OFF THE WIRE
Federal law enforcement plans to ban fight back against biker gangs
by banning them from wearing group logo patches on their jackets.
Claiming that “the logo itself furthers a criminal enterprise,”
prosecutors say that groups like the Mongols Nation should have the rights to their group’s logo seized by the federal government.
Police claim that if biker gangs could be stripped of their logos, this would in turn diminish their power.
Prosecutors say that this plan essentially seeks to claim rights to
their logos. Without the logos, the government believes that their power
will somehow wane.
A source told Fox News that “It not just stripping them of their identity, or robbing them of a recruiting tool, it’s taking the star off their helmet. The logo itself furthers a criminal enterprise.”
Donald Charles Davis, the author of the book Aging Rebel: Dispatches From The Motorcycle Outlaw Frontier, claims that this is being seen as “just a first step to what the government wants to do to all motorcycle clubs. They want to outlaw motorcycle clubs by taking their insignia away from them.”
To complicate this bizarre approach, the Mongols Nation badge was actually registered as a trademark in 2005, by the group itself. But it was prohibited in 2008 when the ATF arrested more than 100 members of the group.
The ban then was later lifted. But the government is still apparently
planning on claiming rights to the logo and others once legal
precedence is set with the Mongols.
The case is due to be heard in a Los Angeles court on June 2nd. We will keep you updated on the case and the implications it has for the rest of us who are not in biker gangs, who the government may nevertheless oppose.
(Article by M. David and Jackson Marciana)
