This is a Cato special podcast. I'm Kayla Brown. An offensive video featuring the

Prophet Mohammed has apparently sparked protests and killings in Africa and

protest elsewhere. Apparently the White House and

apparently the White House has asked YouTube to take the offensive video down.

By way of attempting to show sensitivity, the White House may have effectively chilled some speech

that it finds problematic.

Ilia Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, comments.

It's claimed by at least one newspaper that the White House intervened,

that is to say, asked YouTube to take down the video that has been the inspiration for a lot of the

protests in the Middle East.

And that seems to be problematic for a couple of reasons.

Well, whether the video inspired protests or not,

there are some indication that drone warfare or just

normal so-called normal jihadi behavior was behind a lot of these things

but regardless of that, there is something unusual and disturbing about the White House

telling a private organization how they should be conducting their business when they're not violating

any laws, defrauding anybody or anything else.

Now, I'm not so concerned that it was the White House say making a phone call or you know

going through informal channels rather than I don't know the president issuing an

executive order pushing for legislation I mean that the methodology doesn't bother me so much but it's the

whole idea that the White House for reasons good or ill doesn't like in this case a certain type

of speech and is trying to get rid of it.

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