Wanted by the FBI?

Published October 23, 2007

By Jeremy Blum

How far are we willing to go in our war against terror? With a charismatic smile, a signature snicker, and a whole lot of spin, Bush is able to put on a pretty damned good show to a nation desperate (literally) for a leader. With 9/11 having just happened, Bush appeared on everyone’s idiot box an American hero and got the wild approval he needed to pass a bill allowing him to invent his own threats. The Patriot Act, the Bush Administration’s ‘blank check’, allows them to go after anything and everything in our society that could be considered ‘domestic terrorism.’ With the term ‘domestic terrorism’ lacking a real definition, the neo-conservatives in the White House get to determine it, and have now tagged the Internet and video games as terrorist tools!

The New York Times reported that the Bush Administration is going after those spreading anti-American sentiment through the internet, because apparently anti-American sentiment is terrorist-breeding propaganda. Considering our reputation in the world right now, this puts a lot of people under the White House’s golden magnifying glass. Whether it be blogs, message boards, websites, or any other venue that can be used to be heard, they’re now a potential threat to the US Government. And now The Patriot Act is targeting video games— making this once distant Act hit very close to home for me, a 19 year-old Computer Science student at the University of Vermont.

I’ve been studying and designing video games for a while now, and it’s probably what I want to do for a living. I’ve always envisioned moving out west and (maybe after snowboard-bumming for a few years) getting my dream job at a design company in Seattle, San Francisco, L.A., or Vancouver… who knows. I have a passion for history and politics which has translated into the games I’ve been involved in developing. My latest is a video game called ‘Insurgency,’ which actually portrays Iraqi resistance fighters in it. In Insurgency you can be either an American or an Iraqi insurgent and fight against each other in a realistic environment, with realistic weaponry and squad tactics.

Apparently now if a video game has Arab people in it, it can be considered a terrorist tool! EA Games has already seen the wrath of the FBI because of one of their games that the government is claiming allows terrorists to virtually train to kill Americans. House hearings and an unsettled lawsuit have already occurred, and considering the striking similarity to my game, I now have to live with the fear that the FBI may be showing up at my door.

Having received international recognition and even the support of many soldiers who served time in Iraq, the game has already seen a good amount of success and praise. My proponents understand that my intention for this game was not to give terrorists the ability to “virtually train” to kill me some day. Still…

So here I am, the first potential UVM victim to the Patriot Act, and apparently an enemy of America! Having personally felt the significance of 9/11, I feel betrayed.

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