“We just thought it was something funny we could do,” Peregrine Honig says. “But it was so scary.”
Honig is part-owner of Birdies, an “intimate apparel apothecary and swimwear boutique.” The funny thing? Offer shorts with the letters “KC” and the phrase “Take the Crown” printed on them, to cheer on the Kansas City Royals in Major League Baseball’s World Series. The scary thing? The visit by two men who identified themselves as Homeland Security agents … who confiscated the underwear.
“I asked one of them what size he needed and he showed me a badge and took me outside,” Honig told the Kansas City Star. “They told me they were from Homeland Security and we were violating copyright laws.” Although Honig had designed the shorts herself, not simply mimicking a KC logo, the feds said that the intersection of the K and the C in the design was enough to cross the line.
But hey, they were nice!
Apparently even somewhat abashed, like “kicking a puppy,” as Honig puts it; very nice as they took away the merchandise. Which I’m guessing — now stay with me here — was not a threat to national security.
What we have here is called overkill.
At worst this is a minor and inadvertent infraction of copyright law. What’s that worth? A phone call. A visit. Maybe a cease-and-desist letter.
So, do we file this under Silly? Or Ominous?
Or round-file it as just one more little example of the governmental excesses we’re supposed to accept as normal?
Though they lost in the seventh game of a first-one-to-four-wins series, I was rooting for KC.
Oops, did I just commit a crime? I mean I was rooting for K … C.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “The Panty Raid ”
Homeland Security must be running out of things to do if they are busting bustiers.
This is a civil issue for a court to decide.
The Homelanders are trying to become the new brownshirts.
The overriding importance of this day: Nov. 10th is Marine Corps birthday
We have ISIS & other Islamic factions, homegrown plotters as well. We have a porous border. And this is what homeland security is worried about, Panties? It’s so ludicrous it could be a SNL sketch. And this is what happens when government is given too much power.
Too late, Drik.
Homeland Security has already gone far beyond being the new brownshirts.
It really is not much more silly than stationing people along the border. Investigate the whole notion of a “closed border” and I truly think you will find that idea pretty ludicrous. The only difference is that at this point the Homeland Security group are amassing more power to restrict businesses using the more intangible areas. They have already solidified the control over businesses using the boogy man of “illegal aliens”.
Oh, for crying out loud, Paul, you terrorist sympathizer! Don’t you realize if we let people get away with inadvertent trademark infringement today, they’ll be putting nerve gas in our sodas tomorrow?
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