Anonymous Speaks about ATS

From the same insanemedia.net article featured in the last entry, a video is given which is attributed to the group "Anonymous," and which, after the first part of the video where some text is read by a digital voice, explains that when certain members (SkepticOverlord, Nefermore and Slayer69) were baited in a way that exposed their IP addresses, it was found that these members were posting from related IP addresses coming from the same network.

Anonymous speaks May 18, 2012:

ATS employs several sock puppets that use the same script. They campaigned against OWS (Occupy Wall Street) protesters catering to the status quo. They are giving special privileges over other members for a purpose. They keep the same working hours, and log on at the same time.

When threads were created accusing ATS of being a PSYOP, these same sock puppets and MODs showed instances of guilt. Without being named, they would post “I’m not an agent.” This is an instance of guilt. They resorted to ad hominem attacks, and would then derail the thread so it would get closed. That is when I baited them and logged their IP addresses. They are not [real] members, however they all used the same IP address.

This was when me and a couple other members collaborated our findings. In one of the threads accusing ATS of being DOD funded, Mod neformore post banned me by going back and removing my previous comments in other threads under the “Off Topic” excuse. Anonymous sees everything. WE ARE ANONYMOUS. WE ARE LEGION. WE DO NOT FORGIVE WE DO NOT FORGET EXPECT US.

ATS Banned Sandy Hook Conspiracy Discussion

An article at insanemedia.net details how, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting and all of the conflicting details being given by authorities, the administrators at ATS decided that no one could discuss the event.


An example of the type of discussion banned at ATS can be found in the article "The Strange Tale of the “Sandy Hook Massacre”" (from page 4 of the Oct. 2014 issue of the Oklahoma publication The Banner) attributed to retired Brig. Gen. Ed Wheeler.  In this article 27 questions are raised about what we have been told and shown of this event.

But on ATS, supposedly a conspiracy theory forum, "an indefinite moratorium" was placed "on all topics related to the massacre at Sandy Hook."

The member "Gltichy" shown speaking out against SepticOverlord above was then banned.


Another member asked Septic, "what is the point of this forum," if not to discuss things like this, to which Septic replied:

The action would not be unprecedented. We often remove new topics on the "No Planes" theory with regard to 9/11, and all known pre-existing threads on that subject are in the hoax forum.

Frankly, lately I loath visiting ATS for fear of another stupid Sandy Hook thread that is embarrassing to all those who seek to create smart topics on ATS.

Seriously... I'm close to losing faith.

One might assume that if Septic really is losing faith, then he's losing faith in the ability of this counter-intelligence project to keep an investigative public away from what is really happening in this country.

ATS Administrator Mark "Spring" Allin's Wife Works for Halliburton

It turns out that the wife of one of the three owners/administrators of AboveTopSecret.com works for Halliburton, the oil giant that brought us Dick Cheney, and which also owned Kellogg, Brown & Root which has been investigated for receiving secret army contracts in Iraq, and was also awarded contracts by Homeland Security to build detainment centers in the US.

At the Project Avalon website, on a thread entitled "Problem Between Wordpress and Abovetopsecret, Blogger Caught in Crossfire," where the author of the thread commented on being banned from ATS, the well-known conspiracy investigator Bill Ryan (of Project Avalon and also Project Camelot) stated that he too had been banned from ATS.

Here is what Bill posted about it, in 2013:

ATS is definitely a CIA operation. And fundamentally, they are skeptics and debunkers... co-owner Bill Irvine's username is Skeptic Overlord, and his partner Mark 'Springer' Allin's wife, Melissa (username ValHall), works for Halliburton -- and is quite a nasty piece of work. Go figure.

Incidentally, much has been made of the username "Skeptic Overlord," for its obvious connotations of skepticism and "overlording."  The ATS forums are arguably more represented by "skeptics" than conspiracy theorists.  "Skeptic Overlord" or "SO" often has images of superhero-like figures on his mini-profile in what may be a reference to ATS's self-proclaimed role of "saving the Internet from bullshit" (see this blog's first post from Sept. 11, 2014). A popular parody on this administrator's username is "Septic Overlord."

The website realityuncovered.net has a form dedicated specifically to ATS, called "ATS Watch."  In September 2008, the member "Gigashadow" there posted the following information:

 I had this info for about 5 months now and thought inquiring minds here at atswatch would be interested in what I came across.

