I Want My Hez TV!

August 25, 2006 7:28 AM

Feds Bust Guy Pitching Hezbollah TV. Censorship, or reasonable use of the Patriot Act?
posted by MarshallPoe (51 comments total)

Censorship.
posted by Optamystic at 7:39 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship.
posted by languagehat at 7:44 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship.
posted by kozad at 7:45 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship.

(Though really, uncannilly bad sales timing on the part of Mr. Iqbal.)
posted by grabbingsand at 7:46 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship, or reasonable use of the Patriot Act?

Technically, couldn't it be both?

I'm just sayin'.

The real absurdity here is that they did a sting operation on a satellite TV channel.

And that FOX News is still legal.
posted by poweredbybeard at 7:48 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship. We sell Israel bombs!
posted by eustacescrubb at 7:49 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship
posted by notreally at 7:50 AM on August 25, 2006

I vote: Making an effort.

If it is indeed a "terror channel" with information we wouldn't want to help spread-- and I admit I don't know the specifics about it-- don't you think their should be some effort to curtail it?

We're all pissed off that not enough was done to hamper Sept 11 folks, etc.
posted by diplomacydiplomacy at 7:50 AM on August 25, 2006

Reasonable use of the Patriot Act.




SIKE!!!!


Censorship, duh.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 7:53 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship, but Kill Your Television!
posted by owhydididoit at 7:53 AM on August 25, 2006

I'm with you fellas.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:56 AM on August 25, 2006

I'll take Death.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:06 AM on August 25, 2006

I'll take Death.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:06 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship.

The Treasury Department designated al Manar, a Lebanon-based satellite TV station controlled by Hezbollah, as a global terrorist entity in March, making it a federal crime to buy the satellite service - even though the channel can be seen for free on the Internet.
posted by taosbat at 8:06 AM on August 25, 2006

The second line is the longest... I mean, Censorship.
posted by topynate at 8:06 AM on August 25, 2006

Pointless, polarizing, spendthrift, possibly counterproductive censorship. The sensible thing to do is say, hey look dude is broadcasting Hezbollah tv and we believe that all viewpoints should be heard in a healthy democracy and be aware that this is just one possible way of looking at the world, but who the fuck am I kidding?
posted by Divine_Wino at 8:08 AM on August 25, 2006

Oh, yeah, also, death please.
posted by Divine_Wino at 8:09 AM on August 25, 2006

The argument offered by the interviewed Fed is that the satellite channel broadcasts bank account numbers to which sympathizers can donate to Hezbollah. Taking this at face value, the shuttering of Iqbal's business is only the admission that knowledge (or in this case information) is power.

To my mind, the framers of the Constitution of the U.S. knew exactly what they were doing by making the very FIRST amendment one which forbids the federal government from making laws abridging free speech. The Patriot Act is a way of countering effective revolutionary action against the United States which comes in the form of both speech that, ultimately, produces action and consequences.

Naive and ignorant as I am, what I'm wondering is whether it makes sense that funding revolutionary organizations is illegal?

If so, what does it mean that the U.S. regularly funds revolutionaries in other countries, Osama Bin Laden being one famous example?
posted by mistersquid at 8:16 AM on August 25, 2006

censorship ... and pointless when one can watch it on the internet
posted by pyramid termite at 8:17 AM on August 25, 2006

I think that if we all have to put up with Trinity Broadcasting and Paul Crouch's wife's fucking awful hair and outfits, that we should reasonably be allowed to watch Hizbollah. Plus, according to my contacts in Lebanon, Hizbollah TV carries the Simpsons in English.
posted by parmanparman at 8:26 AM on August 25, 2006

From The New Yorker (2002):

Al Manar regularly airs raw footage of violence in the occupied territories, and it will break into its programming with what one Al Manar official called "patriotic music videos" to announce Palestinian attacks and applaud the killing of Israelis. When I visited the station, the videos were being produced in a basement editing room by a young man named Firas Mansour. Al Manar has modern equipment, and the day I was there Mansour, who was in charge of mixing the videos, was working on a Windows-based editing suite. Mansour is in his late twenties, and he was dressed in hip-hop style. His hair was gelled, and he wore a gold chain, a heavy silver bracelet, and a goatee. He spoke colloquial American English. I asked him where he learned it. "Boston," he said.

Mansour showed me some recent footage from the West Bank, of Israeli soldiers firing on Palestinians. Accompanying the video was a Hezbollah fighting song. "What I'm doing is synchronizing the gunshots to form the downbeat of the song," he told me. "This is my technique. I thought of it." He had come up with a title: "I'm going to call it 'Death to Israel.' " Mansour said that he can produce two or three videos on a good day. "What I do is, first, I try to feel the music. Then I find the pictures to go along with it." He pulled up another video, this one almost ready to air. "Try and see if you could figure out the theme of this one," he said.

