Censoring Terrorist TV

Here's an odd one. I'm sure the ACLU will be suing over this one any second now.

Lebanon's ambassador to Washington, Farid Abboud, said his country strongly disagreed with the new designation.

"If you want simply to demonize or eliminate one side, you're not going to advance the issue," he told Reuters. "If you are going to focus on one side simply because of the political message, it's unacceptable and it's a grave breach of the freedom of speech."

Boucher said: "It's not a question of freedom of speech; it's a question of inciting to violence. And we don't see why here or anywhere else a terrorist organization should be allowed to spread its hatred and incitement through the television airwaves."

I've heard a couple of arguments that say that the Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the right of the freedom of speech for incition of violence. This article discusses Advocacy of Violence. It does appear to be lawful.

Applying the Brandenburg test, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed. The First Amendment, the Court declared, does not permit the imposition of liability for nonviolent speech activities, but only for the consequences of violent conduct. Nor could liability be imposed on a group, some of whose members committed acts of violence, merely because of association with that group, which itself possessed only lawful goals, the Court added. Advocacy of imminent violent actions was first required.

The Court recognized that in “the passionate atmosphere in which the speeches were delivered, they might have been understood as inviting an unlawful form of discipline or, at least, intending to create a fear of violence where or not improper discipline was specifically intended.” Still, “mere advocacy of the use of force or violence does not remove speech from the protection of the First Amendment.”

I would argue another way to support this ranking of the company as a terrorist organization. My understanding is that no one right can deny another person of their rights. And in this case it could be viewed as protecting large numbers of citizens. We have heard that the terrorists are suspected of using tapes and Arab news agencies to send triggers to action for terrorist acts. If this is part of the concern, then this is merely the US government protecting the citizen's rights. The most basic of which is the right to LIFE.

Maybe there is more to this than I'm seeing, but I'm not seeing this strictly as censorship. If the actions to protect the life of citizens and causes censorship, I believe that protection trumps this isolated right to free speech.