Mark Allin, most know, is married to Melissa Allin aka valhal on ATS beside other stage names. They hold an address down in [**mode edit: removed private details**] and just 10 miles north on [**mode edit: removed private details**] is haliburton where mellissa Allin works and is co named for a haliburton invention with a patent 20070173412.

Ya have to wonder if haliburton has a finger or two in ATS now that the cat is outa da bag.

The original post can be found here.


In the tight-knit community of treasonous and criminal activity in the US corporate and military/intelligence infrastructure, exactly how close are Halliburton and ATS?

Even Wikipedia Notes ATS Censorship

Wikipedia is, of course, an open encyclopedia that anyone is able to edit.  Having said that, the Wikipedia article about ATS consists largely of criticism of the website which cites 11 sources (references 17 to 28), mostly from ATS itself, demonstrating the points being made.

This part of the article will be saved here in case it's ever removed in a revision of the Wikipedia entry:

Some members of ATS have strongly criticized the site for their personal perception of overtly censoring content though a large number of moderation staff who actively police to uphold its terms and conditions.^[17] Users point out that although this may be necessary for the smooth running of the site, censorship can be perceived as being ironic for a site that is user generated. Also, the notion of censorship is a prominent feature in conspiracy literature and this adds to the problems of ATS censorship. Real life activities can also lead to removal from Above Top Secret. When it was discovered that Jared Loughner was posting on ATS as "erad3" he was banned.

Members have also been critical of Above Top Secret moderators for not following the terms and conditions while actively making others do so. Their Terms and conditions and rules posting rules made by the owners state that members cannot use the site for recruitment to any causes whatsoever.^[18][19] Moderators have broken this rule ^[20] while censoring members for doing the same.^[21]  [Also the "Next Level Bullshit" videos which are promoted by the site staff violate profanity rules that all other members must follow or else are punished.]

Other users have pointed out that a tradition of always siding with the conspiracy theory can lead to misinformation being posted on the site. The practice of deleting any post that is inadvertently advertising any of ATS’s rival and smaller conspiracy sites is treated with suspicion. [Many URLs to other conspiracy websites, such as beforeitsnews.com, are automatically censored for being "unreliable" or "hoaxes."] Critics would point out that this is ATS taking advantage of its internet monopoly on internet conspiracy literature for corporate gain and reduces the ability to cooperate with other sites to build on knowledge. One claim made by ATS is that news is reported before it is reported in the mainstream media. This occurs rarely, however, as nearly all "alternative news" on ATS comes from mainstream media sources.^[22]

Some have even gone so far as to accuse ATS of being controlled opposition, reminiscent of the former COINTELPRO operation of the United States. This is a recurrent theme in many ATS posts and one which the owners of the site deny,^[23] such as author and commentator Laura Knight Jadczyk^[24] who has openly criticized Above Top Secret after she published an article on her alternative news website Signs of the Times.^[25] This led to a dispute between her and the owners of ATS who claimed that the article had breached ATS’s “creative commons deed”.^[26]

Within the discussion boards, topics are still moderated. Members individual posts are often altered, edited out, and/or removed by moderators if the member breaks the site's terms and conditions. Banning members who persistently do not adhere to the site terms and conditions is a commonly used option. Topics that discuss the Galactic confederation of light are removed from the UFO section and put in an off topic forum. 9/11 Conspiracy theories about Holographic planes being used are prohibited.^[27]

Any conversations of pertinence to the subject matter of cannabis, whether it be contextually of relevance to the recreational use, the medicinal use, the legalization of use or the economic benefits of production of the said compound, is strictly prohibited and resultantly censored. Contrary to the current uncompromising enforcement of censorship, residual evidence of a time when such discussion was permitted, can be found on the website's main forum index (a directory listing of the composite fora of the website). The aforesaid evidence is in the fashion of an untitled link to the now absconded original forum board and respective discussions. The link currently directs to the website's default 404 page as per all censored discussions of any subject matter. In lieu of a forum title, the link is graphically represented by a monotone icon depicting a male smoking what is colloquially referred to as a "joint" or a "blunt". Ancillary information adjacent to the link denotes the cumulative topic total and the last date of active and therefore uncensored discussion September 30, 2011. Springer, one of website's owners, formally declared a "zero tolerance" ban on conversations concerned with illicit drugs and even legal, psychoactive substances on February 25, 2008. The ban was invoked on the basis of stereotyping members with an interest in discussing the subject matter. According to Springer, such members are idiosyncratically "immature", "snide", uncivil and disruptive and despite the demonstrative sincerity of legalization advocates, Springer described such advocates as "a type of user that is simply not wanted here".^[28] Such policies, in terms of the enforcement practices of moderators, are indicative of a double standard; by merit of their own definition of "mind altering" substances, discussions regarding alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical drugs are still permitted.