The video began with Israeli soldiers firing on Palestinians. Then the screen filled with pictures of Palestinians carrying the wounded to ambulances, followed by an angry funeral scene. Suddenly, the scene shifted to Israelis under fire. An Israeli soldier was on the ground, rocking back and forth, next to a burning jeep; this was followed by scenes of Jewish funerals, with coffins draped in the Israeli flag being lowered into graves.

Mansour pressed a button, and the images disappeared from the screen. "The idea is that even if the Jews are killing us we can still kill them. That we derive our power from blood. It's saying, 'Get ready to blow yourselves up, because this is the only way to liberate Palestine.' ' The video, he said, would be shown after the next attack in Israel. He said he was thinking of calling it "We Will Kill All the Jews." I suggested that these videos would encourage the recruitment of suicide bombers among the Palestinians. "Exactly," he replied.

posted by zennie at 8:29 AM on August 25, 2006

Gonna be hard to make this one stick. The First Amendment is going to play a big role in the trial.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:29 AM on August 25, 2006

TBN's Jan Crouch
posted by parmanparman at 8:31 AM on August 25, 2006

Doh! TBN's Jan Crouch
posted by parmanparman at 8:32 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship.
posted by OmieWise at 8:35 AM on August 25, 2006

Just another day in America.
posted by chunking express at 8:40 AM on August 25, 2006

The feds were tipped this year by a media watchdog group that Iqbal, a Pakistani national who sells satellite dishes out of his storefront business in Brooklyn called HDTV Ltd., was offering al Manar broadcasts as part of the package, according to court papers unsealed yesterday.

If they really wanted to raise money for terrorist organizations, they would have made it a premium channel.
posted by leftcoastbob at 8:48 AM on August 25, 2006

Pay-per-view?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:50 AM on August 25, 2006

Of course it's censorship. A more useful question is whether it's lawful censorship.

Disclaimer: IANAL. As I understand it, speech that incites the listener to commit a crime is not protected by the First Amendment if that speech is likely to be effective, and if the crime is imminent, rather than some vaguely defined event in the future.

Al Manar sounds like it's dancing pretty close to incitement to criminal acts.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 9:02 AM on August 25, 2006

Al Manar sounds like it's dancing pretty close to incitement to criminal acts.

If that's a valid rationalization for censorship, one would think these folks could use a call from the FBI.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:08 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship, and really disturbing censorship at that. I really don't know what to say about it that isn't on everybody's mind already, and I don't know how many times we can say, "orwellian," no matter how aptly, without it losing all meaning.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:16 AM on August 25, 2006

So wait - (minor derail coming)

It's not that the channel is banned, per se, but rather - that paying for it constitutes providing funding for a terroist organization? So we can watch it online? But only if we use Adblock to block the Terrorist-related adwords that we'd otherwise be seeing?

Let's all do our patriotic duty here, people. If we all watch al-Manar online, while Adblocking, we'll DOS their server-farm, WINNING AN IMPORTANT BATTLE IN THE WAR ON TERROR.

Oh, and censorship, by the way.
posted by god hates math at 9:17 AM on August 25, 2006

We really are the land of the free and home of the brave.
Jesus.
posted by hatchetjack at 9:20 AM on August 25, 2006

My first though upon seeing the photo of his backyard was ... wow, eight MASSIVE satelitte dishes in that tiny little backyard?
posted by R. Mutt at 9:36 AM on August 25, 2006

Gotta go with Slithy_Tove. Sight unseen, I can’t say either way, but I can’t agree with banning the entire spectrum from the channel. Certainly there may be criminal acts - such as directions, encoded messages to act, etc. But those are subject to prosecution. If it can be proven that is what they’re doing, solid. But until then I can’t agree with eliminating access to alternative perspectives however distasteful.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:39 AM on August 25, 2006

Censorship.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:43 AM on August 25, 2006

[RESPONSE DELETED FOR SECURITY PURPOSES]
posted by absalom at 10:31 AM on August 25, 2006

Hey, this slope really is slippery!
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:35 AM on August 25, 2006

what I'm wondering is whether it makes sense that funding revolutionary organizations is illegal?

It's simple: money spent by corporations to influence politicians and policy is a free speech issue and protected. Money from individuals to an organization defined as "terrorist" by our government is a security issue, which gives the government license to suspend whatever rights are obstructing their will.
posted by effwerd at 10:37 AM on August 25, 2006

Oh and...

