This is art, nor are we out of it

[nancylebov]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-01-10-fbi-probe_N.htm

Telecommunications carriers shut down some covert surveillance lines established by the FBI because the bureau failed to make timely bill payments, a Justice Department review found Thursday.

It seems like rather broad satire in which our civil liberties are defended by deep government incompetence. Kornbluth? Brookmyre? Other nominees?

Addendum: I was looking too far afield and distracting you guys in the process. It's obviously The Onion.

If I'd realized that, the subject would have been 'Is the US Trying to Put The Onion Out of Business?', but I bet I'll have use for that subject in the future. Maybe it should be tag.

Seriously, this is third world stuff, and I didn't the US would fall so far so fast. See also copper stealing.

In other satire, I see the point about lethal injection being excessively cruel, but the premise keeps sounding like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I've vaguely reminded of the scene in THX 1138 when pursuit is called off because it went over-budget, except with less competence involved.

[captain-button.livejournal.com]

Sheckley

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I don't remember him as being that political, but this might be an excuse for rereading some Sheckley.

[madfilkentist]

Or the scene in Atlas Shrugged in which the machine torturing John Galt breaks down, and he tells them what's wrong with it.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if Eric Frank Russell wrote something like that. None of the stories in the NESFA volume of his work quite fit the description, though.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Terry Gilliam?