Washington, DC police today intensified their search for missing news.com reporter and columnist Declan McCullagh, as evidence of his disappearance mounted. Police spokesman Harvey Hoax explained, “We believed initially that Declan was submitting his columns from an unknown location, but further examination of the columns revealed that they must have been written by someone else.”
According to sources, this week’s column was the key tip-off. Investigators have concluded that the column was partially written by Declan before his disappearance, and then completed by an unknown person. Police believe that the paragraph calling the DMCA an “egregious law” that is “probably unconstitutional” and “should be unceremoniously tossed out by the courts” was indeed written by Declan, as it is consistent with his often-stated views. However, later paragraphs characterizing the DMCA as no big deal appear to have been written by an unknown person.
Police now suspect that last week’s column, urging technologists not to be politically aware, was most likely written by the same unknown person. “Declan has devoted much of his career to bridging the gap between politics and technology, and he is widely respected for it,” said an anonymous source. “Clearly the column was written by someone else. That person probably knows where Declan is being held.”
When asked who might have altered Declan’s columns, RIAA Chairman Hilary Rosen quickly swiveled her computer monitor out of view and stammered, “Uh, no comment.”
Anyone with information about Declan’s whereabouts, or the authorship of his last two columns, is urged to contact the Washington police.
[Note to the humor-impaired: It’s a joke, for God’s sake.]
[Note2: Missing-Declan idea stolen shamelessly from Slashdot poster “idonotexist” and expanded upon here.]
