tunis, the Tunisian capital, two people were killed in clashes with the police as crowds scaled the US embassy walls and set fire to trees within the compound. An American school was also set on fire by an angry mob.
In Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, protesters stormed the UK and German embassies and raised Islamist flags. Protesters smashed windows, cameras and furniture in the German complex and then started a fire, witnesses said.
Throngs of crowds also targeted the US embassy in the capital. They breached the outside wall of the compound, forcing guards to fire warning shots. Three people were killed in clashes.
Al Jazeera’s Harriet Martin, reporting from Khartoum, said: “The Sudanese authorities are taking things very seriously as they have deployed many, many riot police in the direction of the US embassy.
Three protesters were killed in clashes with the police in Khartoum while two other were killed in similar demonstrations in Lebanon” …. In Nigeria, where radical Islamist sect Boko Haram has killed hundreds this year in an insurgency, troops opened fire in the air outside a mosque to disperse protesters in the city of Jos.” ….
Dredd, sweet link.
NASA: “They seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle,” Squyres said. “They are different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution. So, we have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us.”
*****
Flee! Flee little Opportunity! I saw a movie that featured odd rocks like that on the moon- suffice it it say they weren’t rocks and it didn’t end well for the good guys.
Elaine M. At 8:43: Good for District Judge Katherine B. Forrest!
Thanks for the links. Interesting stuff.
The names I’m reading regarding the actual production of the film are not American, but Egyptian. Terry Jones was trying to popularize the film but the funding came from various sources, possibly some Egyptian money, possibly some from the Media for Christ people but they seem to just be a production studio, no real presence but they did have about 635K in donations.
Who benefits? Who wants shite disturbed? Who are the Copts allied with? Who are they useful to? Following the money will be interesting. I’m paranoid you know, if the funding trail were pursued and played out would a thread lead to a C Street name or another big ultra-conservative political/religious group here in the US? If fueling unrest in the Middle East impacts our election is this an engineered ‘October surprise’ type of thing?
Too paranoid? Can one be too paranoid? 🙂 Yes. It’s a volitile region, a volatile constituency and we have been meddling on their property in a number of venues for a long time. Free-floating anger erupting into chaotic violence is always to me, more scary than a planned attack.
I can’t find an actual website for Media for Christ, only a city search type of listing:
http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/CA/Media-For-Christ.html
http://non-profit-organizations.findthebest.com/l/1065389/Media-for-Christ
Now the Big Ears, Ryan, is on Tv ranting about Obamacare. Where did The Willard find this creep? A heart beat away if the RepubliCons win. Jeso, a Mormon gypsie and a big earred Mick.
Remember the good ol days when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan? Our government opposed them and paid the Muslim Brotherhood to go fight the Soviets. Things have gone down hill. One of hour clones, Al Zawahri was one of the killers of Anwar Sadat. Then he went full boogie al Qaeda and was part of the Twin Towers attacks. Now we have troops in Afghanistan trying to kill the guys that we went there to throw out the Soviets. Better to have the Soviets there. At least they sent women to med school and enforced equal rights. It is clear that turbinhead governance is the worst thing in the world. The amount of foreign aid that we GIVE to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt is criminal. Pull out now like Nixon’s father should have back at the time of conception. We got kids in West Virginia who need some school money. The Willard says that he will muster up 100,000 more troops. On whose dime? This guy is the Bain of Capitalism. Get your sights on the big picture here folks, and you too Turley, this quibbling over Obama being careful is a bit shallow and Willardish.
AY,
I realize that YouTube already censors input, but other countries doing it is different than us doing it.
SlingTrebuchet , yea, yea, I realized that there could be a really interesting Venn diagram made out of my comment if someone wanted to extrapolate it and chart it, I was re-visiting the thread to do a little elaboration but…. you got here first. 🙂
There is a distinction I believe between the general religious extremism causing actions against our embassy in and Libya, which is shaping up as a planned political act. My concern is less the political than the religious in the framework of the Professor’s posting and I was speaking to that. I’m for burning Korans and Terry Jone’s bible and whatever playbook the Pope is using these days in the same bucket, not toning it down. Our religious nuts kill people and hurt people too. We just don’t talk about it in those terms widely. I have no respect for any radical’s gods or prophets- its an illness.
