A letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation would cause most people or organizations to stop in their tracks, but not Wikipedia, which responded to the FBI’s call for it to remove the bureau’s seal from its Web site with a letter of its own, saying that the law quoted in the FBI letter did not apply to this situation, The New York Times reported.

From the FBI letter to Wikipedia, written by deputy general counsel David C. Larson, via the Times:

It has come to our attention that the FBI seal is posted, without authorization, on Wikipedia at the following site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US-FBI-ShadedSeal.svg. As the site itself notes, “Unauthorized use of the FBI seal…is subject to criminal prosecution under Federal criminal law, including 18 U.S.C. 701.”

Larson went on to quote the law:

Whoever manufactures, sells, or possesses any insignia of the design prescribed by the [Department head] 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 insignia, or any colorable imitation thereof, except as authorized under regulation made pursuant to law, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

He concludes:

The purpose of this letter is to advise you of these legal requirements and to seek your compliance with the law by removing the F13I seal from the above site and any other sites under your control on which it appears. Please remove the FBI seal from the Wikipedia site(s) within 14 days of receiving this letter and notify us of your compliance in writing.

From the response by Wikimedia Foundation general counsel Mike Godwin, also via the Times:

First, thank you for taking my call Thursday, and congratulations on your imminent retirement after so many years of service. It’s unfortunate that on such an otherwise happy occasion, I must inform you that the Bureau’s reading of 18 U.S.C. 701 is both idiosyncratic (made especially so by your strategic redaction of important language) and, more importantly, incorrect.

In your letter, you assert that an image of an FBI seal included in a Wikipedia article is “problematic” because “it facilitates both deliberate and unwitting violations” of 18 U.S.C. 701. I hope you will agree that the adjective “problematic,” even if it were truly applicable here, is not semantically identical to “unlawful.” Even if it could be proved that someone, somewhere, found a way to use a Wikipedia article illustration to facilitate a fraudulent representation, that would not render the illustration itself unlawful under the statute. As the leading case interpreting Section 701 points out, “The enactment of § 701 was intended to protect the public against the use of a recognizable assertion of authority with intent to deceive.” United States v. Goeltz, 513 F.2d 193 (1975). Our inclusion of an image of the FBI seal is in no way evidence of any “intent to deceive,” nor is it an “assertion of authority,” recognizable or otherwise. If you read the cases construing Section 701, you find they center on situations in which defendants represented themselves as federal authorities. I think you will be compelled to agree that the Wikimedia Foundation has never done this.

In short, then, 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. We are in contact with outside counsel in this matter, and we are prepared to argue our view in court.