Ownership of user generated content calls the motive of the media portal into question. Above Top Secret provides a media portal for users to upload self made pictures and videos. While members still have the option to upload videos to sites like YouTube and then post them on ATS they can no longer post any images to ATS unless they are uploaded to the media portal.

Source

ATS Members Comment on Shills in Their Midst

A thread was posted on ATS on Sept. 21st entitled "NSA Today: Narcissistic Psychopathic Sadistic Trolls Paid By Your Tax Dollars to Disrupt Internet," which can be found here. The thread looks like it was formatted as a news article but was then moved to the "General Conspiracies" forum where it would receive less attention and despite having new posts only shows up almost halfway down the page.

The posted article mentions how one of Reddit's moderators ("BipolarBear0") was repeatedly deleting an article about the NSA and GCHQ disseminating information on the Internet for character assassination.  Here are some of the better responses from ATS members:

ArchPlayer: I have seen and interacted with these types here on ATS. This could be the primary reason why a lot of old time members, both official and the trollers think the place has depreciated with content and analysis. Anytime a critical conversation occurs, some overzealous "passionate" shill comes to the argument and turns it into "im the victim" off topic and off conversation, even to the point of rebel rousing enough "supporters" to join him.  

Not surprised.

MALBOSIA: I just read part of a thread here recently, from an Admin that stated if there was any accusation towards another member as being a shill, the accusers account would be terminated.
Also recently I read another thread from the same Admin that stated ATS will no longer tolerate "organized posters" I believe was the description given.
I am a little confused on the position of ATS staff on whether or not people are getting paid to come here and sway discussion topics and what sort of recourse is available to regular members. Are we still not allowed to call them out when it is suspected? Not that I believe that would do any good, it only gives them something to work with accusing them of being a shill when there is no way to prove it.

 
Yeahkeepwatchingme: I thought this was known? And it's obvious these paid people become moderators or even buy the site somehow. Paid to not only disrupt conversations, but to remove and actually censor posts/threads.  

I remember one site hipforums that literally turned into the opposite of what it claimed to stand for. The moderators are corrupt, all the normal people I conversed with years ago disappeared and the topics have turned into a trollfest.  

I don't buy their act at all. Trying to rile people up, turn the tables, provoke passionate responses, debunk the topic, etc, etc.  

Keep getting fat off your government, you'll be used as the fall guys. Good day, nazi shills, we know you're out there.

FamCore: Trolls and schills definitely run rampant on sites like ATS, and in the comments sections of news sites, social media, everywhere - i personally refer to them as parasitic propagandists (spelling?) but the fact of the matter is we need to fact-check and be vigilant when looking into others' statements. Sad that it is such a problem, how many people have been misled due to their activities we will never know but I refuse to let someone's comment sway me unless they can back up their accusations with hard evidence

trollz: In my time here, I've seen a few members who seemed to be intentionally trying to derail threads by various tried-and-true methods and push agendas, so personally, I believe this site is at times a target for those sorts. We all know the NSA/other alphabet agencies are active in monitoring/manipulating internet users, so it would be rather strange if there were NOT paid shills here, especially considering the nature of ATS.

MysterX: Since we know they are here, we know they are disrupting and spreading division and preventing ideas from taking root, this is absolute proof positive your government does NOT value free speech and the free sharing of ideas and information.  

Imagine that, the USA government, so apt to preach freedom around the world when it suits them, actively stifling and preventing and subverting freedom online...classic.  

Which also makes it all the more curious that one of the worst rule infractions we can do here on ATS is to insinuate or outright say that another poster may be or is a paid troll or government troublemaker. I know there is certainly at least two 'members' (and they are REAL members!) that i know for sure are government propagandists.  

One always casts Russia and Putin especially in a negative light at every opportunity, posting propaganda almost every day.
Many of us know some like that here don't we?
They are obviously here, probably in large numbers considering how popular ATS is around the world...yet we ought not point the finger at them, we're not to out them and we are not to tip others off to keep an eye on the type of material they are posting...curious eh?
The hypocrisy is stunning.

ObjectZero: I've seen this as well, but a take it as a sign that I'm getting near something the more they post.

The thread being referenced here brings up the following article:

How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.

Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”

Example of ATS Manipulating the Flag System

Here's a typical example of ATS manipulating its flag system to make a thread seem much more popular and important than it actually is.

