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ACLU ‘concerned’ about White House request that YouTube ‘review’ anti-Muslim video

Jessica Stanton Contributor
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The White House has a new adversary in its quest to see a controversial anti-Muslim video disappear from YouTube: the American Civil Liberties Union.

Obama administration officials confirmed Friday that they asked YouTube to review the trailer of the controversial film “Innocence of Muslims.”

According to White House press secretary Jay Carney, “The White House asked YouTube to review the video to see if it was in compliance with their terms of use.”

In a statement to The Daily Caller, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project Ben Wizner said,
“To our knowledge, no U.S. government official has questioned the right of anyone to make this repellent film, and rightly so. We do get concerned when the federal government appears to throw its weight behind a request for self-censorship, but we don’t know the details of the government’s interactions with Google.”

The video remains accessible on the American YouTube website. But Google, YouTube’s parent company, has blocked access to the video in Libya, Egypt and India.

The film has sparked outrage across the region, resulting in violent protests and the death of four American diplomats in Libya.