A students song parody results in the Secret Service confiscating his computer

alonzomourning23

alonzomourning23

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MARS HILL — The U.S. Secret Service seized a computer from the dorm room of a Mars Hill College student after he posted a message on a Web site apparently deemed threatening to President Bush.

Freshman Tim Willis said he meant no real harm in using modified song lyrics describing the violent death of the president on myspace.com, a site popular with millions of young people as a place for personal expression.

“Even though I don’t like the president and I don’t like his policies … I don’t want to hurt anybody,” he said. “I’m very peaceable. I don’t desire any conflict or anything.”

Jamie Cousins, the Secret Service agent who paid a visit to Willis on March 7 at the college and carried off his computer, said he couldn’t talk about the case.
“We don’t comment on any ongoing investigations,” Cousins said.

Willis said he made the post in late February as a response to a posting about Bush by a friend, who also had his computer seized. Willis said he took the lyrics from “Bullet,” a song recorded by The Misfits in the late 1970s, and replaced the references to President Kennedy with President Bush.

On March 6, a Secret Service agent left a note in the mailbox of his Newton home asking him to call, Willis said. The teen’s mother then called him at Mars Hill to relay the message, and Willis called the agent.

“He said he needed to talk to me because I threatened the president,” Willis said. “At the time I didn’t think I was threatening the president. It’s just lyrics to a song.”

The next day he met with Cousins at the college and signed papers agreeing to turn over his computer.

“He asked me if I was a member of any organizations, and I told him I was in the Boy Scouts and got my Eagle Scout,” he said. The agent also asked him if he was aware of any plots to overthrow the government, and told him the First Amendment doesn’t protect threats to the president, Willis said.

Dan Lunsford, president of Mars Hill College, said he doesn’t know much about the matter.

“The only thing I would be able to say is we certainly will look into the case and we will cooperate with law enforcement officials,” he said. “But we certainly want to protect our students’ rights as well.”
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http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060316/NEWS01/60315073/1001

Within days the kid was deemed not a threat by the secret service, but he still isn't getting his pc back:

Computer in custody

The Secret Service says Tim Willis is not a threat to the president.
But he’s not getting his computer back - at least not yet.....

While the Secret Service does not believe Willis posted the comments to threaten Bush, they plan to continue to examine other information on Willis’ computer before deciding whether he broke the law, Nelson said.
If there is no violation, Nelson said, the investigation will be dropped.
Willis says in a MySpace.com blog, dated March 6, he didn’t think he was threatening the president.
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http://www.hickoryrecord.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=HDR/MGArticle/HDR_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834797074


Here are the Lyrics to the song Bullet, by the Misfits, the one he parodied. Supposedly he replaced all the kennedy lyrics with bush ones, and I assume jackie with laura:

President’s bullet-ridden body in the street
Ride, johnny ride
Kennedy’s shattered head hits concrete
Ride, johnny ride

Johnny’s wife is floundering
Johnny’s wife is scared
Run, jackie run

Texas is an outrage when your husband is dead
Texas is an outrage when they pick up his head
Texas is the reason that the president’s dead
You gotta suck, suck, jackie suck

President’s bullet-ridden body in the street
Ride, johnny ride
Kennedy’s shattered head hits concrete
Ride, johnny ride

Texas is an outrage when your husband is dead
Texas is an outrage when they pick up his head
Texas is the reason that the president’s dead
You gotta suck, suck, jackie suck

Arise jackie o, jonathon of kennedy
Well, arise and be shot down
The dirt’s gonna be your dessert
My cum be your life source
And the only way to get it
Is to suck or fuck
Or be poor and devoid
And masturbate me, masturbate me
Then slurp it from your palm
Like a dry desert soaking up rain
Soaking up sun
Like a dry desert soaking up rain
Soaking up sun
 
All they had to do was replace the proper nouns, really. Little effort to get the service down on you.

I never did understand the entire last segment of the song, but it's not like the people that brought you "Astro Zombies," "I Turned Into a Martian," or "Die, Die My Darling" were keen lyrical geniuses anyway.

I much preferred "Reagan Youth" anyway.
 
Jesus, you'd think the SS would have better things to do than intimidate a young adult becuase of one lousy posting with a cut and paste bush insert. You'd also think they would have the resources to investigate the kid and rule him out as a legitimate threat without having to accost him and his parents and confiscate his computer. This gives the phrase "counterintelligence" a whole new meaning.
 
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Jack Bauer CTU! Step away from the punk lyrics SIR!
 
Is the secret service wasting their time and probably our money? Yep...

Is the kid an idiot for posting a threat of sorts to the President on a very public website? Almost assuredly... There's even some cases of people being arrested/investigated/punished for making death threats towards everyday people on myspace, I can imagine this kind of thing draws even more attention.

