Pakistani arrested in NYC for showing al-Manar

[bushmeister0]

I found this little piece of information in the fourteenth paragraph of an AP story about Hezbollah's TV network al-Manar. "On Wednesday a Pakistani businessman in New York was arrested and charged with providing satellite broadcasts of Al-Manar to his customers."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060825/ap_en_tv/mideast_guerrilla_tv_1

Since when is it a crime in this country to show or watch a satellite channel from any where in the world? I understand that the US government considers Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization, no doubt it is, but it's now a crime to watch their TV station? Who knew? What other things are we not allowed to watch or read anymore?

I thought that in countries like Iran and Cuba the government put people behind bars for watching proscribed foreign broadcasts, not in the United States. I guess we really can't condemn Fidel for locking Cubans up for watching TV Marti or listening to Radio Marti anymore can we? (As if any of them do.)

[w13rd0]

1. That's particularly frightening...

...since some Hezbollah videos can be seen on youtube. Will they come round me up next for having watched one?

[longship]

2. Take Constitution.... Shred...

nt

[IntiRaymi]

3. Free speech is a nominal thing.

This has been a perennial complaint against the FTC's policy of cracking down on guerrilla radio stations.
On the other hand, I now wonder what the punishment would be for posting a feed from al Manar on YouTube, or even Google Video? This would be identical to broadcasting 'terrorist propaganda' and, thus, a crime punishable by some similar sentence.
*****
We are being muzzled, pure and simple.

[Igel]

4. OK to watch, not ok to broadcast/transmit.

It's splitting hairs, but it's a very big hair that deserves splitting.

Probably airs, among other, more innocuous stuff, some of the most racist programming anywhere. It trumps any American racism that I've heard, and is up there with the worst European racist drivel I've ever heard.

Is it incitement to violence? Here and there.

[bushmeister0]

5. The same could be said for a lot of stuff on the 700 Club.