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FBI Instructs Wikipedia To Drop FBI Seal
eldavojohn writes "The FBI got in contact with Wikipedia's San Francisco office to inform them they were violating the law in regards to 'unauthorized production' of this seal. The FBI quoted the law as saying, 'Whoever possesses any insignia... or any colorable imitation thereof... shall be fined... or imprisoned... or both.' Wikipedia refused to take the image down and stated that the FBI was misquoting the law. The FBI claims that this production of this image is 'particularly problematic, because it facilitates both deliberate and unwitting violations of restrictions by Wikipedia users.' Wikipedia's lawyer, Mike Godwin (please omit certain jokes), contacted the FBI and asserted, 'We are compelled as a matter of law and principle to deny your demand for removal of the FBI Seal from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons,' adding that the firm was 'prepared to argue our view in court.' Wikipedia appears to be holding their ground; we shall see if the FBI comes to their senses or proceeds with litigation."
that does it for all the movies and TV shows that display the FBI seal.
Maybe they've been infiltrated by agents of the RIAA...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Streisand in 3... 2...
Wikipedia's lawyer Mike Godwin (please omit certain jokes)
Yes, before anybody asks, it is indeed THAT Godwin, for whom the law is named.
Well you know what they say, the grade C lawyers work for the government while the grade A lawyers work for everyone else. As someone remarked about on another site, you almost had to wonder why the FBI picked this little fights, and if someone mistakenly thought Wikipedia was somehow related to the now infamous Wikileaks. Even just reading the FBI's correspondence you can tell they're seriously out of their depth.
or does the seal kind of resemble Muhammad?
"Whoever possesses any insignia... or any colorable imitation thereof... shall be fined... or imprisoned... or both"
Okay so I had to go and look this one up. Because there are so many ...'s that pretty much all of the information is missing. That sentence fracture they chose doesn't even mention any government insignia's, at first I thought ALL insignia's were outlawed.
Anyways, so here's the full deal.
Whoever manufactures, sells, or possesses any badge, identification card, or other insignia, of the design prescribed by the head of any department or agency of the United States for use by any officer or employee thereof, or any colorable imitation thereof, or photographs, prints, or in any other manner makes or executes any engraving, photograph, print, or impression in the likeness of any such badge, identification card, or other insignia, or any colorable imitation thereof, except as authorized under regulations made pursuant to law, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
Sounds like the law is basically there to stop people from posing as federal agents. Having the Seal on the website might make it easier for people to design replicas (and where better to find information than Wikipedia) but on the other hand, how would I know what an authentic FBI badge looks like if I've never seen it before, so how would I know if I'm dealing with an imposter or not?
So uh, what exactly is their legal standing for keeping it up there? There must be more to it, but I can see how the FBI could read this and decide to sue them. :)
Mike Godwin (please omit certain jokes)
You Nazi, stop restricting my free speech.
I guess all the criminals took the day off?
As a designer, I can save and open up the svg file from wikipedia and print it at whatever resolution I want. If I was a forger, I could make fake FBI ID, passport, etc etc. Of course, even if that seal wasn't there, it wouldn't take me more than a day to re-create the seal from movies, arcade games, etc etc - just need a reference image. Wikipedia just cuts down the job for me. For example, I get corporate logo from wiki all the time to make brochures (client testaments). Sure beats recreating or contacting the respective marketing dept.
As far as I know there has never been a show that had the actual FBI symbol.
The members of the MPAA have a license to use the FBI seal in the unskippable intros of their DVDs.
NY Times has more. Including links to PDF's of the response. Parts of which are also quite funny: “While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version” that the F.B.I. had provided.
So, they can't use the FBI's symbol, but it's okay that they use The President's Seal, The NSA Seal, the CIA Seal, and the DoD's seal? How does that begin to make sense?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Does this mean I have to get rid of my Female Body Inspector T-shirt?
But it WORKS, man! Some chicks actually believe it!
Stupid cockblocking FBI.
Without Wikipedia, how will we know that FBI seal looks like? If all references to the seal are removed everywhere, an evil super villain can forge ANY seal to pass off as an FBI seal, making forgery even easier.
Ok, we use official seals to prove, or at least strongly suggest, the origin of authority. But what if someone comes to your door with "a" badge or "an" ID card you don't immediately recognize. Especially when dealing with someone in plain clothes, it would be rather beneficial to actually know which insignia is fake, which is real, and which comes from which department. But... if you aren't allowed to know in advance what an official insignia looks like, aren't you just making yourself susceptible to fraud?
