Please, God, don't send the FBI to my house

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So, I'm relatively certain of what I am about to tell you, but go ahead and disagree with me:

The US govt will, at some level, scan this post and it's contents to see if it's harmless or harmful based upon the fact that I am going to talk about freedom of speech and use a phrase which, I believe, will be picked up on some filter and be observed.

In 1989 the band known as "The Offspring" made a 12 song album, the last song of which was Kill The President
[it was a pretty dark album, overall; other songs include "Beheaded" and "Out on Patrol" and "Tehran" {originally titled "Baghdad" interestingly enough}



In a world without leaders
Who'd start all the wars?
The world that you're saving
Will always be yours

Kill the president
Voice the reason
Unify with that single line
Stop the man with the power
Of the government
A leader's not the center
Of democracy

In a world without leaders
Who'd make people starve?
The world that we're saving
Will always be ours

Everyone says
Well maybe I'll make a difference
Thinking they've got plenty of time
But you're squeezed
A little tighter everyday
Punished before you commit a crime

In a world without leaders
Who'd start all the wars?
The world that you’re saving
Will always be yours

Kill the president
Voice the reason
Unify that single line
Stop the man with the power
Of the government
A leader's not the center
Of democracy

America
All of your enemies
Come from within
But you lash out so
It is seen
Like some frightened child
In an angry world
Or the fall of Rome
Your demise comes
From your own hands

In a world without leaders
Who'd start all the wars?
The world that you’re saving
Will always be yours

In a world without leaders
We might have a chance
But we'll never see it
As long as there's
Kill the president
Kill the president
Kill the president
Kill the president
Kill the president
Kill the president now!

Now, they weren't a big name band when the album/song came out, and didn't hit it big till the 90's. There was, to my knowledge, no hullabaloo about it. And maybe I'm making mountains out of molehills by even talking about it.

But, let's not ignore what is right in front of our noses. A band was able to produce and sell their music, despite it's being...well, anti-establishment [for lack of a better term]

Now, let's be clear: *I am not inciting violence with this and I don't think the band was either. I am against the violent overthrow of our government/violent intimidation of our government officials*

This speech is protected by the first amendment and, I don't think, anybody would suggest such speech should be banned. (any takers?) I mean, if you look at the album, it's clearly social/political criticism [and *NOT* a call to action--although debate that if you wish] and that, to my knowledge, is clearly protected by the 1st amendment.

So, final points:

A) Do you think this post will be watched/screened by the govt?
B) Do you think this post *should be* watched/screened by the govt?
C) What do you think of the statement made in the song: "A leader is not the center of a democracy"
D) What do you think of the statement made in the song that begins at: "America, all your enemies come from within..." and ends with "your demise comes from your own hands"
E) What do you think of the song overall?
F) Should such a song be protected under the first amendment/freedom of speech?

and for my own safety/peace of mind:

G) Let me repeat how clear I wish to be: I want no harm to come to Obama/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Carter [we got any other living presidents?] nor do I want harm to come to any of our elected officials, regardless of how much I may disagree with their politics

edit:

if the first few responses are an indication, most people will tell me I need not be afraid

but C/D/F are just as interesting to me as A/B, which, I'm not that concerned with, but better safe than sorry, ja?

Comments

[thies.livejournal.com]

I'd assume that yes, with this post being transmitted internationally thousands of times it will pass some kind of filter. I'd also assume that it'll not raise enough flags to reach high enough to be reviewed by a human, unless due to comments left on it.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

That makes sense to me too. I'd assume they've come across this song before and have written some script to deal with it and ignore it unless some other keywords pop up too.

I mean, I could say: Osama Bin Laden, cocaine, assassinate and nuclear bomb too =)

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

This.

Everyone knows that the NSA is scanning for key phrases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence) for example.

Mostly automated unless something comes up flagged.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Ninny. I used to sign my e-mails "bomb bomb allah allah time time bomb allah president allah bomb president".

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Good for you.
Anything more substantive than that?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Doesn't work like that (http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/610709.html?thread=45176725#t45176725).

[silver-chipmunk.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's vaguely possible it might be glanced at by a computer program, though as other posters have said, it's unlikely to be flagged for human perusal.

