On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 5:41 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
That would be an interesting conundrum, if only official sources will do as confirmation but the FBI has a practice of keeping the images hidden. Sets up the ironic situation of people being fooled by impostors with obviously fake badges only because it's impossible to determine what the real ones look like.
From what I can tell, if you suspect an imposter, looking at the badge
is not that helpful. You should phone the local FBI office and ask them if they have agents in the area and who they are (though obviously this can't be done in all situations). I got that from here (to state the obvious, not an official site):
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/67526.html
"Despite what you see in movies and on television, FBI agents will not come busting down your door or push their way in without your permission. Unless it's a matter of immediate life or death, they still have to follow the law."
"And if you stand your ground, they will give you all the time you need to read their ID's, make your calls (while they wait outside), and verify who they are. If they don't, most likely, they are not real Feds."
It makes sense to me, though clearly some imposters will claim it is a matter of life and death.
But really, I'm sure the FBI do have images of their badges somewhere on their website.
As for the image in question, I would also be asking who the photographer is. The original uploader (User:Bugs5382) is retired but started editing again a few days ago after an absence of nearly 2 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Bugs5382
He got the image from this website:
http://www.altremappe.org/Indymedia/operazione%20indymedia.htm
It's not the most stable or reliable image source. I suspect using that image would need an OTRS ticket to confirm that the photographer had freely licensed the image. Or am I wrong to think that this object is "3D enough" to require the photographer to license the creative aspects of taking the photograph? I would say this at the deletion debate, but that would likely get swallowed amongst the legal arguments about badge impersonation (and I think Fred is wrong there).
Carcharoth