Let's suppose, just for a minute, the almighty DHS or CIA, FBI or all of them decided this place was a threat to national security, and citing such concerns, decided to raid the servers, no matter where they were, and shut us down. No judge, no jury, just bang. Gone.

Because it is my belief they probably could if they wanted to under the Patriot Act, if not some of this other newer legislation.

Would you be mad? What would you do? Write your congressman?

And at that point what would the ownership do? Well, what COULD they do, if they are being held without any possibility of contacting lawyers, and being detained indefinitely in some secret prison somewhere under such legislation as the Patriot Act?

But you think it would stop there? They'd have every single IP that hit this place in the last I don't know how long- however long the server logs display data for, I guess.

Now I don't know about you, but that is a rather uncomfortable thought to me. The next thing you know, a raid team armed with some pretty serious firepower shows up at your door, and hauls you off. You resist, and your dead. Unless...

Threat. Perceived threat. To shut our mouths about their atrocities, or risk being nabbed. That's what they want. Us to fear them. But the people should not fear their government, and yet bills like the Patriot Act and this newer legislation make that pretty darn near impossible. And by the very nature of them creating such bills, they KNOW they are putting fear into the hearts and minds of the people. The TSA and their absurd tactics aren't helping much either.

Well let me tell you something, Mr. Whoever you are, THAT was clearly not the intent of the Constitution, and quite to the contrary, although some may argue that point. But get MY point, will ya?

Fear. You want fear in the people? You want them to fear you? Take one look at history, and see how well that works. You will NEVER, EVER accomplish what you seek. So stop. Just

STOP.

Now, before it's too damn late. And it may already be.

For a site whose mods and admins largely support the government and its warmongering ways, I'd say they'd be pretty safe. Nothing to fear for a site that concentrates pro government propaganda with a heavy conservative, status quo, flavor.

Well.. All thoughts of Jihadis and Islam aside, there is more than one definition for being a Martyr and that is what ATS would become as an organization and a symbol, IMO. I know I'd personally become more active than I already am in political matters and online efforts out of sheer anger and a sense of injustice. I tend to consider myself one of the more level headed ones for reacting to things...most of the time. I imagine others would do more and some might even get downright rash about not getting their 'ATS fix'.

I'd never heard the term ATS Widow applied to any equivalent thing before coming and seeing it used here. Even MMORPG games don't get the loyalty and genuine effort some people here put into what they contribute. I think that keeps ATS safe above anything else. Whatever shutting them down might gain, the headaches and sheer hassles that would follow from the HUGE membership (by website standards) just isn't worth it unless things here got totally out of hand.......hence such a strong moderator staff.

In 2007 a "private entity" paid the owners of ATS a 6 figure sum to get control of ATS.

Why would somebody do that? There's no way they would make money on their investment.

See if you can find WHO that somebody is.

Originally posted by Pervius
In 2007 a "private entity" paid the owners of ATS a 6 figure sum to get control of ATS.

Why would somebody do that? There's no way they would make money on their investment.

See if you can find WHO that somebody is.

Really?

Who do you believe "bought" it?

The Government?

In 1981 they were paying $7600 for coffee makers..............



ATS in Government buyout?

1 trillion dollars.

Easy.

Originally posted by Pervius
In 2007 a "private entity" paid the owners of ATS a 6 figure sum to get control of ATS.

Why would somebody do that? There's no way they would make money on their investment.

See if you can find WHO that somebody is.

Now that's a very curious comment, from someone who registered here in 2010.

Originally posted by Snoopy1978
For a site whose mods and admins largely support the government and its warmongering ways, I'd say they'd be pretty safe. Nothing to fear for a site that concentrates pro government propaganda with a heavy conservative, status quo, flavor.

With google links galore, I think we have nothing to fear here.

But the OP clearly posed it as a hypothetical question. IMO, there's not a chance in hell that they would ever shut down this website(besides the indirect way of shutting down the entire internet). But let's all just play along. A hypothetical question is hypothetical.

So let's say a poster posts some truly way above top secret(pun intended) information, and the government shuts the site down. In my scenario, I imagine they would bring it back up in a day or two.
What would happen?
No one would do anything. They'd surf some other websites, then come back and pretend that nothing ever happened.

*wink wink nudge nudge, this scenario has played out on this website before*

Originally posted by sonnny1

Originally posted by Pervius
In 2007 a "private entity" paid the owners of ATS a 6 figure sum to get control of ATS.

Why would somebody do that? There's no way they would make money on their investment.

See if you can find WHO that somebody is.

Really?

Who do you believe "bought" it?

The Government?

In 1981 they were paying $7600 for coffee makers..............



ATS in Government buyout?

1 trillion dollars.

Easy.

edit on 27-1-2012 by sonnny1 because: (no reason given)

and you believe who told you that the government payed $7600 for coffee makers? cmon, they have to account for their black budget expenses somehow...

Originally posted by Ghost375

and you believe who told you that the government payed $7600 for coffee makers? cmon, they have to account for their black budget expenses somehow...

Actually no, they don't - it's a single line item these days - it is accounted for and approved - no need to pad out anything else at all.

Why bother shutting down ATS? It's membership is not allowed to post anything that could even be remotely construed as illegal content. We can not swear or tell stories of the shortcuts we took to get by in society. We can't talk about drugs, overthrowing the Government or tax resistance, We cannot talk about how to screw the banks despite them screwing us. We can not form, advertise or recruit a resistance group via the membership here. We cannot talk about anything that may actually result in action taken about anything.

Paper tiger............ ATS at best is a fun way to read crazy and sometimes interesting stuff. A great placebo for the disenfranchised to spout off without actually doing anything.

ATS is kinda like the Prozac of the Alternative masses. It gives us a place to vent, to post hoaxes and weird pictures. It does not however pose any threat to the Government whatsoever.

That being said I read through the firehose several times a day as it is simply a fun diversion.

To be honest, if it happened then they wouldn't get to me because I don't agree with a majority of the silly theories on here and have stated many times I don't see much wrong that they're doing other than SOPA, corruption etc but mostly it's all good.

Also, I dunno, a lot of the membership here seems to be full of lunatics and crazies anyway so I don't think many would be missed.

I would make a separate thread about this but after getting my threads moved to the trash bin one too many times i stopped making threads. Im sure this post will be removed but maybe people can read it before that happens. Ats is a microcosm of the government, in other words over regulation is the problem. But becaus of that, it probably wont get shut down because lawyers like to protect their own. I mean have you actually read the terms and conditions? Quite a long read for a conspiracy website. Mods are supposed to have editorial agnosticism but they never fail to insult ron paul supporters or move threads to skunk works when someone is passionate about a conspiracy on a conspiracy website. Quite frankly freedom of speech is lacking, the proof is whenever you see a post removed. Worse than that they encourage snitching as opposed to telling a troll how it is. But when you are the op and get called a troll on your own thread there is no justice. Someone responded to one of my posts with "simply disgusting" and that was it, two word statement which is illegal and insulting. I infomed the mds and days later it was still there, maybe because they moved it to off topic since they didnt like what i was talking about. I wouldnt mind posting in off topic but no one comments on threads in off topic sections, its a ghost town. I would actually appreciate a disinfo agent talking just to hear something other thwn crickets. So in conclusion ats is too over regulated to get shut down by the government. Good for ats. Not good for its members. But who cares since this post will just be sent to the memory hole anyways.

If ATS were shut down, I would be mad, yes. However, chances are, they would be shutting down a lot more, probably the entire internet.

I would get a lot more done around the house, that is for sure!