On July 10, the FBI’s Washington, D.C., Field branch posted a parody of the album cover for Taylor Swift‘s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) on Instagram. However, the FBI is apparently using this post to urge Swifties to report federal crimes.
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Speak Now (FBI’s Version), which the FBI’s Washington Field branch has renamed Swift’s new version of the 2010 record, replaces Swift’s song titles with crimes that they hope Swift fans will report. The new “tracks” consist of terrorism, cybercrime, counterintelligence, civil rights, public corruption, weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, violent crime, and white-collar crime.
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Included on the cover of Speak Now (FBI’s Version) is text that reads, “Do You Have a Tip About a Federal Crime.” On the bottom of the image is a number for Swifties to call to report any of the listed crimes, as well as more text that reads, “Contact Your Local FBI Office or U.S. Embassy or Consulate.”
Above the faux album cover, the FBI’s Tweet reads, “Justice is better than revenge. You may not be Superman, but you can help the #FBI protect the country. If you have information about a federal crime, speak now. Call 1-800-225-5324 or visit http://tips.fbi.gov to submit a tip.”
Taylor Swift herself may not be involved with the FBI’s tweet, but based on recent song lyrics, it seems likely that she condones it. In her 2022 song “Vigilante S**t” from”Midnights,” Swift sings, While he was doing lines and crossing all of mine/ Someone told his white-collar crimes to the FBI.
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) was released on July 7 and is proving to be a massive success. The album recently broke Spotify’s records, becoming 2023’s most streamed album in just one day.
Swift has recently been very vocal about not wanting fans to send anyone from her past any online hate. Right before a performance of “Dear John” at a recent Minneapolis concert, Swift told her audience, “I’m putting this album out because I want to own my music and I believe that any artists who has the desire to own their own music should be able to.
“I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19, except the songs I wrote,” Swift continued. “I’m not putting this album out so that you can go and should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 million years ago.”