Just in case anyone wants to actually read it:
Section 701 of Title 18 of the US Code
Section 709 of Title 18 of the US Code
Section 712 of Title 18 of the US Code
The FBI must think that Wikipedia and Wikileaks are connected somehow.
I am a graphic designer for a TV station. We subscribe to the Associated Press's Graphics Bank service. The same seal is available for download in high resolution. Is AP breaking the law? Am I breaking the law whenever I put the FBI logo on air for a story about the FBI??
Yeah...... you better buy plenty of tinfoil hats... seriously that doesn't make much sense at all. A far simpler and logical explanation is that there are stupid lawyers at the FBI.
This is just the Executive branch pushing - probing, if you will - to see how receptive the populace is becoming towards the encroachment of thoughtcrime and various other totalitarian abuses.
Really?
The way you've worded it, it sounds like you're saying that someone (fairly high-up) in the executive branch of government has an ongoing program of pushing boundaries, and that they (directly or indirectly) put pressure on an FBI lawyer to send out a marginal insignia-takedown request. This seems a little far-fetched to me. It seems simpler and more likely that it was just one or two FBI personnel who took it upon themselves to exert their power. (The suggestion that someone mistakenly linked "Wikipedia" and "Wikileaks" is quite plausible...) I doubt they thought there would be much reaction, and I really have trouble believing this is part of a deeply orchestrated (yet, somehow, totally secret) plot to investigate how pliable the US populace is.
Make no mistake: I recognize the abuses of government and the constant power-grabbing from citizen freedoms into governmental control. However this doesn't seem to be a massive conspiracy. It doesn't have to be. People in positions of power will tend to, as individuals, consolidate their power and push the boundaries wherever they can. Because so many people in government (especially those who aspire to positions of power and importance) are constantly pushing boundaries and trying to shift power from the people to themselves (perhaps indirectly, e.g. shifting power to companies in return for other favors), the net effect is that the government as a whole is constantly encroaching on freedoms and over-stepping their previous bounds.
So, again, I agree that the government is constantly expanding its power and this is worrisome and should be fought against. However I question whether it is really a conspiracy: it seems more likely to be an emergent phenomenon arising from the over-aspirations of individuals. (And groups of individuals, of course--small-scale conspiracies and power-grabs certainly exist.)
I point this out because to fight a problem one must understand its origin. Fighting an illusory conspiracy distracts from the real problem: that just about any person in a position of power will abuse that power. As such we need to be fighting for checks and balances that keep these power-grabs under control, not attacking a few figureheads of a potential conspiracy (after eliminating them, the next power-hungry people will just take their place!).
Initial letter from FBI and response by Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia article in question, image in question.
New York Times story (login). Britannica uses the logo
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Though in this case, i would substitute "conspiracy" for "malice," because malice does appear to be all over all over this, petty and impotent though it may be.
It's more likely that this is just some ambitious idiot in the FBI who thought Wikipedia and Wikimedia were related to Wikileaks and decided to take a shot at them. He/she probably knows that they brought down Al Capone on tax evasion and thought this might be a chance to do something similar.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
No, it is part of the Executive Branch, under the Department of Justice.
I'll admit, I couldn't find a high-res image on the FBI seal in the 2 minutes I spent searching there, but the seal isn't overly complex, doesn't have micro text or any other anti-counterfeiting features.
However, this image, http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/fbiseal/images/fbiseal-02-02.gif, is a fairly decent image and can easily be used to produce a better, larger image. (The image is slightly obfuscated by the web page dis-allowing right clicks. Good going, guys. Security by obscurity for the Win. I mean Lose.)
However, more interesting to me is this high-res image: http://www.fbi.gov/multimedia/images/equipment/badge&gun.jpg
A high resolution image of an FBI badge. Yeah. They're concerned that a web image of their seal can be used illegally, but a badge? That's nothing to worry about. Move along.
except as authorized under regulations made pursuant to law
Ah, so we're good, then.
... and tepples sets a new benchmark for excellence in the category of "Best Logical Gap Between A Post And Its Parent".
Because the US government never pursues what it perceived to be criminal violations of US law if they are committed by people outside the borders of the US at the time of the offense. Just ask Manuel Noriega.
At any rate, other media outlets covering the story also display the seal, including Vanity Fair and The New York Times, which presumably are more exposed to US criminal laws than the BBC.
Ian Copeland, the brother of one of the world's greatest drummers Stewart Copeland, got into business as a promoter. Riffing off of Stewart's band "The Police", and his other brother Miles' company the IRS (Illegal Records Syndicate), he decided to call it the FBI - Frontier Bookings International.