I also think that there is a much greater underlying instability and dissatisfaction going in the Middle East and our presence is a convenient and in many regards a deserved target. It is difficult to separate the religious nexus many of the angry people and movements settle around from the purely political points of conflict. There is more than one agenda at work and more than one player funneling support to the actors on the ground. Like the Civil Rights movement being embraced and led in many regards by a broad coalition of church groups and among many denominations, the crowds that are protesting at our embassies in Egypt and Yemen, while doing so under a religious banner have other, purely political/economic reasons to be in the street.
It is entirely possible that there is a region-wide, long simmering conflict that is being played out as a continuation of the Arab spring that first broke on the world stage last year. There is an attempt to shift power in many places, African countries, Indonesia, the Middle East/Arabian peninsula, (isn’t there a low level state of agitation/conflict going on regarding India also?) that is based on Muslim activism but I’m not sure that these are religious conflicts in the purest sense. Who is leading them, funding them and who gets the power if there are successes? Is a success a clean win (government overthrow) or just continued instability to weaken the current power structures in the country/region?
I’m conservative in many regards and I’m beginning to see this as a ‘moment’ in history. Maybe the smart thing to do is just get out of the way and trade with whoever is left standing. Taking that attitude with critical resources is painful and expensive but what is the alternative if the tide of history is turning against the luxury of the status quo? Is resistance futile or what is the cost of resistance and attempted control by external forces? Maybe a culturally based break is a good and honest thing, We’re not really there to bring our idealized democracy to oppressed citizens and waving that flag just insults people.
Off Topic:
Judge Blocks Indefinite Detention Provision
By Nicole Flatow on Sep 14, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/14/847181/judge-blocks-indefinite-detention-provision/
Excerpt:
A New York federal district judge on Wednesday blocked a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act that could be read to authorize the federal government to indefinitely detain people who were “substantially” or “indefinitely” “supporting” the Taliban, Al Qaeda or its allies. The plaintiffs in this case included journalists and writers who feared that their reporting about Al Qaeda or the Taliban might subject them to detention under this law.
The government argued that the provision merely restated its existing detention authority, and did not impose any new burdens on the First Amendment. But District Judge Katherine B. Forrest rejected that assertion outright, pointing out the “logical flaw” in “stating an intention not to expand authority when Congress has set forth what is, in fact, new and broad authority,” the scope of which the government was not willing to define:
The Government did not–and does not–generally agree or anywhere argue that activities protected by the First Amendment could not subject an individual to indefinite military detention under § 1021(b)(2). The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides for greater protection: it prohibits Congress from passing any law abridging speech and associational rights. To the extent that § 1021(b)(2) purports to encompass protected First Amendment activities, it is unconstitutionally overbroad.
A key question throughout these proceedings has been, however, precisely what the statute means–what and whose activities it is meant to cover. That is no small question bandied about amongst lawyers and a judge steeped in arcane questions of constitutional law; it is a question of defining an individual’s core liberties. The due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment require that an individual understand what conduct might subject him or her to criminal or civil penalties. Here, the stakes get no higher: indefinite military detention–potential detention during a war on terrorism that is not expected to end in the foreseeable future, if ever. The Constitution requires specificity–and that specificity is absent from § 1021(b)(2). Understanding the scope of § 1021(b)(2) requires defining key terms. At the March hearing, the Government was unable to provide definitions for those terms.
Alan Roberts & ‘Innocence Of Muslims’: Softcore Porn Director Linked To Anti-Islam Film
The Huffington Post | By Kia Makarechi
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/alan-roberts-innocence-of-muslims_n_1885758.html
Excerpt:
On Friday, Google rejected the White House’s request to remove a clip of the movie from YouTube. The video was censored in India and Indonesia and blocked in Egypt and Libya.