The example here is of a thread for a video that's a part of a new ATS distraction campaign in the form of YouTube videos where someone who tries to pass for a news pundit gives his personal (and ATS-approval) opinions for several minutes.

ATS wants to try to make these videos catch on, so one of the things they do is artificially inflate the number of flags that the threads about these videos receive.

This is the thread in question.

You can see the thread was really off to a good start in the first four hours, compared to most ATS threads.  27 flags in 4 hours really is not bad.

But then to almost instantly shoot up to 139 flags, and then gain no more than 12 more flags in the next several days after this extremely brief and intense flag boost, is more than suspicious.  It's pretty blatant manipulation of the flag system, and the staff has to either know about it or else contribute to it directly.

Though members often star and flag threads at the same time, you can also see that the number of stars for this post never got anywhere near the number of flags.  The stars probably were not manipulated and give a better idea of how many flags the thread should actually have: about four times less than the number shown.



Here's the specifics on the data collected:

The thread was started on September 16, 2014, at 7:14 PM  Eastern Standard Time, at which time of course it had 0 flags.

By 11:30 PM (over 4 hours later), it had 27 flags.

At 1:48 AM (2 hours and 18 minutes after that), it had 139 flags, but still only 14 stars.

By 11:10 AM on September 17 (over 10 hours since reaching 139 flags), the thread had gained only 7 more flags, to bring it to 146.

By September 19th it was at 151 flags, and as of this post (about a half hour from midnight, beginning September 23rd) it remains at exactly 151 flags.

  

This screenshot is from before 2 AM on Sept. 17th.

Since then it has grown very little compared to its massive growth spurt,

which was obviously from someone manipulating the flag system.

Note there are 139 flags but only 14 stars.  Not normal.

ATS's Lawyers Ask Website to Take Down Article about Paid Disinformants

The Conscious Life News website (www.consciouslifenews.com) put up an article on January 8th, 2013, entitled "I Was a Paid Internet Shill: How Shadowy Groups Manipulate Internet Opinion and Debate."  This article is the same one featured in the 2nd YouTube video shown in the previous blog entry, below.

The article itself originally comes from an ATS post by someone who claims to have worked as a paid disinformant to spread disinformation on specific topics and on specific websites, though he claims that ATS itself was not one of these websites.

Four days after putting up this article, on January 14th, 2013, consciouslifenews.com (CLN) was contacted by lawyers representing ATS, asking them to remove the article from their website:

Update 1/12/2013: CLN has received a takedown notice asking us to remove this article on the basis that “It is libelous and utterly false” from someone claiming to be a legal agent of Above Top Secret’s parent company. We are currently investigating and will post status updates as they become available. The original thread now appears to have vanished from Above Top Secret’s website.

Note that the takedown request is not because ATS felt as though posting the article violated any intellectual property rights they had to it, took away from their traffic, or slighted their own website in any way, but because the article was "libelous and utterly false."  Since the person who wrote the article says very clearly at the beginning that ATS was not the site he was paid to work on, who does ATS think has suffered from libel?  Certainly not their own website, not that their website hasn't been criticized and attacked as government-run before anyway.  Isn't the excuse given by ATS's lawyers just an excuse to have an article which is inconvenient to them removed from the internet, since they don't want the idea to occur to too many of its members that ATS might actually be infested (and even administrated) by paid disinformants?


CLN posted further updates to their website in the following days:

Update 1/17/2013: We have requested clarification regarding the takedown request and have not received a response. We will provide updates on any new developments.

Update 4/3/2012: Above Top Secret’s legal agent never responded to our request for clarification of their takedown request. The original thread has now been moved to the “Hoax” category of the website, as ATS claims the author admitted it was a hoax in a private exchange. To the best of our knowledge, this private exchange or the details thereof have not been posted publicly to substantiate this claim. Regardless, we believe that covert operations to manipulate online opinion and debate do exist (and indeed have been publicly acknowledged in many of the supporting links below). Whether this specific case is true or not, it remains a valuable and provocative dialogue still worthy of consideration.

____________________

CLN Editor’s Note: The type of propaganda strategy described in the article below occurs across a wide range of topics and is employed by various corporate, political, and governmental groups to promote a variety of agendas. It is called astroturfing, and it is far more common than most would imagine.

[...]

