Your Tax Dollars at Work

Previously on Just Another Blog (From L. A.)™, we mentioned that the F. B. I. isn't exactly impartial in its activities, often because agents are thinking ahead to their post-F. B. I. career. We mentioned banking & telecommunications as two fields former Feds like to get into. Add show bidness to the list. (Who doesn't want to get into Hollywood?) Not as consultants or would-be screenwriters, but as enforcers for the giant media conglomerates.

"In the past, these may have been viewed as victimless crimes," said Craig Missakian, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles who built the case with the FBI and recording-industry investigators. "But in reality, there's significant damage. This law allows us to prosecute these cases."

Important part emphasized. Yes, the F. B. I., & ass't. U. S. attorneys are doing the bidding of the recording industry & its "investigators." We wonder how many of those "investigators" are former employees of the F. B. I. or other police agencies. How amusingly ironic that the recording posted on the arrestee's web log is titled Chinese Democracy. And that it's taken over a decade to record it. (It's a fookin' "rock-n-roll" album, dudes, get over it!!)

"I hope he rots in jail," said Slash, the former Guns N' Roses lead guitarist. "It's going to affect the sales of the record, and it's not fair. The Internet is what it is, and you have to deal with it accordingly, but I think if someone goes and steals something, it's theft."

By the way, Mr. Slash, buying possessing & using illegal drugs is, well, buying, possessing & using illegal drugs, & it's illegal. In case it slipped your mind. (Also: No one said the Internet is not what it is.)

But Corynne McSherry, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the arrest of Cogill was troubling for many reasons. It raises the prospect of eager fans going to jail for posting a handful of songs. "Bringing that hammer down on an individual music fan strikes me as entirely inappropriate," she said. "Taxpayers should be concerned that they are picking up Hollywood and the music industry's legal costs, particularly when you are going after an individual like this."

Golly, it strikes us as absolutely appropriate, or certainly to be expected, that the F. B. I. & the Bush Administration's Justice Dep't. would be working to benefit the corporate media conglomerates that control the nation's news & information. Is it a surprise to you? But we may not have to worry about this much longer. Your tax dollars may soon go directly to those "recording-industry investigators," for them to enforce & carry out the law any old way they like, if this story is any indication. You know, free market, free enterprise, let the people really concerned w/ the problem get the money, blah blah blah.