‘Innocence of Muslims’ Film Permit Pulled as Deputies Visit Home Tied to Filmmaker
September 13, 2012
http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/innocence-muslims-cast-claims-deceit-film-permit-pulled-56391
Excerpt:
Los Angeles county sheriff’s deputies visited the reported home of the filmmaker behind the anti-Muslim trailer “Innocence of Muslims,” the anti-Muslim film blamed for expanding violent protests in the Middle East.
County officials Thursday also pulled the permit for the film from public view, raising more questions about its mysterious origins.
Deputies were called to the Cerritos home that news media has identified as the home of the purported filmmaker Wednesday night. It has become surrounded by media hungry for any details about the film.
Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore confirmed to TheWrap that deputies arrived in response to a call regarding a neighborhood disturbance, though he would not say who placed the call, or who deputies spoke with when they arrived.
ABC News on Thursday night identified Los Angeles-area resident Nakoula Basseley Nakoula as the sole writer, director and financier of the movie. Brian Ross, reporting on “ABC World News With Diane Sawyer,” said that Nakoula was a twice convicted felon and had served time for manufacturing methamphetamines and for bank fraud. Nakoula wrote the script while in jail for bank fraud and started filming it shortly after getting out of jail in June 2011.
Ross also reported that Nakoula’s wife’s Coptic Christian relatives in Egypt sent him $60,000 to finance the production, and that the family is now frightened for its safety in California and the Middle East.
‘Innocence Of Muslims’ Shot On Hollywood Set, Film Permit Connected To Christian Charity
By Cavan Sieczkowski
The Huffington Post
9/14/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/innocence-of-muslims-film-filmmaker-sam-bacile-permit-christian-charity_n_1883792.html
Excerpt:
Details are being sought regarding the anti-Muslim film “The Innocence of Muslims,” which has enraged radical Islamists and provoked protests across the Middle East. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed in movie-related attacks in Libya on Tuesday and protests continued through the week.
The movie was filmed on a Hollywood set, and its permit has been linked to a Christian charity.
“The Innocence of Muslims” was partially filmed on a set built for the CBS TV show “JAG” by Paramount’s TV unit, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Portions of the low-budget film were shot in Santa Clarita, Calif., on an area of the Blue Cloud Film Ranch called “Baghdad Square.” This set has been used by TV and movie productions — including “Iron Man,” “Arrested Development” and “CSI” — to recreate Middle Eastern war zones.
THR reports that Paramount said there is no way to verify whether the studio built the set. However,
The permit for “The Innocence of Muslims,” which was filmed in Los Angeles County in August 2011 under the title “Desert Warriors,” has been pulled from public view by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over safety concerns, TheWrap reported.
Media for Christ, a Duarte, Calif.-based Christian nonprofit group, applied for the film permit, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported. The charity’s misson statement is to “glow Jesus’ light” to the world.
So, because the Obama admin asked Google to remove the video in order to maybe help quell a violent and fast moving situation, that is wrong? I am a civil libertarian too, but my goodness, sometimes reason dictates that not every request is some step toward chipping away at our rights. Google had a right to say no, which they did. There was no harm in it. There will be no retaliation against Google.
If anyone is allowing it to turn into a discussion of free speech, it is you, Mr. Turley (and I write this as a fan of your work). Of course, there is the reality that removing the video will not quell the violence since the horses have already left the barn, but I don’t follow your claim that it is so dishonest. For someone who has much experience following government actors, I would hope that yo can distinguish better between what is a rather benign request–regarding free speech rights–and attempts by government to quash free speech or make threats thereof, such as your earlier post about the FBI visiting that kid at home after he posted a video. Few more than you should understand that context matters.
“when most of the rioters don’t know what utube is .”
I don’t know about that. Some of those rioters were able to lay down deadly accurate mortar fire. They probably learned how to do that from YouTube videos, and just happened to find some mortars lying around.
This guy’s trying to blame it on a utube video, when most of the rioters don’t know what utube is .Just so happened to be September 11talk about having your head up your a SS
Did Obama every ask for a film blaspheming Jesus Christ and Christianity to be reviewed? I must have missed that memo.