Can the government bring this site down?

What if someone had pictures of something that was going on and had the documents. If it really were real would it be safe to post them here, what would most likelly happen? Thanks

I can't predict, but I doubt they would take ATS down.

In the past I've seen assassination threat toward the US president posted as a joke on another forum, the Secret Service tracked only the original poster for interrogation and sent some sort of cease and desist letter to the site administrator to remove the threatening post in question, but the site was never taken down by the government and the rest of members in the forum remained out of trouble as far as I know.

Same with leaked sensitive documents, the government punished the people directly responsible for the leakage, but it seems we can still googling for said material floating around on the internet. I think they don't bother since the info is already known to the public or something.

At one time I've read about Indymedia site taken down because the admins refused to cooperate with the FBI, so agents raided the colocation facility and seized the hard drives for inspection, but that's a whole other story.

Also you can watch footage of police raiding the Pirate Bay servers, their BitTorrent search engine was taken offline over legal discourse about sharing copyrighted music.
www.youtube.com...

Anyway, one would think the government has no incentive to take ATS down.

I´m curious, are the owners of this site registered as members of the International Federation of Journalists? Surely a lot of the research going on here fits right up that alley and there´s most likely quite a few boardmembers registered (i know i am).

I've wondered that too. Lets say someone posted some crazy pics of really top secret stuff, would the govt just launch a DOS attack on the site or ISP to keep people from seeing it while they figured out what to do?

I am close to sure the feds would close this site if leaks contenued to occure. However would it be better for them to act as if it were not there. It is very hard to find the truth in a pile of lies when you dont know what truth you are looking for.

If they were to shut ats down then it would be a red flag for all of us paranoid people. So by shuting down ats it would end up adding strenth to the cause. They probally enjoy takeing us out one by one. more torture fun for the military.

We Must Fight the Net.

[...]

We Must Improve PSYOP. Military forces must be better prepared to use PSYOP in support of military operations and the themes and messages employed in a PSYOP campaign must be consistent with the broader national security objectices and national-level themes and messages. Currenty, hoever, our PSYOP campaigns are often reactive and not well organized fo maximum impact.

PSYOP enhancements outlined in this report, and clarification of the respective responsibilities and tasks associated with PSYOP, DoD support to public diplomacyand public affairs, will enhance DoD's ability to aggressively conduct IO and to do so fully consistent with national security objectives.

[...]

We Must Improve Network and Electro-Magnetic Attack Capability. To prevail in an information-centric fight, it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities.

Source: Informations Operations Roadmap (page 6 only); 30 October 2003, Department of Defense of the United States of America. Original signed: Donald H. Rumsfeld.

It's up to you to ask yourself wether this may one day be interpreted as a justification for a DOS attack / server takedown.

[edit on 9-8-2006 by Akareyon]

as this site is hosted in the US - but owned by someone in the UK - what Government are we talking about? I know that the UK/US does have a great degree of cooperation in these areas - but knowing UK legal processes I wonder just how long such an action would probably take. A for instance might be posting of information from the discredited UK agent David Shayler versus some real sensitive DOD info - I would not advocate trying this - but im intriqued to know just what processes might have to take place.

As already pointed out the site is hosted from the US (Texas to be specific) its quite likely it would take little effort on the governments part to have the site taken down, though at that point I suspect all hell would break loose given the nature of ATS members. Emails would fly, new places of congregation would be established, and in generall the governement would be hounded for such action. Of course as pointed out Simon is a resident of the UK so that would complicate matters, but as we've seen with Gary McKinnon its not impossible for someone to be extradited to the US from the UK, but I doub't anything that could go on here on ATS would come close to what McKinnon did. Of course there are much easier and less visible ways to take a site offline as was also pointed out, so I wonder if it would be worth the hassle for the government to go about things the legal way or just farm the work out to the same scum who do the RIAA's dirty deeds?

they Could if they wanted, but they won't.

If you see a plane flying over your house and you take a picture of it - post it here, and it turns out to be some top secret aircraft - tough cookies for the Defense Department. Legally there is no course of action they can take against you. They can show up and question you about what you saw and know of what happened - but they really know that you don't know a hootin' liggy about what you saw - other than it was a plane and flew and doesn't look like any other we currently have.