Censorship.
posted by effwerd at 10:38 AM on August 25, 2006

I don't know the details of this case, but assuming the government goal is to minimize and/or eliminate this type of programming then they just (potentially) shot themselves in the foot with a cannon. They've just opened up constitutional challenges to some of the more useful tools they've been using to curtail funding to terrorist groups (useful their words not mine). They've created publicity where none was before, and if, in the end, the government loses on First Amendment grounds, then how long do you think it will take before there's a ton of these things going on.

My point is that this seems to be an incredibly dumb way to handle this, regardless of where you fall in the political spectrum.
posted by forforf at 10:54 AM on August 25, 2006

http://www.manartv.com.lb/NewsSite/News.aspx?language=en
posted by taosbat at 11:01 AM on August 25, 2006

INCREDIBLY stupid censorship. I'm sorry, but you know, if you've ever seen some of the media put out by white supremacy organizations, you lose a lot of respect for them, just because it's crappy media. Have any of you guys ever seen those cable access Klan shows? Boring as hell. MTV is ubiquitous because it's shiny and full of wonderfully produced and obscenely well-funded boobs and butts. Beyonce, not Tom Ridge (is he still in charge?), will win the War on Terror. Hezbollah TV... probably not so much. The people governing us know nothing about us.
posted by saysthis at 11:59 AM on August 25, 2006

Wikipedia:

According to Al Manar's news director, Hassan Fadlallah, Al Manar does not aim to be neutral in its broadcasting, ... "We cover only the victim, not the aggressor. CNN is the Zionist news network, Al Jazeera is neutral, and Al Manar takes the side of the Palestinians..."

Thanks for the link taosbat. For me the "marketplace of ideas" is not just a cliché; I want to get different viewpoints.

Agreed forforf - word of this will get around now.
posted by jam_pony at 12:34 PM on August 25, 2006

First amendement concerns aside (and yes, this is clearly censorship), banning a source of information is one the surest ways to make it credible and desirable.

Al-Manar should pay the feds to do this, just so they can run a new marketing campaign here: Al-Manar, The Station Big Government Doesn't Want You to Watch.
posted by ju at 12:53 PM on August 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

First amendment concerns aside (and yes, this is clearly censorship), banning a source of information is one the surest ways to make it credible and desirable.

Al-Manar should pay the feds to do this, just so they can run a new marketing campaign here: Al-Manar, The Station Big Government Doesn't Want You to Watch.
posted by ju at 1:05 PM on August 25, 2006

Censorship
posted by zouhair at 1:49 PM on August 25, 2006

According to the Daily News article, the crackdown was instigated by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which is described by Source Watch as an influential neo-con Zionist think tank. So essentially, it's the Zionists who are trying to tell us what we can watch on television.

For those of you who haven't heard of this "foundation," it is one of the most influential and powerful of the Zionist lobbies which changed its name and sprung into action immediately after 9-11. If you check its board, its advisors, you'll find a lot of familiar names, the neocons, of course, and some surprises, like the Democrat's ranking African-American spokesperson, Donna Brazile. It claims to have seven articles from FDD sources appear in the mainstream media every day and if you check its site, that appears to be the truth. That President Bush chose this group for the first of a series of speeches defending his Iraq policy is not an accident but a genuflection to the FDD's power.

posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 4:59 PM on August 25, 2006

+++
NO CARRIER
posted by nlindstrom at 5:56 PM on August 25, 2006

Am I the only one not able to connect to the Al Manar website?
posted by spazzm at 6:56 PM on August 25, 2006

Whether it is egregious censorship depends on the content and the financial effects. Some content is and should be illegal. For example, broadcasting personal psychiatric interview tapes or covertly recorded meetings of the CIA. I think most folks here would agree that banning of such content is appropriate, and trumps any first amendment considerations.

If the satellite channel uses advertising dollars to fund suicide bombers, then the channel could broadcast nothing but cute, cuddly kitties romping through daisies 24x7, and it should still be banned, as any other fund-raising effort that supports such ends would be.

From where I sit, I cannot make the call. I think most democracy-loving people agree that plurality of view is an obviously good thing. As the KKK cable channels demonstrate, free speech can easily strip whackos bare. I don't have information about the thought that went behind the arrest or the circumstances surrounding it. But painting the decision-makers behind it as simplistic, knee-jerk neocons is itself a simplistic, knee-jerk analysis. I'd bet a nickle there's more to it than that.
posted by gregor-e at 10:01 PM on August 26, 2006