So, just to be clear, the NSA is or is NOT "Peeping While You're Sleeping"?
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by Ken
I missed this story the last time around, in November, when our Washington Post "In the Loop" pal Al Kamen originally reported on the lawsuit filed by Public Citizen on behalf of a vendor who had dared to misappropriate its apparently sacred seal, and that of the Department of Homeland Security as well.
The NSA, for some reason, did not appreciate the ceramic mug featuring its official seal with the words "Spying On You Since 1952." The agency also probably wouldn't have been ecstatic about a design with an altered version of the seal and the words: "Peeping while you're sleeping; The NSA, the only part of the government that actually listens."
The agency notified Zazzle in 2011 that federal law made it illegal to use "The NSA" or the seal that way, the eight-page lawsuit said. The agency wanted a response within 10 business days and "threatened to take ‘appropriate legal action' if Zazzle failed to respond."
The folks at the Department of Homeland Security weighed in a couple months later objecting to a design with a version of its seal and the words "Department of Homeland Stupidity." DHS warned it was a crime to mess with the seal of any U.S. government agency and a violator was subject to "fines and/or imprisonment," the suit said.
Well, never mind! Here's the latest development.
NSA will 'keep peeping while you're sleeping'
by Al Kamen
February 18 at 1:15pm
We wrote in November about one Dan McCall of Minnesota, operator of LibertyManiacs.com, which sells "Freedom products for liberty lovers." These are humorous T-shirts, hats, mugs, bumper stickers and such with all manner of political slogans.
Seems the National Security Agency was unhappy about a design that used its official seal with the words "Spying on you since 1952." And then there’s the design boasting that the agency is "The only part of government that actually listens." The seal is altered a little — the official one doesn’t say "PEEPING WHILE YOU’RE SLEEPING."
So the agency notified Zazzle.com, which produced the items for McCall, that it was illegal to use the NSA name or seal that way.
The folks at the Department of Homeland Security weighed in a couple of months later with a letter objecting to a design with a version of the seal and the words "Department of Homeland Stupidity." DHS alluded to potential criminal violations.
Naturally, McCall contacted Public Citizen and sued, saying the parodies of NSA listening and DHS stupidity are protected under the First Amendment. He demanded that the agencies back off.
And back off they did Tuesday, in a settlement filed in federal court in Maryland, with both agencies agreeing to withdraw their letters.
"NSA and DHS both recognized that they’d messed up and they’ve done the right thing and recognized the use of their name and seal are protected for purposes of commentary," or, in this case, parody, said Public Citizen lawyer Paul Levy.
We wondered back in November who’d laugh last. Now we know.
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Labels: Al Kamen, Homeland Security, NSA
posted by KenInNY @ 6:00 PM
2 comments
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2 Comments:
All very well & good, but unfortunately, although the NSA and DHS may now acknowledge this right of parody, Zazzle still does not. I, too, am a shopkeeper at Zazzle, as Dan McCall used to be, and when I read the theoretically good news Tuesday of the court decision, I promptly recreated a design for my on-line shop that Zazzle had deleted last year on the grounds that it incorporated the taboo term "NSA". (In fact, they soon thereafter deleted an alternative version using "N.S.A." instead -- despite the fact that that text is clearly not covered in Sec. 15. (a) of the NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY ACT OF 1959, PL 86-36 .) Anyhow, I recreated the original version ("On the Internet, the NSA knows you're a dog") and even included within the description, as the first tag, "PARODY", and cited the "McCall v. National Security Agency" decision, complete with links, for good measure.
Naturally, Zazzle deletes my design yet again on Wednesday, stating, as they have before, "We have been contacted by the intellectual property right holder and we will be removing your product from Zazzle’s Marketplace due to infringement claims."
So the NSA is still up to its dirty tricks, settlement be damned, or is Zazzle doing this on its own extralegal initiative? No idea, but if there's a class-action lawsuit here, I'd jump to join it!
NSA is not the only government agency to oppose use of its logo for commercial purposes. This is NOT an NSA story.
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