ATS a threat to national security?

There were quite a few UFO related shows on over the weekend and I watched my fair share.

One issue that IMO should be considered is the chance of ATS and other similar sites actually being a threat to national security.

We must all admit that when we dig into something we can be quite relentless. While I believe disclosure is a good thing it does lead to a precarious situation. I for one never want to cause national defense to be weakened just because I want to know something.

I think most of us agree that the Gov has covered up many incidents and withheld a multitude of information. We must ask ourselves though, is there good, sound reasoning behind these decisions? Former CIA officials came right out and admitted that during programs such as the U2 development UFO stories were left to flourish as a means to cover the U2 and other programs up.

Obviously I don't see an issue in the general day to day world of UFO conspiracy but it still makes me wonder if we ever get within earshot of actually hitting on something? This also relates to several other areas covered on ATS.

Could we possibly be a threat to national security? Thoughts?

Nope i dont think the general ATS user is any threat.

We scoure the web, speak to abductees, and dig deep but we do nothing illegal..

I would constitute a threat to national security being similar to the scottish hacker who is currently trying to fight off being extradited to the USA for hacking nasa systems.

If you want to go down the route of hacking to gain information then you will pay the price and be caught one day. This also goes for cellphone tapping etc.

A lot of people asked how was he caught, why didnt he log into a wifi network when hacking etc... Who'es to say he didnt? If you know someone is hacking you, you sit back, keep the door open and wait for him to come knocking again.. When he knocks you get into his system, learn as much as you can about him via email logs, system information etc... Then you go knock on his door with a dirty big warrant.

99.99999% of ATS users obtain information with legal means / disclosure. Though im sure there will be a minute percentage of users who know there hardware and software enough to gain access to some scary places.

I myself prefer to dig deep within legal means and read up on what the other users have posted to further my knowledge into the subject of ufology.

So what you're saying is that we couldn't possibly uncover something legally?
I think that's a bit short sighted.

Who knows if we are getting close to blowing a program open by sheer accident? I never even thought in terms of illegal activity when I posted the question.

We are constantly digging in every conspiracy direction possible. Many of which directly or indirectly relate to the governments of the world.

My thought is that if we did open a pandoras box it would likely be accidental.

I suppose you coudl consider this sort of website an issue to national security.

And I agree that yes you could uncover somethign the government dont want people to know through legal means. This could be as simple as someone putting 2+2 together on an issue which others have not previously thought of and coming up with 4.

I think you should consider what is put on these sort of forums, you may hit on something one day - but on the reverse side, it may be easier for the government to ignore it or simply debunk it that way it could be hidden away again amongst other posts until someone thinks about it again.

Interesting point though....

Originally posted by eldowardo
...you could uncover somethign the government dont want people to know through legal means.

just did with my post

all the government has to say is "conspiracy theory" and everything we say is discredited. its so easy for them to do this that we are hardly any threat to national security at all

Bet the goverment would love people to think that so the questions would just go away. My fear is that they (gov) will learn things here to improve their coverups and misdirection. They judge most of what we should know; I am not sure our best interests are alway at the root of it.

Just recently we had a member who claimed to be in active service on a U.S. carrier. He proffered a video and log of a UFO chase which occurred in 2004. He admitted that they were classified but that he felt that the world should know. He was describing them to us and the members demanded that he post them. The resident experts in the aircraft project forum stepped in to try to verify the information. He was warned not to post the docs by some members as the log would describe operational methods of our carriers, etc. We insisted that certain precautions such as blanking out operations information, locations, and identities should be taken before their release along with an interview with our ex-military people to help evaluate and pare out the harmful info.

Nevertheless, it was posted in all of its glory, all the specifics were intact. Even though our aircraft project members exposed it as a hoax, had it been authentic it would have been a case of “Loose lips sink ships” and we should keep that in mind when these situations occur here on ATS. Methods and procedures should be worked out in regards to the release of classified materials so as not to harm any of our people in service or our security in any way.

Just my 2 cents,

STM

Note to Jbondo: Been super busy will catch up with you when I can, it's a long story.


[edit on 23-2-2007 by seentoomuch]

We have systems, policy and procedures in place to immediately delete any genuinely classified material someone may post on ATS that could IN ANY WAY harm ANY of our brothers and sisters in the employ of our Government or any of our Allied Governments.

The REALITY is with today's surveillance technologies employed by the governments of the world the really "DEEP stuff" probably would get past the servers.

The rest of it we would surely remove from "public view" as soon as we knew of its existance on our site.

The particular post/video/thread STM refers to was an obvious hoax ( orm our perspective) that we had no concern over beyond waiting for the *proof* it was crap so we could cite the T.A.C. to remove it and the
"Member" who posted it.

Springer...

That's good to know Springer. Wish we had been told about this on the other thread, it would've saved a lot of time and effort. Just gotta request that next time please let us know if there's a method already in place.

It's great to know that y'all are aware of situations like this and it once again proves that ATS is always several steps ahead.

STM

Originally posted by Springer
We have systems, policy and procedures in place to immediately delete any genuinely classified material someone may post on ATS that could IN ANY WAY harm ANY of our brothers and sisters in the employ of our Government or any of our Allied Governments.

