The Obama Administration Pressures YouTube to Remove Video

This is what contempt for the First Amendment looks like.

This is what contempt for the First Amendment looks like:

Obama administration officials said Thursday that they have asked YouTube to review the video [that reportedly set off the embassy attacks] and determine whether it violates the site's terms of service, according to people close to the situation but not authorized to comment.

The primary reason to be appalled: The government has no business pressuring a website to take down this video.

A secondary reason: They're probably barking up the wrong tree anyway. There's a strong possibility that the video was just a pretext for the attacks, much as it pains the administration to admit it.

A tertiary reason: Remember how tech-savvy this White House was supposed to be? And now they think they can choke this off at the source?

Elsewhere in Reason: Joe Lieberman tried to do something similar to WikiLeaks.