BBC NEWS | Singer Lee Jones attacks Bush (Wednesday, 7 January, 2004)

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Singer Lee Jones attacks Bush: "American singer Rickie Lee Jones has attacked the policies of the Bush administration on her latest record - despite the potential risk to her career.
Lee Jones took the music world by storm in the late 1970s when her self-titled debut album won best newcomer award at the Grammys.

But despite having vowed to stay away from politics, her latest album, The Evening Of My Best Day, features many political protest songs that directly criticise current US policy.

"To address George Bush and his presidency is a departure from my usual point of view," Lee Jones told BBC World Service's Everywoman programme.

"I usually reflect things totally internally. But I think what is happening in America is so disturbing to me, it becomes internal.

"You can't not address it."

Somebody (Repeal The Patriot Acts Now) - a reference to the controversial new anti-terrorist powers put in place after 11 September 2001.

Lee Jones said that she found the act "disturbing"

"The Patriot Act basically says, "Under the guise of protection against terrorism, we consider you a threat. We can arrest you, you Americans... wherever you are in the world, and you no longer have a right to counsel.

"'We don't have to tell you exactly what it is we think you did, and we can keep you as long as we want'.

"This is ominous - an ominous law - and I think it must be repealed. I don't think we can be so reactionary that we take the rights away from people in order to protect them. What's that about? I disagree totally.""