Over in the UK, the generally left-leaning Channel 4 broadcast a program called Undercover Mosque, which included footage of a British mosque’s preachers spewing hatred against women, gays and the west in general. Viewers complained to West Midlands Police. The police decided to investigate not the preachers, but the program-makers. Failing to find any evidence of criminal behavior by the network, they quite bizarrely referred the program to the broadcast regulator. That regulator, Ofcom, has now cleared Channel 4 of any blame at all. The Spectator’s James Forsyth summarizes:

The news that Ofcom has cleared Channel 4 entirely leaves West Midlands Police with several questions to answer including who decided to shift the focus of the investigation away from the preachers and onto the program makers and who authorised the complaint to Ofcom? Those in the West Midlands force responsible for this gross waste of police time and this cack-handed attempt to silence independent journalism need to be held to account. While what the preachers said might not have been criminal it was certainly hateful and Channel 4 had an entirely legitimate right to expose them. The reaction of West Midlands Police revealed a mindset that views the exposure of a problem as more of a problem than the problem itself.

Quite right. If Britain had a real First Amendment (as opposed to the lackluster support of freedom of expression in the Human Rights Act) the police could never have pulled this switch. There’s something for David Cameron and co to support.