The REALITY is with today's surveillance technologies employed by the governments of the world the really "DEEP stuff" probably would get past the servers.

The rest of it we would surely remove from "public view" as soon as we knew of its existance on our site.

The particular post/video/thread STM refers to was an obvious hoax ( orm our perspective) that we had no concern over beyond waiting for the *proof* it was crap so we could cite the T.A.C. to remove it and the
"Member" who posted it.

Springer...

lol just to stir up the debate a little. national security wouldnt be threatened by a classified ufo document being released it would only show the hole that has been in our national security for over 50 years and prove a blatant lie which unless you are associated with the governments knowledge hierarchy shouldnt be concerned about .

Seriously this is the dumbest thread ever! Your worried about national security on a site like this? Your worried about your brothers and sisters in Govt.? You all need to take a break.

AS

AND ONE MORE THING How (...) would you know if something was classified to begin with?

AS

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Removed censor circumvention

[edit on 23/2/07 by masqua]

With what some of the spy scandals from the past has exposed, I would think there is nothing here that has not been found by the other side.

Something along these lines though, which some here may have seen.

I was watching a doc on the B-2 bomber. A pilot told a story about leaving the base in the midwest for an Iraq operation. Shortly after their takeoff from their base a United aircraft pilot in a passing plane was heard on radio stating he saw B-2s in the air and he guessed they were headed to Iraq. The B-2 crew was a bit dismayed knowing there primary defense is stealth.

I would suppose informants could just watch the field and get the same info. Is vital info really gettting leaked?

Originally posted by A SINCLAIR
AND ONE MORE THING How the F* would you know if something was classified to begin with?

AS

Naive as you are, I never said that ATS was a threat. It was just something to consider and learn from.

Furthermore, you should give the members here a little more respect. Some of us are quite connected and do have the ability to unearth data that would startle you. Of course that's not to say that we are not responsible with what we post but my main point was more concerning exposing something by accident or slip up. It is not unheard of for people to come across things whilst looking in a completely different direction.

Take for example that farm in Belgium. A farm was purchased recently and unknown to anyone was a locked old barn on the property that was loaded with vintage automobiles. At least 200 that I could estimate from the pics. These cars are worth millions and nobody knew they were there.

In other words, someone is exploring a story and comes across gov docs completely by accident. He knows they mean something but doesn't know what. Trying to unravel the mystery he posts them on ATS and someone recognizes them and knows they shouldn't be posted. If I'm not mistaken, Springer says that it most likely wouldn't make it that far but even before that other issue he discussed was shown to be a hoax, a thread had to be removed due to possible exposure of military personnel and other vital info. However, not before it was viewed by several members.

Springer, are you trying to say that sensitive material could never make it to post? Posts go up immediately, do they not?

Obviously the odds are astronomical for a scenario to happen such as described but how about the possibility of terrorist using ATS to pass coded info back and forth in the form of UFO lingo for example?

Springer,

How would you know that the material is classified? If someone, for example, stated where he believed Osama bin Laden to be, and it happened to be right and a classified fact, what would you do?

ATS is only as big of a threat as the right to Free Speech. Magazines, Newspapers, Blogs, TV Broadcasts, etc... every single day, relay countless bits of information. Some true, some false, most is somewhere in between in a grey fog of unknown variables.

The problem with "real" classified stuff is that it's almost always a lot less interesting than fiction. Specific names of undercover agents, passcodes, the maximum envelope of a particular jet, the composition of a wingskin, etc.

These are all things that would be very interesting to foreign intelligence agencies, rival companies, and terrorists, but do the armchair conspiracy theorist little good, and is thus, a lot less interesting.

It's much more fun to imagine that there are a race of lizard men living underground, and that psychic vampires are controlling our government in a quest for the New World Order, and that the greys are in a battle against both, and the Atlanteans are sending psychic signals to the Martian bases...

THOSE kinds of things would potentially affect the poster and the reader, and thus, make for much more interesting topics of discussion than things like "the wingskin of the XK49 Superbird is composed of blahblahplastic heated at such'n'such degrees for this many seconds and applied to the wing before it drops below this many degrees."

I don't mean to say there aren't some really big nasty conspiracies out there, but rather when "Real Live Verifiable Proven Evidence" of something incredible only gets low double-digit views, and zero responses, versus a speculative post about how to communicate with aliens using a flashlight and jabbing one's eyeball gets tens of thousands of views. I suspect any truly classified material someone managed to uncover and post on ATS would just get ignored in favor of yet another post about the reptillians...

Even if it didn't, it'd be a pointless excercise to post any such material here because, once again, most of us couldn't do a damned thing with it, it would expose knowledge of that secret right away (and hence tip the authorities off about it immediately), and ruin whatever suprise or mystery benefit the information would have gained from confidentiality in the first place.

In essence, no, ATS is not a threat to national security any more than your local paper or news-station is, and even if it was, most people wouldn't read the post, and those that did wouldn't be able to do anything with the info.

You are quite right Libra about what gets the most attention as apposed to what should (at least in my mind). I've watched some very critical evidence get pushed down in favor of fantasy.

As for the skin of an aircraft, etc...there are plenty of ATSers that post about stuff like that, me included.

The main difference between ATS and mainstream media is that we dig into areas where they wouldn't dare consider.