In 2011, a report from the FBI’s National Gang Intelligence Center classified juggalos as a “loosely organized hybrid gang,” marking surely the first time an American law enforcement institution has officially named members of a certain music-based subculture as, essentially, criminals. In 2012, ICP, always fiercely protective of their fans, sued the FBI, requesting the the Bureau disclose any documents that it used to make that classification, but the FBI made a motion to dismiss the suit. Now, though, ICP is filing another suit, and they’re teaming up with the American Civil Liberties Union and a few more plaintiffs. 
 
 The New York Times reports that the latest lawsuit, filed in a Michigan Federal District Court, claims that the FBI’s classification is an “unwarranted and unlawful decision” that’s already caused “significant harm” to many juggalos. ICP also has included four juggalos from around the country as plaintiffs, and they’ve all claimed to be victims of some sort of discrimination stemming from that FBI report. (One plaintiff, for example, is a Las Vegas truck driver who claims that Tennessee state troopers detained him for displaying an ICP sticker on his truck.) 
 
 You don’t have to like ICP’s music to respect their mission here. Juggalos may be an unruly bunch, but it would be a massive stretch to label them as a gang, loosely organized or not. And when one subculture is subject to institutional demonization, the same can happen to any other. ||||| Horrorcore-rap duo Insane Clown Posse, along with four fans, are suing the Department of Justice and the FBI, demanding that the agencies purge the fan name "Juggalos" from their list of gang members. "Organized crime is by no means part of the Juggalo culture," reads the complaint, filed this morning in federal court in Detroit. 
 
 Check out photos from the 2013 Gathering of the Juggalos 
 
 The suit stems from the FBI's National Gang Intelligence Center classification of Juggalos as "a loosely-organized hybrid gang," one with multiple affiliations. Lawyers for ICP and the ACLU claim that the profiling of Juggalos — based on their distinctive clown makeup and Hatchetman tattoos — lacks reasonable suspicion of gang affiliation. As a result, the "unconstitutionally vague" designation has since intimidated many from expressing themselves and denied them protection from unreasonable searches, according to the filing. 
 
 "The FBI had the impact they wanted: they scared people away from attending concerts and from affiliating together for the purpose of listening to music," Saura Sahu, an attorney assisting the ACLU of Michigan, tells Rolling Stone. He cited the decline in turnout at the latest Gathering of the Juggalos, ICP's annual five-day festival, where police last August arrested numerous people on drug-related offenses outside the event. 
 
 "We don't fit in anywhere," Insane Clown Posse's Violent J tells Rolling Stone. "And when people don't understand you, people fear you. All we're trying to do is be like the Stephen King of music. We like to tell horror stories." 
 
 The band's legal preparation began last year, when their attorney Howard Hertz contacted the ACLU about representing the four Juggalos. The suit follows ICP's 2012 complaint alleging that the FBI had violated the Freedom of Information Act by failing to disclose adequate documentation justifying its gang classification, which is currently still pending. "None of the information revealed showed any significant link between any significant percentage of the Juggalos and the kind of criminal behaviors that the Department of Justice is supposed to be targeting through these gang initiatives," Sahu says. 
 
 Yet last July, according to the complaint, a plaintiff who drives a semi-truck sporting a Hatchetman logo was stopped, searched and detained by a Tennessee state trooper. In 2012, an Army recruiter refused to enlist a different plaintiff unless he covered or removed his Hatchetman tattoo. And plaintiff Robert Hellin, an Army corporal who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea, is "in imminent danger of suffering discipline or an involuntary discharge" because of the tattoos he got years before Juggalos were deemed a gang. 
 
 "At first I thought, wow, that's a compliment that our fans are that heard-of and that renowned," Violent J says. "Then when I realized what's happening to the fans because of it, then everything turned around." 
 
 Federal law defines a criminal street gang as a group of at least five people engaging in violence or a drug-related crime. Yet while the DOJ's National Gang Threat Assessment warned that Juggalos were "rapidly expanding," three years ago, they said they "are not motivated to migrate based upon traditional needs of a gang," given their "disorganization" and "transient nature." They are active in at least 21 states, the assessment continued, though only four states recognize them as a gang. The report does not specify how many Juggalos make up the country's 1.4 million gang members. 
 
 The defendants have until March to either respond to the complaint or request that a judge dismiss the case. "We don't know if we can beat the FBI," Violent J says. "But we're damn sure not gonna sit there and accept it."
– Insane Clown Posse is taking on the feds on behalf of their fans. The duo filed a lawsuit today against the FBI and the Justice Department over the designation of their followers—Juggalos—as a gang. "Organized crime is by no means part of the Juggalo culture," says the complaint. The ACLU is helping with the lawsuit, which includes four fans who say they got treated unfairly by law enforcement because they were Juggalos, reports the New York Times. (One, for example, says he was detained by troopers in Tennessee because he had a logo on his truck.) "We don't fit in anywhere," the ICP's Violent J tells Rolling Stone. "And when people don't understand you, people fear you. All we're trying to do is be like the Stephen King of music. We like to tell horror stories." No response yet from the feds, but the sentiment in the music world seems to be squarely behind the band. "You don’t have to like ICP’s music to respect their mission here," writes Tom Breihan at Stereogum. "Juggalos may be an unruly bunch, but it would be a massive stretch to label them as a gang, loosely organized or not. And when one subculture is subject to institutional demonization, the same can happen to any other."