FBI Monitored Jackson for a Decade

Maybe Michael Jackson really was bad (insert sounds of Jheri curl whipping back and forth).

The FBI apparently thought so. The federal agency recently released the fallen pop star's files following a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press. Among the revelations are that authorities were afraid that Jackson's 2004 child molestation trial would be an easy target for terrorists and that there was no proof that Jackson molested children despite the fact that officials traveled to the Philippines to interview his former employees.

According to the Associated Press:

The FBI monitored Jackson for more than a decade, but the files contain no major revelations about his private life and the bureau apparently never developed any solid evidence against him. ...In March 2004, the Santa Barbara County district attorney's office reached out to the FBI, seeking help in developing a strategy to prosecute Jackson for molesting a 13-year-old cancer survivor in the singer's home. Jackson was acquitted of all 14 counts against him in what was one of the most widely followed cases in history. The FBI reviewed case notes from local authorities and examined 16 computers taken from Jackson's home. Nothing notable was described as being found on the hard drives, though parts of the files are redacted.

Jackson's former lawyer said the files provide further proof that his client was not a pedophile."He was not a criminal, and he was not a pedophile," Tom Mesereau told the Associated Press. "The fact that so many agencies investigated him and couldn't find anything proves he was completely innocent."

Much of Jackson's life was a circus. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those redacted pages contained a discussion on whether Jackson had hosted aliens or whether his moonwalk was a weapon of mass destruction.

But Jackson's lawyer is right: The singer had his day in court and was found not guilty of child molestation charges. In this country, you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Sympathy for Jackson and a new appreciation of his tremendous talents are running incredibly high after his death.

However, like Jackson's insistence that he only had one or two plastic surgeries, something was not right when it came to his relationship with children.

In a now infamous documentary, Jackson admitted that he thought it was okay for a 40-year-old man to sleep in a bed with kids who were not his. What was even more disconcerting was that Jackson continued to have relationships with children despite the problems he was having. I'm not sure what parent would leave their kids with a man they didn't really know, even if he was Michael Jackson.

Further proof of Jackson's poor judgment came after his death. The fact that he was taking a cocktail of drugs while resisting help from a nurse who urged him to try natural methods to help him to sleep cannot be ignored.

That said, it seems that local authorities and the FBI were a little too consumed with Jackson. I wonder whether authorities would have traveled to the other side of the planet or spent 10 years pursuing child molestation charges against someone who wasn't as famous.

Who's bad?