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Terms and Conditions of Membership for the AboveTopSecret.com Message Board(s)

Your use of the message board(s) (and inclusive forums) and any other public discussion medium hosted on this domain indicates your acceptance of the following Terms and Conditions of Use of the AboveTopSecret.com, AbovePolitics.com, ATSNN.com, ConspiracyMasters.com, BelowTopSecret.com website Message Board(s) and any other linked website owned and operated by The Above Network, LLC (from this point forward, referred to as "The Owners"). These terms and conditions are subject to change without warning, so please review them regularly.

General Liability Notice: The open and real-time nature of the discussion forums makes it impossible for The Owners to vouch for the validity or honesty of posts from individual members. We are not responsible for any messages posted, nor the consequences of reading them. The views expressed in the messages within the forums are those of the authors, who accept total responsibility for the content of their posts. If you find any posts in these forums to be offensive or objectionable, please contact administration or the moderators with the address of the post. If we determine that removal of a post or posts is necessary, we will make reasonable efforts to do so in a timely manner.

General Warranty: The Owners will make every effort to ensure the proper operation of the website servers, website software, and the Internet connection to these servers, but cannot guarantee availability. The Owners will make every effort to provide a free and open discussion environment within the boundaries of the Terms and Conditions that does not contain disruptive, abusive, or threatening messages, but cannot guarantee that all such messages will be found and removed within any specific timeframe.

Registration: When you register for our discussion boards, the only requirement is a functioning email address to confirm your registration. Your board password will be sent to the address you specify. Your email address will also be subscribed to our email newsletter service for which you can unsubscribe if you wish. The address you provide will never be shared with any other party as specified in our Privacy Policy.


Forum posts, private messages, PODcasts, blog entries, and other supported content that violate these terms and conditions are subject to action that may include, but is not limited to, edits, removal, or account termination.


Last updated on August 1, 2007
By becoming a member of these domains, you agree to the following:


1). Posting: You will not post any material that is knowingly false, misleading, or inaccurate.

1a) Offensive Content: You will not post links to images or use avatars and signatures that are offensive, abusive, distruptive and/or hateful. You will not use images, avatars or link to domains that contain gore, mutilation, pornography or illegal(2e) content. Doing so will result in removal of your post(s) and immediate termination of your account.

1b.) Profanity: You will not use profanity in our forums, and will neither post with language or content that is obscene, sexually oriented, or sexually suggestive nor link to sites that contain such content.

1c.) Intellectual Property: You will not post any copyrighted material, material belonging to another person, material previously posted by you on another website nor link to any copyrighted material without providing proper attribution, as defined by The Owners, to its original source.

1d.) Cross-Posting: You will not cross-post content from other discussion boards (unless you receive advance permission from The Above Network, LLC). You will not post-by-proxy the material of banned members or other individuals who are not members, but have written a response to content within a thread on these forums.


1 e.) Recruitment/Solicitation:

i) You will not use your membership at The Above Network, LLC for any type of recruitment to any causes whatsoever. You will not post, use the chat feature or use the private message system to disseminate advertisements, chain letters, petitions, pyramid schemes, or any kind of solicitation for political action, social action, letter campaigns, or related online and/or offline coordinated actions of any kind.

ii) You will not use the discussion boards, the chat system or the private message system to collect personal information (data mining) about forum members in any manner whatsoever, or for any reason whatsoever.

iii) You will not post, use the chat feature or use the private message system to solicit members of The Above Network, LLC on behalf of another message board, online community or competitor. You will not attempt to use your membership to encourage or lure other members in any way to other websites or discussion boards in competition with The Above Network, LLC.

Doing so will result in removal of your post(s) and immediate termination of your account.


1f.) Relevant Content: You will not post messages that are clearly outside of the stated topic of any forums nor disrupt a forum by deliberately posting repeated irrelevant messages or copies of identical messages (also known as "flooding").

1g.) Political Baiting: You will not engage in politically-charged rhetoric, politically-inspired name-calling, and related right-versus-left political bickering while posting outside the Politics forums at politics.abovetopsecret.com....

1h.) Spamming: You will not post identical content, or snippets of identical content, to multiple threads in the discussion forums. You will also not create more than one thread for your topic, or create multiple "slightly different" threads for a single topic.

1i.) Language: The dominant language of our users and moderation staff is English. In order to promote a smooth-running environment and fair enforcement of these Terms & Conditions, you agree not to post in any language other than English.

1i.) Videos: While we do allow video embedding, as long as the content of the video meets the requirements of these Terms and Conditions, you will not embed a video with no commentary from you that describes the video and why it is germane to the topic of the thread.

2) Behavior: You will not behave in an abusive, hateful and/or racist manner, and will not harass, threaten, nor attack anyone.

2a.) Identity Spoofing: You will not impersonate any person or entity, forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any posting.

2b.) HaXor: You will not use these Forums for the purposes of sharing or distributing viruses, licenses, registration information, software keys, "cracks," or other information designed to do harm to or allow unlawful access to any computer hardware, software, networks, or any other systems. Doing so will result in removal of your post(s) and immediate termination of your account.

2c.) Multiple Accounts: You will not create multiple user accounts and "talk to yourself".

2d.) Forum Gangs: You will not engaged in an organized collaboration with other members to disrupt thread topics or interrupt the flow of normal collaborative discussion. Doing so will result in immediate termination of posting privileges.

2e.) Illegal Activity: Discussion of illegal activities; specifically mind-altering drugs, computer hacking, criminal hate, sexual relations with minors, and stock scams are strictly forbidden.

2f.) Private Messages: You will not use the private messaging system (U2U) to send mass messages to multiple member accounts. All private messages are subject to these terms and conditions, violations will result in immediate account termination. You also agree that "U2Us" (Private Messages) are confidential. You will not post or publically display U2Us received from ATS staff or other members, in any way, without the written permission of the author.

