Secret Service investigate Dylan's lyrics

[CBL4]

Parents and students say they are outraged and offended by a proposed band name and song scheduled for a high school talent show in Boulder this evening, but members of the band, named Coalition of the Willing, said the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.

The students told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver they are performing Bob Dylan's song "Masters of War" during the Boulder High School Talent Exposé because they are Dylan fans. They said they want to express their views and show off their musical abilities.

But some students and adults who heard the band rehearse called a radio talk show Thursday morning, saying the song the band sang ended with a call for President Bush to die.

Threatening the president is a federal crime, so the Secret Service was called to the school to investigate.

Students in the band said they're just singing the lyrics and not inciting anyone to do anything.

The 1963 song ends with the lyrics: "You might say that I'm young. You might say I'm unlearned, but there's one thing I know, though I'm younger than you, even Jesus would never forgive what you do ... And I hope that you die and your death'll come soon. I will follow your casket in the pale afternoon. And I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed. And I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=247437

 

[CFLarsen]

Isn't this a bit late? I mean...it's an old song...

These people never heard of Dylan? They never listened to Dylan??

Jeebus... And Americans ask why Europeans laugh at them...

 

[hgc]

Why is this taken as a threat against Bush? It's the old your-dirty-mind-pollutes-my-art problem.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Isn't this a bit late? I mean...it's an old song...

These people never heard of Dylan? They never listened to Dylan??

Jeebus... And Americans ask why Europeans laugh at them...

The Secret Service is staffed by numbskulls. This is the same organization that raided a publishing company in 1990 that was producing a supplement for a 'cyberpunk' RPG, and called it a 'handbook for computer crime'. I guess it was, if you happen to be a character in a pen and paper RPG, otherwise it was pretty much the rulebook for a game.

.

In the course of that visit, it became clear that the investigating agents considered GURPS Cyberpunk to be "a handbook for computer crime." They seemed to make no distinction between a discussion of futuristic credit fraud, using equipment that doesn't exist, and modern real-life credit card abuse. A repeated comment by the agents was "This is real."

I am not so much worried about Europeans laughing at me as I am that a major law enforcement branch of our government can't tell a song lyric or the rulebook for a game from a genuine threat

 

[pgwenthold]

Why is this taken as a threat against Bush? It's the old your-dirty-mind-pollutes-my-art problem.

For the same reason that people wearing shirts that say "Protect Civil Liberties" are anti-Bush.

Since it espouses things that Bush does not support, it must be anti-Bush.

You are either for him, or against him.

 

[crimresearch]

The Secret Service is staffed by numbskulls. This is the same organization that raided a publishing company in 1990 that was producing a supplement for a 'cyberpunk' RPG, and called it a 'handbook for computer crime'. I guess it was, if you happen to be a character in a pen and paper RPG, otherwise it was pretty much the rulebook for a game.

I am not so much worried about Europeans laughing at me as I am that a major law enforcement branch of our government can't tell a song lyric or the rulebook for a game from a genuine threat

All bureaucracies ( yes, gaaasssp!! even the European ones), have the same problems...it is inherent in the nature of bureacracies....

 

[Luke T.]

"Hey, Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?"

Somebody call 9-1-1!

 

[AK-Dave]

The Secret Service has a responsibility to investigate ANY reported threats to the president, no matter how absurd they may be. It may seem stupid in a case like this, but if it is reported to them, they have no choice but to investigate. It doesn't mean that people are going to be arrested or made to disappear, just that a Secret Service agent or two will be asking questions. In this case,

some parents got the impression that the students wanted to alter the words to say they wanted to see the president dead while a slide on a curtain displayed Bush's picture.

This resulted in

"We got numerous complaints from citizens and have to investigate all allegations of threats regardless of who the sitting president is," Lon Garner, Secret Service special agent in charge of the Rocky Mountain region, said.

(Both quotes from Yahoo! News)

No over-reaction here on the part of the Secret Service, just a couple of parents over-reacting to a rumor about what the show was going to contain.