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Indeed. And when our health care decision flowchart looks like this, insurance companies will save billions because everyone will be too frustrated to bother going to the doctor, and lawyers will make billions suing those insurance companies on the behalf of angry consumers:

http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/House-Democrats-Health-Plan.pdf

It's a win-win for everyone, and by everyone I mean lawyers and insurance companies. Thanks Obama! This is EXACTLY the kind of change I was looking for.

Honestly, where in this link, embedded in the article, say anything about limiting members' capabilities to discuss anything?
http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF

All the recommendations say is that members of the House should find suitable external sites to host their video content and try to maintain a modicum of their ethics by trying to find sites that don't have advertisements that will be associated with the video content.

Nowhere do the recommendations suggest members of the House can't speak with their constituents or say what they want to. It only recommends that they use "official" house.gov channels to do so.

The letter is avialable here

#1 - This is only concerning official House communications...not informal messages from House members.

#2 - The letter is actually requesting to open up external sites (like Youtube) for official House communications since the current house.gov website doesn't meet the needs.

#3 - The restrictions requested ask for similar standing on external sites as they have on house.gov. In other words, offical communication can't be posted along side an Obama banner ad.

Any material created by a Representative in their official role of Representative is the property of the United States of America, and the Capuano letter (the 'source' for this article) states that they want to EXPAND the sites onto which this USA-owned material may be posted. Currently, Representatives may only post this material to pages under House.gov, but they want to allow 'outside channels' to enable functions that House.gov can't serve effectively, such as streaming video. This is no where close to the "barring any member of Congress from posting opinions on any internet site without first obtaining prior approval from the Democratic leadership" meme that the submitter (selil) introduced. In fact, the entire activity here appears (again, from the Capuano letter) to be RELAXING the rules on where content may be posted. Original article: -1, Troll.

I read it three times, and it seems pretty standard. Basically, it's mostly about links to non-official websites and standards those outside sites must meet. It's no different than the rules that most corporations place on user-maintainable CMS systems.

Note: it never discusses approval of any particular piece of content (except to the extent that official postings already have to meet certain standards), just having pre-approved sites.

Here is the letter linked as "evidence" of this "censorship" policy:
http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF.

Seems to me that it's referring to "official" House media... that is, representative of The House. Makes sense that if something's supposed to represent the body it ought to be approved by the majority, Democratic, Republican, or whoever.

Any other sources that indicate that congress is being gagged in their personal speech?

Here is the actual letter they reference: http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how they can draw those conclusions from the source they reference. And I don't see anything about Pelosi. The letter seems to say that people can post stuff on outside servers, provided there is a way of verifying it really came from who it says its from. Whoah! Scandal!

Why is Slashdot posting links to crazy right wing/libertartian conspiracy theories? This is stupid.

This is a regulation of HOUSE MEMBERS usage of the Internet - not the general public. Look at the linked letter: http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF

The AS ASS above thinks that the Dems are manipulating the general public's right to free political speech, he is dead wrong.

The limits are to be placed upon Members of Congress and their staff and merely require that the material is vetted (I approved this ....) and that limitation of the staff's right to engage in political speech is included, too (it already is restricted - See, the Hatch Act, http://www.osc.gov/hatchact.htm ). RTFA.

Here's a direct link to the letter in question.