2g.) Board Wars: You will not use these boards to organize "attacks" on other boards, blogs, or discussion groups, and similarly, you will not organize such attacks against this board. Doing so will result in removal of your post(s) and immediate termination of your account.

2h.) Public Affection: Explicit or overt displays of affection towards other members seen by staff as being disruptive to the board are strictly forbidden. Doing so will result in removal of your post(s) and possible termination of your account.



3) Content Copyright: By posting on this message board, you relinquish all exclusive copyright privileges to the material you post and you grant The Owners non-exclusive rights to publish your posts in perpetuity in all forms. The Above Network, LLC has the authority to decide to display your postings or not, and modify your posts to remove offensive material, modify your post title to accurately reflect content, remove vulgar comments, remove insults or delete any other content deemed inappropriate, at our discretion.

3a) Content Distribution: You will not copy material from these discussion forums to post on other websites or quote in offline research in a manner that does not comply with the ATS Creative Commons Licences that specifies the author's member name as a member of AboveTopSecret.com, includes The Above Network, LLC and the member as owners of the content, provides the title of the thread, and a full URL to the board thread.

3b) DMCA Enforcement: By posting on these domains, you grant the agents and officers of AboveTopSecret.com and its parent organization(s) the right to seek enforcement and legal remedy for any and all discovered usage violations falling under the DMCA and the Creative Commons content deed.


4) Advertising: You will not advertise or promote other discussion boards, chat systems, online communities or other websites on ATS within posts, private messages, avatars or signatures without prior written permission from The Above Network, LLC. You will not choose a username that is the same as website domain, subdomain, or URL for which you are associated. Doing so may result in removal of your post(s) and immediate termination of your account depending on the severity of the material.

4a) Unauthorized Marketing: ATTENTION MARKETERS: You will not engage in efforts of viral or "stealth marketing" on these discussion boards without prior approval of The Above Network, LLC. If marketing activity for the promotion of any other commercial entity outside of these boards is discovered you agree that you are responsible for paying The Above Network, LLC $2.00 US for each "thread view" of the thread(s) in which your marketing messages are contained. Your acceptance of these Terms & Conditions for joining these discussion boards signifies your approval of these payment terms.

4b) Ad Blockers: As AboveTopSecret.com is provided as a free service, in part through the income of our advertising, you agree not to use "ad-blocking" software or similar built-in web browser options while using the website(s).


5) Personal Responsibilities: At all times, you remain solely responsible for anything found within your posts and agree to indemnify and hold The Above Network, LLC, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of any material you submit, post to or transmit through the message board, your use of the message board, your connection to the message board, your violation of these terms and conditions, or your violation of the rights of another.

5a) Unauthorized Access: You will not attempt to access any protected sections of the message board, nor make use of any hacks, cracks, bug exploits, etc. to bypass or modify the features of the forum software or to obtain information beyond the allowed features of your account status. Doing so will result in immediate termination of your account.

5b) Cooperation: You will, if asked by myself or a moderator, cease posting any content, and/or links to content, deemed offensive, objectionable, or in poor taste by the representatives of the message board.


6) Disclaimer: This website does not and cannot review all of the content of every message posted and does not accept responsibility for the contents of any messages. We reserve the right to delete any message and/or restrict posting rights on the message board for any reason whatsoever. Should you continue to post messages that violate the rules of the message board, your account may be terminated, your access to the message board may be banned, and your service provider(s) may be contacted about your behavior. Furthermore, The Above Network, LLC expressly reserves the rights under the law to take any other actions deemed necessary.

6a) Disclosure: The Above Network, LLC also reserves the right to disclose personal information when required by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to conform to the law or comply with a legal process served on The Above Network, LLC, protect and defend the rights or property of the The Above Network, LLC domains, or visitors to these domains, identify persons who may be violating the law, the legal notice, or the rights of third parties, and cooperate with the investigations of purported unlawful activities.

6b) Neutrality: The Above Network, LLC provides a forum for discussing a wide variety of subjects, but does not endorse any particular theory, opinion, viewpoint or position on any topic. Furthermore, though operating costs are supported by advertising and promotional revenue, The Above Network, LLC does not officially endorse or promote any commercial product or service.

6c) No Guarantee: The Above Network, LLC makes no claim or warranty, implied or otherwise, that guarantees the available of the free services offered under it's domains; including, but not limited to, games, contests, special events/content, chat, and discussion threads.


7) Violation Violation of any aspect of the Terms and Conditions of use are subject to our Actions for general abuse and violations. Or, in extreme cases, immediate banning of your username/ IP from the domains and/or the removal of your email/password from the database. In all disputes, the decisions of one of the Partners or administrative staff are final.


8) Right of Community Management This is a privately owned discussion board community. The Owners and senior moderator staff reserve the right to take action against any member who is deemed to be devoted purely to disruption, whose actions represent behavior contrary to community building, or whose content is contrary to the core ideals of AboveTopSecret.com. This action may include complete banning of your username and IP address. The owners of The Above Network, LLC reserve the right to eliminate or edit any content deemed inappropriate for the discussion boards, news network or any affiliated sites.

SkepticOverlord "SkepticOverlord" - Chief Executive Officer of The Above Network, LLC
Mark Allin "Springer" - Chief Operations Officer of The Above Network, LLC
Simon Gray - Chief Properties Officer of The Above Network, LLC


(These terms and conditions are subject to change without notice. Please refer to them often to stay up-to-date with our current board policies.)


October 12, 2007 Update -- English-Only condition added.

December 9, 2007 Update -- Changes references to AboveTopSecret.com, LLP to new parent company The Above Network, LLC.