I don't actually see anything wrong with that. It seems like a reasonable security measure to take. Look at it and access it's potential threat, and if it's not threatening, dismiss it.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Anything in response to C or D?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

A: Probably not.
B: Probably not. There're more likely methods of passing information out there.
C: Yeah, but democracy's not much good without leaders, either. Symbiosis.
D: Partially true. The US doesn't always help itself with its foreign policy, but then many portions are pretty necessary, too.
E: Enh. Dexter's smart, but I dislike blatant political protest songs.
F: Depends on the circumstances. If you're addressing a crowd (or mob) outside a presidential appearance, probably not. If you're just some punk singer in New York, yeah, who cares?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Because people listen to music and do what it tells them.
Dontcha know?
Some people blamed Columbine on Marilyn Manson...

No worries

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

Back when Clinton implemented the (known) government "spy crawler" under the guise of finding the next Timothy McVeigh a lot of us (us being regular denizens of Usenet newsgroups) made a .sig that contained a lot of catch words like, well, Timothy McVeigh (and Oklahoma City, etc.). To my knowledge this never bumped me up the Clinton's enemies list. :P

Hopefully the NSA (and other agencies) are smart enough to not just scan for keywords but also the context ratio at which they are used. Someone using Osama Bin Laden in a political discussion group and/or 0.01% of the time shouldn't trigger any flags.

Re: No worries

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

What about C/D/F?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

A) Maybe
B) No, because you're not actually saying you'd want to do what the song describes, you're just mentioning the song.
C) I think that's true because we certainly don't have a leader in this democracy.
D) That's somewhat true.
E) I like some songs by The Offspring, but not all of them.
F) Yes. They allowed "Fuck the Police" to be released.
G) =]

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

"We certainly don't have a leader in this democracy"

You sure about that?

[404.livejournal.com]

Don't diss Crazy Taxi, man!

[sgiffy.livejournal.com]

A) Possibly. I imagine their filters are a bit more sophisticated then three word phrases, but its certainly possible.

B) Sure. I mean I think there is nothing wrong with the government watching the internet for evidence of people planning harm. Now censoring content or harassing people just because they write something is wrong.

C) 100% true. The people are the center.

D) Not really true. We have enemies abroad. Though we also have people at home that advocate things antithetical to the principles of this country. I would not call them enemies though. An we are hardly in danger of falling.

E) I like the Offspring!

F) Most certainly. All songs and speech should with very very rare exceptions.


G) I disagree ;) j/k

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Re: F) Well, isn't that the point. This song, directly, calls for a violent action to be taken against a leader.

What would the song have had to include to make it unprotected speech? Outside of, obviously, a direct *plan* to take such action. ie. if it said: 'kill the president on day X, time Y" that'd be unacceptable, yes?

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

A) Do you think this post will be watched/screened by the govt?

Yes, of course. I'm certain that some government bureaucrat somewhere is subscribed to talk_politics.

And -- very bluntly -- don't worry.


B) Do you think this post *should be* watched/screened by the govt?

If you don't want things watched/screened by the government, don't post them on a public Internet site.

Everyone, even out-of-work folk, can watch this post.


C) What do you think of the statement made in the song: "A leader is not the center of a democracy"

The people are the center of a democracy. And we change leaders every four or eight years.


D) What do you think of the statement made in the song that begins at: "America, all your enemies come from within..." and ends with "your demise comes from your own hands"

Partly true, partly false. Osama bin Laden was not from within the United States. Neither was Hitler.


E) What do you think of the song overall?

Too damn depressing.


F) Should such a song be protected under the first amendment/freedom of speech?

HELL YES. Of course. Absolutely.

Just Tom Clancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor) has First Amendment protections.

You have theright to discuss a song like Kill the President. You have the right to write a song like Kill the President. You have the right to perform it. It's fine. Really.


and for my own safety/peace of mind:

G) Let me repeat how clear I wish to be: I want no harm to come to Obama/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Carter [we got any other living presidents?] nor do I want harm to come to any of our elected officials, regardless of how much I may disagree with their politics

You're definitely worrying too much. It's just a song.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Re: D) Who trained and armed Osama Bin Laden in the 80's?
And....you mention Hitler first, therefore I win the argument =)

While the song is, and this is to it's credit, vague and not threatening any particular president, it's not too crazy for a govt (not ours of course) to want to limit speech that suggests *killing* the govt, is it?