For more information on this important topic, see:

• Revealed: US Spy Operation That Manipulates Social Media
• Astroturfing: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
• Corporate-Funded Online ‘Astroturfing’ Is More Advanced and More Automated Than You Might Think
• DON’T TRUST THE WEB
• Online Astroturfing Gets Sophisticated
• US Military Says Metal Gear Sock Puppets Are Real
• Millions Spent to Confuse Public About Geoengineering (Not specifically about online “astroturfing,” but alludes to the same core propaganda strategy)

- Alcyone @CLN

The original article at CLN can be found here: consciouslifenews.com/paid-internet-shill-shadowy-groups-manipulate-internet-opinion-debate/

Collection of Evidence That ATS Is Disinfo from Other Websites

 

ATS Forum Exposed as CIA Front - John Lear

 

Busted! Paid Government Shill Exposes The Whole Operation!

From Real Cost of War:

Attack proves ATS is Cointelpro!!!

Since there really is no copyright law which prohibits the type of commentary and analysis of any article which was done by Joe Quinn of an article at Above Top Secret, it appears that the 'gloves have come off' and the 'Above Top Secret boys' are now playing 'hardball' in the attempt to quash the Truth about the issues involved. These issues are what is True about the events of 911! It is now very obvious they want the Lies to remain dominant in the public's eyes.

ATS has engaged the services of one of the country's largest law firms (maybe even one of the entire world's largest) in their attempt to prohibit the Truth from being disseminated to any who are interested in hearing it. This is NOT about 'copyright', but about attacking the Truth.

Below is an article by Laura Knight Jadczyk which explains all this in much more detail:

Abovetopsecret.com EXPOSED!!!


Some of you may have noticed that signs of the times was down for awhile today. This was due to the actions of the website abovetopsecret.com. As I have speculated, they were given the task to run cointelpro on Joe Quinn's article:
Evidence That a Frozen Fish Didn't Impact the Pentagon on 9/11 - and Neither Did a Boeing 757

which was an analysis of the "catherder" article on abovetopsecret which essentially was support for the Bush Neocons conspiracy theory about the events of September 11.

As anyone who is familiar with copyright law knows, this is perfectly legal under standard copyright law.

However, abovetopsecret.com, like Bush and the Neocons, make up their own laws. As I have chronicled on this blog, their urgent demands that we remove this article because it was a violation of their "creative commons" copyright was absurd and simply evidence of their position as an active cointelpro/psy-ops propagator on the internet. It isn't copyrights they are concerned about, it is google bombing and running psy-ops. And now, they have proven it.

Here is the letter we received from our server people after being notified by about a hundred people via email that the signs of the times site was down:

From: "James" ****
To: Arkadiusz Jadczyk
Subject: FW: Notice of Copyright Infringement
Date sent: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:55:32 -0500
Date forwarded: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:38:12 -0600

Hi, we received the following complaint from your site. Please investigate this and let us know.
James

From: Jaeschke, Jr., Wayne [mailto:WJaeschke@****.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 2:35 PM
To: dmca@velcom.com
Cc: mark@abovetopsecret.com; skepticoverlord@abovetopsecret.com
Subject: Notice of Copyright Infringement

Sirs:

Our firm represents AboveTopSecret.com LLP ("ATS"). ATS is the owner of numerous copyrighted articles being displayed in an infringing manner on a website hosted by your company. That website is http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/> http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/.


The infringing articles appear at:
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/Above_Top_Secret_article.htm>
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/Abo … rticle.htm ("the 757 article")

And

http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/signs/signs20050909.htm>

http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/signs … 050909.htm ("the FEMA article")
The original articles appear on the Abovetopsecret.com website at:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread167902/pg1>
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread167902/pg1

And
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread79655/pg1>
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread79655/pg1
The republication of each of these articles is governed by the Creative
Commons 2.5 Deed ("the CC Deed").
The 757 article may be republished in accordance with the terms and conditions specified here:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/cc.php?tid=79655&pid=816414>
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/cc. … pid=816414
The FEMA article may be republished in accordance with the terms and conditions specified here:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/cc.php?tid=167902&pid=1685907>
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/cc. … id=1685907

Pursuant to the CC Deed, these articles, each of which is owned by ATS and is the subject of a registration in the United States Copyright Office 1) may not be published on sites/pages with commercial advertisements; 2) may not be used to make "derivative works"; and 3) must provide proper attribution to the author and a link to the original article.

In each instance of content owned by ATS appearing on the "signs-of-the-times.org" website, all three of these conditions of the terms of use is violated. The owners/operators of ATS have attempted to contact the operator of signs-of-the-times.org and have this situation corrected by either removing the articles or republishing them in a manner that complies with the CC Deed. The operators of the Signs-of-the-times.org websites, Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Arkadiusz Jadczyk, have failed to comply.