I don't see why this even warrants a posting like it was important somehow (Secret Service often do look into these types of things, though maybe not always as direct as this). He'll probably even get his PC back over time, and if he doesn't I probably won't lose any sleep over it. Also while I have no connection to Myspace whatsoever, like I said I know this kind of thing has happened before and I'm sure those people said it was all in good fun as well.
 
[quote name='Duo_Maxwell']Is the secret service wasting their time and probably our money? Yep...

Is the kid an idiot for posting a threat of sorts to the President on a very public website? Almost assuredly... There's even some cases of people being arrested/investigated/punished for making death threats towards everyday people on myspace, I can imagine this kind of thing draws even more attention.

I don't see why this even warrants a posting like it was important somehow (Secret Service often do look into these types of things, though maybe not always as direct as this). He'll probably even get his PC back over time, and if he doesn't I probably won't lose any sleep over it. Also while I have no connection to Myspace whatsoever, like I said I know this kind of thing has happened before and I'm sure those people said it was all in good fun as well.[/quote]

Well I see this as purely free speach. He didn't say he was going to kill the president. I see no issue with a song such as that being posted. You might say he's stupid or childish for thinking a song like that is funny, but I don't think he's an idiot for the actual posting of it. If I had written a song like that I wouldn't have thought twice about posting it, never would I think I was doing anything illegal or even worthy of the attention of the secret service.

To me this is absurd. I remember in jr high a classmate told the class "anyone who wants to use me in their story can do so", so I wrote a story about him being humiliated, then kidnapped, tortured, killed and slowly cannibalized, then read it to the class and passed it in. Everyone loved it (except the kid who it was about, he was pissed), and the only thing the teacher did was tell me to change the kids name. I wrote stories with similar themes for other classes, though I'm not sure if I ever involved a political figure.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Well I see this as purely free speach. He didn't say he was going to kill the president. I see no issue with a song such as that being posted. You might say he's stupid or childish for thinking a song like that is funny, but I don't think he's an idiot for the actual posting of it. If I had written a song like that I wouldn't have thought twice about posting it, never would I think I was doing anything illegal or even worthy of the attention of the secret service.

To me this is absurd. I remember in jr high a classmate told the class "anyone who wants to use me in their story can do so", so I wrote a story about him being humiliated, then kidnapped, tortured, killed and slowly cannibalized, then read it to the class and passed it in. Everyone loved it (except the kid who it was about, he was pissed), and the only thing the teacher did was tell me to change the kids name. I wrote stories with similar themes for other classes, though I'm not sure if I ever involved a political figure.[/QUOTE]

There's one glaring difference I see here between this kid and the writings of the Misfits original song. They wrote after President Kennedy was long dead and buried and while arguably somewhat offensive to his widow maybe the song carried no real legal weight or rammifications, it's not hurting much of anyone to theaten the dead. Also, I can only imagine at the time the agent investigating this didn't make the connetion to a song that was over 20 years old right away and probably not before he even went to talk to the kid.

Also to the point, threats of violence, be they in rhyme & rhythm or whatever are not legally covered by "free speech" protection. Honestly, if someone got a big enough bug up their ass about what you wrote you could've found yourself under the gun a little as well, if the stories are directed at real, specific people. Though there are various arguments to made in your favor (them being fictional, etc.), particularly the foolish attenion who blatantly asked for it. Even then though depending on how you portrayed him, everything may not have gone so smoothly. People get away with speeding alot too, but just because you did doesn't mean everyone else does. some people get nabbed and others don't because like I said people have actually been arrested/punished for similar things being posted via myspace in the past, but I'm sure not everyone who has ever done it did.

Here's the bottomline, like I said before it is a perfect waste of time and money and the kid likely won't even be charged with any crimes in the long run. However he obviously didn't think through all the consequences before making choice (as we all do at many points but it doesn't get us off the hook), and many things could've concivably come out of this situation (legal consequences, punishment from the school, etc.) and the bad things certainly did come out this time. He also put it on something extremely public and IMO that doesn't make him the sharpest knife in the drawer. Maybe my ranting is pointless and the kid probably isn't an idiot (after all he's like one of 7 people in the world that would've used peaceable instead of peaceful in a personal description), I was just tossing my opinion of the situation out for debate I suppose.
 
[quote name='evanft']We don't have any time!!![/quote]

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Tony Almeda: Jack, this is Tony. We have to give this kid his computer back soon, or he's going to punch me. I think he's on to my "finger gun" trick.

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Jack Bauer: Tony, do what you have to do to keep him there a little longer. Those lyrics kidnapped my wife and sexy teenage cheerleader daughter!
 
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