Now, if you steal documents.... you're not a very wise individual. You're good as dead the moment they are known to be missing or existing outside of where they are supposed to be. That would mean posting on the internet, selling to a foreign nation, etc. You can/will be prosecuted for that. Now, there may be efforts to contain the information - but once something hits the internet - you can bet that 'hot stuff' such as classified documents will be taxing any server's upload capability.

Realistically - once it hits the public - it's public domain and there's not much that can be done about it. Unless you want to go hunt down everyone who knows about it and threaten them with their lives.... but what kind of trusting bond does that build with your government?

ATS wouldn't get in trouble, most likely, for having people post some classified intel here and there. Although the fact is - even a crystal-clear picture does not prove anything. The only time affirmative action needs to be taken is when you have something harder - such as documents or 'trade secrets' - that sort of stuff needs to be contained two weeks ago - otherwise - your involvement only arouses suspision.

Hell - even them being quiet arouses suspision... so what would happen if they ordered a picture of an airplane taken down (that has already been saved to a dozen or more computers and mirrored God-Knows how many times)?

And sometimes the best tactic is just to let it 'blow over'. Possibly just like the Aurora.... we're still searching the skies for that plane almost 20 years after the fact and the only thing that was said is 'it doesn't exist' - in more or less words about a million different times. Turning blunders into disinformation works very well.

If they really wanted to, they could. Even if you pull out the "Freedom of Speech" argument, guess what? They created that right, and I'm sure they'll have no problem immediately "adjusting" it if they see fit.

i'm pretty sure that someone from the government has an acct to this site. So far they haven't taken it down...and that just means that nothing here has even gotten close to the truth.

The owners may not all be in the US, but the servers are.

Right/wrong or otherwise, if the US gov wanted to, it coulf take down the site and call it part of the war on terror-true or not.

Don't forget the case where US, i forget, DHS or FBI went to england in one case and sweeden? for another.

That said, I think we would have to REALLT F-UP badly for that to happen.

There have been cases where 3 letter gov agencies requested info be removed for the site as it was a security issue.

Well, they need to call it antisemitist first.

Without joking - if the US gov wanted to, it would be down in no time.

I"ve been on this board for over two years and I have never seen anything here that would even tempt the government to shut it down. Our president has repeatedly said in public, one instance in Australia comes immediately to mind, that he encourages and appreciates dissent as being the cornestone of liberty.

There are certain types of discussion that would violate the law, but they also violate the T&C, which the moderators are likely to catch about as soon as law enforcement.

[edit on 2006/8/22 by GradyPhilpott]

They take down small sites now and then, but removing a huge site full of people who are savvy to the government's motives would cause a LOT of trouble. It's safer to just have the media spread obedience propaganda and have the military shut people up.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
I"ve been on this board for over two years and I have never seen anything here that would even tempt the government to shut it down.

I've only just noticed this thread, so sorry for providing very belated feedback.

I think Grady hit it pretty well. There is no reason for this site to be "taken down" by "the government".

In the past where sensitive information has been posted, we are contacted by the defending body (usually a law firm) and request it be removed. We have no intention of breaking any laws ever, this is a discussion board for people to collaborative discuss different subjects and that is it.

As for the quite rash and uneducated "if the government wanted to, this site would be down in no time".... "The Government" isn't a one and almight body, if information on this site is breaching a law, we wouldn't receive an e-mail/letter from "The United States Government", it would be a contact from a specific body advising us of an issue.

Originally posted by Silk
as this site is hosted in the US - but owned by someone in the UK - what Government are we talking about?

The company the servers maintaining ATS and it's satellite sites from are based in the U.S., as is two of the three business partners of AboveTopSecret.com, LLP.

If there was an issue affecting either government on the ATS sites, we would obviously work to sort things out peacefully and cooperatively.

Originally posted by tomra
I´m curious, are the owners of this site registered as members of the International Federation of Journalists?

I'm not, but I can't speak for the other two company partners.

Originally posted by Circa
i'm pretty sure that someone from the government has an acct to this site.

We have plenty of members on ATS who are workers of governments, military, civilian agency workers and defense contractors. This site doesn't just attract the paranoid!

government don`t shut down any site. They just monitor them.

they can do anything they wanted, but they don't want to bring this site down cuz it's pretty much or absolutely no point.

Of course the government can take this site down, but that dosn't mean they will . If they did it would be like saying, all the stuff on that site was true, so I'd think they'd only remove the bad posts on the website