We must therefore request that Velcom.com, as hosts for the Signs-of-the-times.org website, remove these pages from publication.

Moreover, this letter constitutes notice to the operators of Velcom.com that ATS believes that have a right to enforce their copyright under Canadian and U.S. law and reserves the right to take further action in the U.S., Canada, or both without further notice.

As well, this letter is also to serve notice on Velcom.com that the owners of ATS have rescinded all rights to the operators of signs-of-the-times.org under the CC Deed, in view of their continued non-compliance with the terms and conditions of use of original, copyright content appears on the abovetopsecret.com website.

Please contact me at ******* if you have any questions with regard to this matter. Otherwise, we look forward to the prompt and amicable resolution of this matter.
Regards,
Wayne Jaeschke

Wayne C. Jaeschke, Jr.
Morrison & Foerster LLP

********************
McLean, VA 22102
phone: ****
fax: ****
wjaeschke@****.com

================================================

To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, Morrison & Foerster LLP informs you that, if any advice concerning one or more U.S. Federal tax issues is contained in this communication (including any attachments), such advice is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein.
For information about this legend, go to

http://www.mofo.com/Circular230.html
=

This message contains information which may be confidential and privileged. Unless you are the addressee (or authorized to receive for the addressee), you may not use, copy or disclose to anyone the message or any information contained in the message. If you have received the message in error, please advise the sender by reply e-mail @mofo.com, and delete the message.

Now folks, come on, how many websites that were just started by an ordinary guy who took on a couple of "ordinary" partners, and is just a hobby and sharing on the internet, are able to afford a copyright attorney in McLean Virginia???

This action also is highly suggestive of the idea that the Pentagon Issue is a LOT more sensitive than anyone has thus far suspected! Do take note of THAT!

I hope that everyone who reads this will spread this information far and wide because these people are EVIL Bush supporters, Cyber Nazi Brown Shirts.

http://www.illuminatirex.com/is-the-ats-forum-cointelpro/

ATS Is Government-Sponsored

“Above Top Secret” (ATS) is the largest conspiracy-related forum on the Internet by number of members and traffic. People associated with the website also do the Internet/radio program “ATS Live” which appears on online streams.

Given the US government's fascination with illegally spying on millions of its own citizens using the NSA and other agencies, their fear of whistle-blowers, and the FBI's considering of Americans who invoke the Constitution or call themselves “constitutionalists” as potential terrorists,¹ it would not take a large leap of faith to assume that these same US agencies would at least occasionally (and more likely automatically, using software) monitor posts made on such conspiracy forums, depending on their content. It has already been publicly reported, for example, that government agencies, even local police agencies, collect information from websites such as Facebook on individuals they are interested in. Above Top Secret being the largest conspiracy theory forum on the Internet, featuring posts government conspiracies and many anti-government sentiments, it would be reasonable to assume that, if any such monitoring was going on at any forum, it would be at least as likely to occur on this particular web forum as anywhere else.

 

Obvious Government Interest in Online Discussions

A wired.com article from 2008 entitled Military Report: Secretly ‘Recruit or Hire Bloggers’ describes a 2006 Joint Special Operations University report titled “Blogs and Military Information Strategy” which states that “Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering.”² The report authors stated that they received positive feedback for their work, but the Special Operations Command spokesman responded to inquiries that “The views expressed in the article publication are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, USSOCOM [Special Operations Command], or the Joint Special Operations University,” and added that the recommendations of the reports' authors were not “actionable.” 

 

Similar articles along this theme of military interest in Internet discussion communities include a 2007 Tampa Bay Times article entitled Blogs are CentCom's new target,³ and CENTCOM Team Engages 'Bloggers' from the DoD's own website.⁴

A muzzlewatch.com article regarding Israeli's handling of Internet discussion is entitled That commenter on your blog may actually be working for the Israeli government, where it is detailed that the Israeli Foreign Ministry had created an “Internet Fighting Team” to pay students and demobilized soldiers to post messages on behalf of Israel's foreign policies on websites such as Facebook and YouTube.