So isn't it rather astonishing that ours is so very lenient?

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

It's got a good beat, I could dance to it. Still, I liked "Holiday in Cambodia" better. As for the rest, only time will tell.

Wait a minute, I think I hear something.



OMG, they're here!

ROSWELL! ROSWe#(%&)@_+>>..... .. .. .

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

har har
if you wanna dance, I'd recommend: "Jennifer Lost The War" instead

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

A) Do you think this post will be watched/screened by the govt?
Yep.
B) Do you think this post *should be* watched/screened by the govt?
Nope.
C) What do you think of the statement made in the song: "A leader is not the center of a democracy"
Its a 50/50 statement.
D) What do you think of the statement made in the song that begins at: "America, all your enemies come from within..." and ends with "your demise comes from your own hands"
Historically, the downfall of all empires were the result of internal turmoil. No reason to expect America will be any different.
E) What do you think of the song overall?
Its a rock version of:

F) Should such a song be protected under the first amendment/freedom of speech?
Yes.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

hey, hey, I'd rather not quiver under the bed before Creedy's men come and blackbag me

oh wait, this isn't the world of V for Vendetta....right?

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

A) Do you think this post will be watched/screened by the govt?

Well considering LJ is owned by a Russian company, definitely but not necessarily only by the US government.

B) Do you think this post *should be* watched/screened by the govt?

This is a public forum, so yes. Intelligence agencies would be remiss if they didn't.

C) What do you think of the statement made in the song: "A leader is not the center of a democracy"

I think that's obvious.

D) What do you think of the statement made in the song that begins at: "America, all your enemies come from within..." and ends with "your demise comes from your own hands"

It is a correct admonition to clean thine own house. You know, kind of like what leaders say.

E) What do you think of the song overall?

Is this another one by Insane Clown Posse? The lyrics are incredibly naive. If there is no leader, one will emerge, so do we also kill him? In a world without leaders/Who'd make people starve? We'd do a pretty good job of starving on our own.

F) Should such a song be protected under the first amendment/freedom of speech?

Yes.

[404.livejournal.com]

You are just being over dramatic and paranoid.

I like some The Offspring, but this one is just dumb. Sounds like some whiny anarchist might cook up in his mom's basement for the next G20.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

A) Probably will be caught by the internet filters of several countries. Even if the US is not crawling LJ posts it is a fair bet Russia, China, France, England, and a handful of others are. As others have said though the post is unlikely to get past the 2nd tier of automatic filters and would have to get to somewhere around the 27th before it ever gets in front of a human. It would not surprise me if things like this get aggregated into some sort of "general discontent" measurement.

B) Should no, but then I don't believe the government should do much of anything and it is questionable if it should even exist. That said if you grant the existence of government and the modern technological world we live in expecting it to not happen is just ignorant and the mere fact of screening looking for possible criminal activity is not a terrible loss of freedom for the people. It is what they do with the information that matters.

C) True, a leader is not the center of democracy but then Democracy without leaders is the most evil vile form of government imaginable. Soviet style totalitarianism would be preferable.

In a totalitarian state if things get too bad you can always kill the leader. In a Democracy there is no leader to kill and with the mob having the power to literally grant itself ANY power that 50.01% of the population wants there is no limit to the evil that can be accomplished.

D) No, not all of America's enemies come from within. However the only truly dangerous ones do. As a practical matter there is no external force in the world that could have ever threatened America's global financial or military dominance had it not been for the significant strains of socialist and anti American thought that have developed in the last 80 years.

E)Without actually hearing it I can't really comment on it but in terms of it's message, not a big fan. I would have rather they focused it more on ignoring the government to take away it's power over you than thinking that just killing the leader would accomplish anything.

F) Absolutely

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

D) What do you think of the statement made in the song that begins at: "America, all your enemies come from within..." and ends with "your demise comes from your own hands"

TRUE, because internationally only the most financially well-off have the means/ability to visit/live/reside/work here in the US of A.