Is the White House Censoring the Internet’s Tough Questions?

On Jan 30, President Obama plans to answer questions submitted by citizens to his YouTube page. But new evidence shows the White House staff may be removing questions on a certain controversial topic.

Questions posted on the White House YouTube channel today and tomorrow will go to the president for a live Google+ Hangout on Monday. YouTubers can vote on their favorite questions, and those with the most votes will receive a presidential response.

But one blog has uncovered tens of thousands of legitimate questions, almost all about the controversial NDAA bill Obama signed last month, actively being marked as “inappropriate” and disappearing from the page.

Is the White House to blame for the censorship on this potentially awkward topic of discussion? This article from the SuicideGirls blog shows screenshots of highly-voted questions — over 12 thousand of them — disappearing despite their overwhelming popularity.

If the White House staff is responsible for removing these questions, it isn’t difficult to see why they might. In early December, when the NDAA controversy was as its peak, President Obama vowed to veto the military appropriations bill if a controversial clause that could potentially justify the indefinite detention of American citizens was not removed. (Read my article explaining the bill here.)

Instead, the House and Senate added language declaring the entire world America’s battleground against terrorism, and on Dec 15, the president signed the bill as amended — with the controversial detention clause still intact.

Despite the president’s promise to never use such a bill to justify holding Americans without trial or charge, some are wary to accept his word at face value. Consider last September, when two American citizens in Yemen suspected of terrorist ties were attacked and killed by American predator drones without trial or questioning, and the idea of stripping away a citizen’s bill of rights under terrorism fears becomes easier to imagine.

These censorship accusations come just days after the U.S. plummeted to number 47 in freedom of the press rankings in an annual report by Reporters Without Borders.

Whether Obama uses this bill to unlawfully detain citizens is only one concern, as many members of the federal government could also choose to do so. So what excuse does the president have for rescinding his promise to veto a potentially harmful bill? If the questions continue to be censored, we may never know.

But there is one way to beat the censorship, and potentially force this question into the discussion. Visit the White House YouTube channel before tomorrow, and submit your question about the NDAA. The White House only has so many staff members, and an overwhelming amount of questions on the subject would signal a demand for a response. Don’t forget to up-vote other NDAA-themed questions on the site, and share this with your friends.

America is the last place on earth where censorship — especially by the government — should be considered acceptable.

Source: Ashley Carey

Post: Gia Trimble