ATS:  More Than Just Monitored

However, many people who have been familiar with this forum for a number of years (myself included, observing and participating for over ten years) are not only of the opinion that it would be a prime target for NSA monitoring, paid bloggers, etc., but that it was even created and is actively run by some group of individuals involved with US and/or British military intelligence agencies, such as a private contractor for such a government entity (CIA, etc.), so that this a forum (again, the largest of its kind on the Internet) could not only be easily monitored but could also be easily censored if need be, while providing a protected and very visible forum⁵ for paid disinformationists to antagonize anyone posting credible or thought-provoking information on any of a range of topics. Not only would this be a good idea for those interested in spreading disinformation and controlling conspiracy-related discussions of the Internet community, but it becomes evident after long observation of staff and member activities and policies that this idea fits exactly how the website already operates (more on this a little further on). Along these lines, Kerry Cassidy of Project Camelot, John Lear⁶ and Jim Stone, among many lesser-known figures in conspiracy circles, also believe that ATS is a government-sponsored front. Jim Stone⁷ apparently believes that both Above Top Secret and Godlike Productions⁸ censor certain information posted on them, as he stated on his Fukushima disaster page that the information he posted on these websites would be deleted.

Links posted on the ATS forum to certain conspiracy websites (such as beforeitsnews.com) are automatically edited by the forum to prevent the link from functioning either by removing the “www” from the beginning of the URL or by censoring the entire URL. This is done because the ATS staff has stated that they have determined that such websites are not credible or that they perpetuate “hoaxes.” Also for a short period of time in August 2014, any links to Russia Today without hyperlink text provided by the poster were automatically labeled as “propaganda” in the link text as it appeared on the forum. Staff stated that this was being done because while US media may be only “biased,” Russia Today is a state-owned company and so it is “propaganda” and must be labeled as such. However, other state-run news sources such as the BBC or CBC were exempt from this new rule. After a long thread of member complaints, one of the moderators, “Skeptic Overlord” finally removed this new feature.

A forum specifically for “hoaxes” is also maintained, into which moderators will move threads from sources or on certain subjects which the staff has likewise considered to be hoaxes, such as articles posted on ATS from any website that the staff has already deemed to not be credible. Especially for a conspiracy theory forum, this kind of heavy-handedness from staff in determining which sources and subjects are credible enough to discuss and which are not is at the very least an impingement upon the freedom of expression which the staff itself claims that it honors from its members. Rather, the staff asserts itself as more than an arbiter of fair and open discussions, but also an authority bent on “saving the Internet by exposing bullshit.”⁹

Suppressing Insider Knowledge

One of the most interesting and well-known instances of ATS indicting itself as a front for government agencies occurred in August of 2003 when a member seemed to have predicted a major political event in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. This event was the bombing of Jakarta on August 5, 2003 by alleged al-Qaeda terrorists, which occurred only 16 hours after the warning post was made on ATS. This predictably caused a flurry of activity on the ATS forums, and one member alerted the FBI of the post. In response, staff member “SkepticOverlord” stated that the member who posted this prophetic warning had actually posted it after the bombing had taken place, and then hacked the forums to edit the time of his post to make it look like he had posted it before the bombing.

However, at least three members continued to assert that they specifically remembered seeing the thread before the bombing had taken place, the member who originally posted the prophetic warning himself had his IP traced back to a DoD network and he was apparently also aware that the FBI had been contacted about his post before the ATS staff even became aware of it.  It was later revealed on DEBKAfile.com that the CIA also knew of the Jakarta bomb plot 72 hours before it was carried out. This event on the ATS forums is described in more detail in the form of a satirical comic (complete with legitimate references) at the Illuminati Rex website.¹⁰

From long personal experience on the forum, I can also relate the following observations.

There are certain posters who focus primarily on particular areas of conversation, such as ancient archaeological controversies, geo-engineering or 9/11. These members, which I will refer to as suspected disinformants, invariably defend the conventional or “official” positions on the various issues they focus on. This in itself is not unusual since everyone can be expected to have different interests in different subjects, and to have different views on these subjects. Of course many people genuinely believe the official positions on various issues, and even come to defend them (for whatever reason) on conspiracy forums. However, other aspects of the posting of these individuals make them stand out from other members. These suspected disinformants, as far as I have been able to estimate by myself, seem to be relatively few in number, but with very prolific and prominent posting habits that make them almost unavoidable to encounter in their “assigned” forums. On forums where there is a substantial amount of high quality research being gathered by members, there appear to be a greater number of these types of posters, often with maybe two or three actively participating on a given thread at once. These particular posters are active very nearly every day, so it is easy to become familiar with the nature of their posts and then attentively study them and their behaviors for the things I am about to describe.

