Last week, when news broke regarding the U.S. government’s confiscation of hard drives containing Death Cab for Cutie shredder Chris Walla‘sforthcoming solo album, scores of fans called foul, pointing fingers atWashington State border officials and criticizing their apparentlyirrational use of power. But now, following countless news storiesconnecting the politically critical solo debut to the government’smotivations, U.S. Customs officials have come forward to quell therampant reports. “I want to point out very emphatically that the U.S.government, this administration, the Department of Homeland Securityand specifically [USCBP] does not censor musical content coming intothe United States. Period. That’s not the reason this hard drive waskept,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection rep Mike Milne told MTV.com.”We followed standard operating procedure… and when you start talkingabout… Guantánamo Bay [as cited in Walla’s blog post], you get my ireup. I go on Google News, and I see 125 different news stories out therewith the headline ‘Homeland Security Seizes Musician’s Music,’ and itstrikes me as unfair. And I will be spending the rest of the day tryingto contact those people — The Associated Press, the record company[Barsuk] and Mr. Walla — to ask them if they can set the recordstraight.”
So why were the hard drives containing Walla’s record, titled Field Manualand slated for a Jan. 29 release date, confiscated? Well, according toMilne, because they were deemed “commercial merchandise” and evidentlybrought through the wrong crossing station sans proper documentation.Furthermore, according to Milne, U.S. Customs officials have beenattempting to return the hard drives to Hippowest studio engineerBrandon Brown for some time now, though, speaking with MTV.com, Brownrefuted Milne’s claim: “Obviously, I would’ve gotten the drive if Iwould’ve heard from them,” he said.
You decide: is Walla and label guilty of hype 101, or is the U.S. government playing a calculated game of PR cleanup?
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