White House Declines To Deport Bieber, Pivots To Immigration Reform In Its Official Response

TechCrunch squinted slightly when the White House petition to deport the Canadian Justin Bieber passed the 100,000-signature mark, the minimum threshold to warrant an official response. (At that time, TechCrunch offered to help build a catapult to assist in completing the expulsion.)

The White House today responded to the petition with a dodge:

Thanks for your petition and your participation in We the People.

Sorry to disappoint, but we won’t be commenting on this one.

Hardly a surprise. (The White House did link to this Time piece that details why sending Biebs home would not be a simple task, legally.) But given that no moment can be wasted in politics, the White House quickly pivoted in its response to a discussion of immigration reform.

On a different note, the “Pardon Edward Snowden” petition, which collected more than 150,000 signatures during its open period, still lacks an official response. Surprise.

Immigration reform, comprehensive or otherwise, is showing signs of life again in Congress. Speaker of the House John Boehner claims to be “hellbent” on getting something passed, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and the president can’t agree about what they spoke about on the phone. The Senate plan, passed previously, is dead in the House as it won’t be brought up for a vote. And it isn’t clear if the Senate has any appetite to take up House-passed — provided the House can pass something at all — legislation that would tackle immigration by parts, and not all at once.

A small potential glimmer for the techies: If the House does manage to pass smaller, bite-sized immigration fixes, high-skill immigration reform could find itself decoupled from larger immigration reform. That would raise its chances, albeit in a minor way — from oh-so-slim to not-quite-as-oh-so-slim — of passing this year.

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The White House Blasts Turkey For Blocking Twitter, Calls For Its Reinstatement

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today responded to the Turkish government’s attempt to block Twitter in the country. The suppressive effort failed in the most basic sense, as Twitter users could still tweet via SMS, or change their DNS settings and get around the block.

Here’s the White House:

The United States is deeply concerned that the Turkish government has blocked its citizens’ access to basic communication tools.  We oppose this restriction on the Turkish people’s access to information, which undermines their ability to exercise freedoms of expression and association and runs contrary to the principles of open governance that are critical to democratic governance and the universal rights that the United States stands for around the world.  We have conveyed our serious concern to the Turkish government, urge Turkish authorities to respect the freedom of the press by permitting the independent and unfettered operation of media of all kinds, and support the people of Turkey in their calls to restore full access to the blocked technologies.

Importantly, the Obama administration just called Twitter a “basic communication tool,” implying that tweets are on par in terms of their importance to a society to phone calls, texts and the like. It’s also good of the White House to directly connect free speech and democracy.

It will be interesting to see what comes next for Turkey: How do you walk back a Twitter ban?

There have been reports that the blockade is being lifted, albeit slowly. The ban didn’t descend all at once, and so it appears that the ban won’t lift all at once. We’re monitoring the situation as well as we can from here. If you’re on the ground, our tips line would love to know what you see.

IMAGE BY FLICKR USER Mark Skrobola UNDER CC BY 2.0 LICENSE (IMAGE HAS BEEN CROPPED)