Manipulation of ATS's Star and Flag System

First of all, there is an apparent manipulation of the systems of starring and flagging posts. A member can give a star to any ATS post for which he or she wants to show approval, while flagging is reserved for the topic/thread as a whole to give it a relative level of importance compared with other threads. I personally noticed when talking to one of these people who constantly defends a particular forum, that though we might post in succession fairly quickly until we had often filled almost two whole pages of 20 posts each with debate, the poster would typically have either one or zero stars on each of their posts. After an elapsed period of time, maybe of two hours or more, within a very small time frame of about 10 minutes, all of that poster's posts would suddenly have 4 or 5 stars. This is a generalized example of what I have witnessed, but it became so apparent to me that I would actually monitor the posts in regular intervals of about ten minutes to see how quickly the stars appeared, and they would all suddenly appear together as if simultaneously, and consistently in this way, regardless of the time of day or night. After they all appeared together in this way, the number of stars would usually remain the same. This led me to believe that either multiple “dummy” accounts were being used to star the members' posts to give them a greater appearance of popular support (and thus an increased propaganda value) or else some automated feature or software was doing it all at once after a certain amount of time had passed. The chances of four or five independent posters coming along consistently at the same time to star the same posts, within about a ten-minute interval, hours after the original posts were made, time after time, is considerably improbable. This would seem to indicate that not only do certain posters augment the amount of popular support they appear to be receiving for their posts, but it would also indicate that the ATS staff is either too inept to notice the behavior, does not care that it appears to be happening (as some past posts by moderators and administrators have seemed to have indicated, for example suggesting that they often turn a blind eye to multiple accounts posting from the same IP address), or else is actively supporting or is involved with it on some level.

Banning or Quietly Changing the Passwords of Members Who Are Too Troubling for Them

Secondly, I have noticed many accounts of very reasonable and prolific posters either banned or otherwise prevented from continuing to post on the forum. One well-known example was the banning of the famous government pilot and conspiracy theorist John Lear, one of the most famous pilots in the world with many world records to his name, who was at one time given the title of “Conspiracy Master” on ATS. Lear's banning from ATS was never explained by site administrators, but Lear stated in a video interview with Kerry Cassidy that he was banned after refusing not to talk about being post banned¹¹ on false pretenses.¹²

My own ATS account was also effectively banned without appearing to be, when another person logged into my account and simply changed the password and email address so that I was not able to log into it and was also not able to request my “forgotten” password to be sent to my email account. My account was one of the most active accounts on the forum and remains listed as one of the top posters by various criteria on the website, although I have been unable to log into it for a fairly long time.  Another account I made subsequent to this also had its password changed after I began linking to this page in U2Us to various members, though neither of these accounts were actually banned.

ATS Is Primarily a Forum of "Skeptic Debunkers," Not Conspiracy Theorists

Lastly, the content of the ATS forums in general does not primarily seem to be pro-conspiracy or even conspiracy-friendly. The attitude and content of the website overall is anti-conspiratorial and oppressive to serious discussion of any conspiracy-related topics, or much of any intelligent discussion at all. This is easy enough for anyone to test for themselves by simply posting conspiracy-related information on the forum and observing the general response.

When the general consensus of posters seems to narrow in on a government cover-up or false flag event and begins to dig up more valuable information as to who, how, why, etc. (as any valuable discussion forum on these subjects would), this is exactly when people appear who start petty arguments, make insults and distract from valuable discussion.  This kind of "divide and conquer," or more like "divide and suppress discussion" tactic seems to be what ATS is all about.

1 See the FBI's own page here: <http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/september-2011/sovereign-citizens>

2 <http://www.wired.com/2008/03/report-recruit/>

3 <http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/12/Tampabay/Blogs_are_CentCom_s_n.shtml>

4 <http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15287>

5 ATS posts are often the first Google returns on certain conspiracy-specific search terms.

6 Cassidy interviews John Lear about this in an interview here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mp9F-gijCM>.

7 “Jim Stone” is an anonymous blogger who claims to have worked for US intelligence agencies in the past and posts his views as an insider on contemporary events on his website, <http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/>.

8 Another popular conspiracy theory forum.

9 This is part of a message presented in an ad on the sides of the website in August 2014, with the letters “sh” slightly blurred in the word “bullshit.” This ad also features a snarling personification of a bull, with prominent horns.

10 <http://www.illuminatirex.com/is-the-ats-forum-cointelpro/>

11 Post banning is when a member is banned from posting but their account still appears to be active.

12 This interview (the same mentioned earlier) can be found here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mp9F-gijCM>.