Federal Beareau of Not Investigating

For all the warnings of mis-information at Wikipedia, they sure seem to have their facts together about some legal issues. Well, they at least have a more accurate understanding of copyright laws than the FBI. Not that we'd expect the federal government's premiere law enforcement agency to understand the laws they try to enforce...

Last month, the FBI decided to send Wikipedia a cease and desist order for having a high resolution version of the FBI seal available for download on their site. They quoted a law about the illegality of displaying their seal. Here's the actual law they took a shot at quoting.*
Wikipedia promptly returned a letter, with an ACTUAL quote from the same law the FBI tried using against them. As it turns out, not only is Wikipedia not breaking the law, but they point out that they are more than happy to argue this one out in court. They have this confidence because unlike the FBI, these guys did an investigation and know they are in the right.

No small part of what chaps me on this waste of federal man hours is the fact that their investigation was as thorough as you would expect from an incompetent investigative agency. Unless Wikipedia has some sort of special lack of rights, you have to wonder why the following sites did not receive similar threats of legal action:
Encyclopedia Britannica
New York Metro
and I found at least 2 seals available amongst the documents at fbi.gov (to be fair, none of the seals on their site are high resolution, but any chump with access to photoshop could certainly use this to do as much damage as one might do with the high resolution version...)

Who would you rather have a good understanding of the law of the land - the police or a not-for-profit web site...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.
read more: F.B.I., Challenging Use of Seal, Gets Back a Primer on the Law(nyt)