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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
Get tattoos of their logo/insignia. Get it someplace prominent and call out the cops to try and take it from them. I doubt law enforcement is going to start a collection of biker lampshades.
Actually, polygraphs are inadmissable in the US court system.
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?
I find it hard to imagine a single intellectual amongst them.
Not that it's going to amount to anything - they will still use their name, and they'll likely call themselves "The Original Mongols..." or some such nonesense...
I doubt they'd even go that far to bow the will the courts. They'll probably just keep calling themselves the plain old Mongols, and if someone disagrees or misappropriates the name, they'll probably call themselves the guys who stabbed him to death.
What would really ruin them is for someone to use their logo and release a Mongols brand sugary breakfast cereal with pink, marshmallow motorcycles.
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?
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?
yes, most prominently, and possibly the only one, germany. swastikas and generally nazi symbols which have glorifying character are forbidden. satire, parody and historical uses are legal. for instance "der untergang" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/) can show swastikas and do the heil hitler thingy. In contrast, the german version of the movie eurotrip (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356150/) had the scene cut out, where the german kid drew himself a hitler mustache and paced like a nazi.
games like return to castle wolfenstein aren't sold in germany.
also, it's is illegal to deny the holocaust and can lead to imprisonment.
It's not about fate, it's about character.
there be no shelter here, the frontline is everywhere!
Regardless, it would be a civil violation, not a criminal one. The owner would have to pursue civil measures to get them to stop wearing it; the police can't enforce trademark usage without a court order to that effect, since no crime is being committed until the person using the trademark violates a court order. Of course, they may have committed a tort and be liable, but that still doesn't mean the police can take their stuff until a court specifically says so.
Wow, the government using a logo of a criminal gang. Truth in advertising at long last!
I suspect that the first thing the DOJ would do, then, is to get a court order against all members of the Mongols pertaining to the use of the logo. Once the court order is there, they'd have potential reason to move on those seen wearing it.
Of course, this does nothing to stop the Mongols from simply using another insignia, one that does not directly reference the Mongol name. It would spread throughout the organization in weeks, if not days, and the whole exercise would lose its value.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
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
Wouldn't this make all law enforcement officers become official Fashion Police?
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.