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Feds Target "Mongols" Biker Club's Intellectual Property
couchslug writes in with a Reuters account of a Federal raid on a California-based motorcycle club, the Mongols, on charges "ranging from murder and robbery to extortion, money laundering, gun trafficking and drug dealing." The interesting twist is that the authorities are asking the courts to seize the IP of the biker club — specifically, their trademarked name "Mongols." "Federal agents and police in seven states arrested more than 60 members of the Mongols motorcycle gang on Tuesday in a sweep that also targeted for the first time an outlaw group's 'intellectual property,' prosecutors said. The arrests cap a three-year undercover investigation in which US agents posed as gang members and their girlfriends to infiltrate the group, even submitting to polygraph tests administered by the bikers ... [T]he name 'Mongols,' which appears on the gang's arm patch insignia, was trademarked by the group. The indictment seeks a court order outlawing further use of the name, which would allow any police officer 'who sees a Mongol wearing this patch ... to stop that gang member and literally take the jacket right off his back' ..."
If police informants can pass and beat a polygraph in a situation where they would be killed on the spot*, then how can the same test when used against people charged with a crime is still admissible as evidence?
*if the common perception of the 1%-ers is to be belived
I grew up in L.A. and had an integrated social circle that drew from a pretty wide swath of communities. After what happened in '92 there was legally sanctioned trouble for people wearing certain clothes, having certain tattoos etc. I know that someone will inevitably point out that the policies were eventually scaled back, but there was a time in L.A. where law abiding youths of certain appearances/demographics literally had to fear the legally authorized power wielded by police.
IIRC the Rampart scandal grew out of policies put in place after '92...
The world has changed since those days, and I fear that this development is not pipe dream bullshit as you suggest.
On another note: Forgive the Godwin, and correct me if I am wrong, but don't some European countries have criminal penalties for displaying a swastika even in the form of satire or parody?
For all of you alarmists that claimed IP regulation would be misused by the government and reach beyond trade and artistic works were totally off base. It hasn't led to rampant surveillance, corporate intimidation of citizens and small businesses, or the police indiscriminately stopping motorists and tearing the clothes off their backs. Oh crap, it has? Is it too late to change our minds?
Staying together in a group is simply advantageous tactically, and doesn't say anything about the strength or weakness of its members. Let us know how it works out the next time you go up to a lone Mara Salvatrucha member and call him a pussy.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Not only will the injunction outlawing the logo will fail spectacularly on 1st amendment grounds, but the very concept of outlawing a gang's insignia will just give the Mongols additional street cred, as they are now more-badass-than-thou.
"Our gang is so bad, our insignia is illegal. The very mention of our name will get you arrested. Think about us and you're committing a crime, brother!" Etc.
It just gives the gang additional appeal to the probable suckers who'd join a criminal biker gang in the first place.
If you affiliate yourself with the FBI, you are, in fact, affiliating yourself with people KNOWN for illegal acts.
If you affiliate yourself with Microsoft, Exxon, ADM..., you are, in fact, affiliating yourself with people KNOWN for illegal acts.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Why hide behind Hinduism? Neo-Nazis have just as much right to bear a swastika. Free speech for some but not others isn't free speech.
Well maybe I'm being American-centric, but I would like to believe that the rights that I enjoy are human rights and not American rights.
Here in the US, we often cite fringe groups like the neo nazis and Ku Klux Klan as the prime example of our right to free speech in action. You don't have to like what they have to say, but many of us would defend to their death the right to say it.
The will of the majority to oppress the minority is mob rule, and a particularly onerous form of tyranny.