# FBI and Daniel Pearl video

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-and-daniel-pearl-video/110968>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 26, 2002, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-and-daniel-pearl-video/110968 "2002-05-26T22:16:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-and-daniel-pearl-video/110968/1 "2002-05-26T22:16:32Z")

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I`m puzzled. First a couple of quotes, with sources below:

> The FBI has ordered an internet provider to stop hosting a video showing US journalist Daniel Pearl being murdered.\<

[http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm\_594707.html?menu=news.latestheadline](http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_594707.html?menu=news.latestheadline)

> Special agent Sandra Carroll of the FBI’s field office in Newark, N.J. said an FBI agent may have passed along information that the Pearl family was ``looking at what legal remedies that they may have,’’ including obscenity laws. But she said there is no legal prohibition against showing the video.\<

[http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3337225.htm](http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3337225.htm)  
What`s going on here? If showing the tape is not illegal, how do the FBI have any authority to order sites not to show it? The morality of showing it is a completely different question, it`s the legal part that I don`t understand.

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**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-and-daniel-pearl-video/110968/2 "2002-05-26T22:59:33Z")

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I imagine the FBI has all sorts of ways to make one’s life difficult without things ever appearing before a judge.

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-and-daniel-pearl-video/110968/3 "2002-05-27T00:19:15Z")

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From the text of the article it seems that the ISP in question voluntarily removed the video. The journalist likely doesn’t understand the difference between “order” and “request.”