UK Pressures the US To Takedown Extremist Videos

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.'"

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Jefferson's Quran and the Barbary pirates

[DigiShaman]

Below is from an e-mail forwarded to me. I haven't verified the authenticity of its contents. None the less, I think it's worth posting.

In January 2007, Democrat Keith Ellison, (D - MN) was sworn into the House of Representatives. For the ceremonial photo afterwards, he chose to place his hand on a 1764 copy of the Quran, once the property of Thomas Jefferson. One assumes he felt this would soothe those who opposed him being the first not to place his hand on the Holy Bible, but instead on the Quran ... he should have read his history on WHY Mr. Jefferson had a copy of the Quran in his possession ... he might not have felt so comfortable with his choice ... I hope you will take the time to read why ...

Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.

Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.

The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America 's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.

Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson " believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.

There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco , Algeria , Tunisia and Tripoli .

Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.

Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.

The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.

Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.

Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East . Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.

When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria .

Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States . Congress appointed a special commiss