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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.'"
It depends. Not all speech is protected:
# Obscenity
# Fighting words
# Defamation (includes libel, slander)
# Child pornography
# Perjury
# Blackmail
# Incitement to imminent lawless action
# True threats
# Solicitations to commit crimes# Obscenity
# Fighting words
# Defamation (includes libel, slander)
# Child pornography
# Perjury
# Blackmail
# Incitement to imminent lawless action
# True threats
# Solicitations to commit crimes
Source: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/Speech/faqs.aspx?id=15822
Britian asked Google to take down the videos. Google can do what it wants with it's site.
This has nothing to do with freedom of speech because the US government isn't making them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Obviously, you are unfamiliar with the case of Miller v California, which laid down the rules for obscenity. And, for the record, the Supreme Court CAN interpret the constitution as they like.
To qualify as obscenity, it has to meet all three of the following requirements: it has to, by the standards of the community, appeal to the prurient interest; it must depict patently offensive sexual behavior; it must lack any and all artistic and scientific value.
The United, in United Kingdom, primarily refers to the union of the two once separate kingdoms of England and Scotland. Specifically it refers to the personal union of the crowns of these two kingdoms in one person, or really the replacement of this previous arrangement with something less complicated--Kind of.
Prior to the creation of the UK, a single person (e.g. Charles I) was simply simultaneously the King of Scotland and the King of England. This distinction lead to interesting legal paradoxes and scenarios that only English legal theory could contrive. The best example is in 1640, where Charles I as king of England actually went to war with his other kingdom of Scotland, and when he was eventually forced to make peace (with Scotland) actually traveled to Scotland (while still at war), was formally received as king and arranged a peace treaty and afterwards played a few rounds of golf with the Scottish nobles; and I am not making this up. The creation of the UK was in part an attempt to clean up this kind of dissonance.
The whole theory behind the UK grew in part from Henry VIII's earlier act of establishing himself as the King of Ireland and creating a personal union between the Kingdoms of Ireland and England. (In fact, there are earlier examples of this kind of thing in regard to the Principality of Wales). So the UK always did include the Kingdom of Ireland as well. I don't think that Kingdom exists independently any more though as I'm not sure if there is a Kingdom of Northern Ireland specifically.
Note in all this that though the Kingdom's were united, the actual countries were not (except insofar as a new country was brought into existence using them). Scotland still exists as a separate country from England, even though they still have the same Parliament (kind of) and the same King.
The end result of this long legal and historical process is that the British are very, very, particular about titles, formalities and the legal powers and functions which arise and derive form them. When you hear Anglo-Saxon's discussing who can legally do what and where in these kinds of discussion, it's because of the work of generations of British scholars who gave their lives to try to make sense of the constitutional framework they had inherited. It's also worth noting that for those same reasons, in most other countries these discussions tend to be rather pointless(e.g. In the US, you have Gitmo, and in Ireland you have really no laws at all). The trouble with Anglo-Saxon legal systems is that most Anglo-Saxon societies aren't actually English.
May the Maths Be with you!