He was soon visited by a couple of FBI agents who told him he'd have to change the company's name. He basically laughed them out of the office, and then discovered REM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Copeland
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/5-30-2006-97810.asp
As a side note, all three brothers were fond of names that played with stern authorities, because they found out later in life their father was actually a covert agent for the CIA.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
IANAL but a quick review of case law brings up United States v Goeltz (1975, CA10 Utah), cert den (1975) 423 US 830 which basically said Enactment of 18 USCS 701 was intended to protect public against use of recognizable assertion of authority with intent to deceive.
Of course how a judge in another jurisdiction would look at this 35 years later is hard to say.
If Wikipedia is actually forced to remove the offending image it could be applied to insignias of any other government agency. I wonder if it would apply to the Great Seal of the United States.
I gave my Mom a call -- first time I've used that resource on Slashdot -- but she's the only person I know who still has a paper encyclopedia in the house. I asked her to look up the FBI. Interestingly enough, her copy of the "World Book" doesn't have a reproduction of the seal in the article. Just a picture of a couple of cadets at the training academy.
Don't know if they didn't include that because of this law or it just didn't make the cut given the space available. Either way, it's not there. I'd be interested in knowing if any other publisher includes the seal in the FBI entry.
And no, I don't live in her basement and she wasn't at your house, either.
I am not a crackpot.
This section, 18 USC 701, has it's origins in the Act June 29, 1932, ch 306, 47 Stat. 342. The text as passed in 1932 is essentially the same as we have it today with some minor modifications. The bill was H.R. 10590 of the 72d Congress and the accompanying House Report was H. Rept. 72-1044. It's only a single page but it quotes an informative letter from the Attorney General from December 7, 1931:
It has come to the notice of the department that it is possible for any unauthorized person to procure from certain merchants or manufacturers badges and other insignia similar to or identical with those prescribed for the use of officers of the United States. You can readily appreciate the prejudice to the public occasioned by the use and possession of such badges and insignia by unauthorized persons.
That would indicate to me, along with the opinion in United States v Goeltz 513 F2d 193 (1975, CA10 Utah), cert. den. 423 US 830 (1975), that the FBI is overstepping the intent of the law here.
The FBI's page has a section on copyrights which links to the DOJ website. There's a section that discuss the use of seals and logos. Nowhere does it state that the unauthorized use of these marks will result in fines or imprisonment. It merely states that permission must be requested before using them. I'd say the risk of imprisonment comes if you use the seal to pass yourself as an FBI agent, but then that's another matter altogether.
The fact that the Wikipedia site features an SVG of the seal may be a little problematic. It makes it trivial to print high quality copies of the thing. I did a quick search of Google Images and while plenty of seals came up, none were anywhere near the quality of this one on Wikipedia. But the solution seems simple, replace it and a somewhat smaller JPG. But even then, it's a minor issue, someone with patience and skill could sit down in Illustrator and recreate the thing.
Despite all this, given that this is a government agency and Wikipedia an informational site what rules govern this case? I fail to see how the FBI has any case at all.
that does it for all the movies and TV shows that display the FBI seal.
(Door flys open, FBI agents jump in, guns drawn)
Agent 1: "Drop that seal!"
Wikipedia: "YIKES!" (Drops seal)
Seal: "Ork! Ork! Ork!"
Agent 2: "Look out! He has a penguin!"
Linus: "Now look here, I'm innocent, I have nothing to do with this!"
Free Martian Whores!
It works like this:
I don't know, but the solution is simple enough. If Congress represented us, they'd say: "Oh, I see what you're saying. You can afford to worry about this because you don't have enough real criminals to catch. Gotcha. This is good news! It means we will cut your budget by 1/3 and we'll convene a committee to study the pony request, to which we will assign 8 congress-folk who know absolutely nothing about ponies, who will in turn assign the task to aides, who will consult with special interest groups, determining that there is nothing in the pony gift process that will benefit the congress-folk. After an interval corresponding most closely to the sunspot cycle (11 years), if all congress-folk are still in office, the aides will return a recommendation that the pony be altered to a certificate indicating VShael deserves a pony, and it will go to the president's desk for signature. Unfortunately, by this time, VShael will have expired in an unlikely but fatal Dvorak keyboard incident, so the certificate will go to the heirs, who will sell it on EBay for enough money to buy a small plastic snow-globe containing an even smaller plastic pony. If any congress folk lose their office during the process, it will be re-started or abandoned, depending upon how much money VShael donates to the appropriate congress folk's political war chests. Oh, and after one year we'll re-evaluate how this affects he FBI's choice of priorities. Who said federal bureaus can't learn to be more efficient?"
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.