Mr. Irvine,

Given your recent opine on the subject of websites that seem to
"mimic" AboveTopSecret, I would like to offer six points of my own in
response to your recent statements.

First, allow me to remind you that you do not have "members" or
"users": you cater to people and people have free will. I'm sorry that
this disturbs you, but I, nor anyone else, am on the internet to
please you; I am here to please me. I will do what I wish, as I wish,
where I wish. If you don't like it you can ban me from your website,
which you have already done. It is interesting that I rank as a
"Solid" contributor in your opinion, and yet my posting privileges
have been permanently removed. Why not just ban me outright, or is
there a concern for people asking questions as to why a "Solid"
contributor would rank a post ban? One cannot help but wonder.

Second, no one is concerned about your profit margins except for you.
You have created the electronic equivalent of a grocery market cork
board. Just as that grocery store does not own the content placed upon
that cork board, you do not own the thoughts of your users. Sign of
the Times, Godlike Productions, and AmKon have all received DCMA
notices, ridiculed you for them, and then ignored them. Most of us
still don't attribute your links because your copyright is
indefensible in court. I had a sitting administrative law judge take
look at it, and neither of us were impressed. I have violated your
"exclusive" copyrights and if you would like to test these facts,
please come sue me. I welcome the opportunity to waste your precious
ad revenue in a court of law. Other conspiracy websites are not your
"competition": they are places where free speech continues outside of
your heavy handed moderation. You view them as competition for
"valuable clicks", but we do not and nor will we ever. You must come
to grips that your business model is a failure, and that it will never
amount to anything more than the 21st century equivalent of a mom-and-
pop convenience store.

Third, AboveTopSecret is a glorified news-aggregation website. It has
no staff reporters and generates no original content beyond insipid
and factually incorrect user commentary which is, nine times out of
ten, a parroted comment from gleaned from another website or blog.
Your attempts to "brand" conspiracy theory as your province will
continue to fail because, nearly 10 years after starting this
adventure, you still do not appreciate the niche of society you are
attempting to profit from. Free speech does not fit within a
corporatist paradigm because contrary opinions will not be tolerated.
Your site offers free speech in the same manner in which George Carlin
suggests Americans have freedom of choice: paper or plastic, smoking
or nonsmoking. Predetermined choices provided by the proprietors is
not freedom of choice. AboveTopSecret is moderated in exactly the same
fashion.

Fourth, your administrators and moderators are ignorant goons. I know
you like to think different, but they are a bunch of humorless,
soulless, morons that wouldn't understand cleverly worded sarcasm if
it gave them a blow job. Supporting free speech requires not only the
toleration, but the open, willing acceptance of dissenting, and even
offensive, opinions.

Fifth, you are not who you pretend to be and no one is fooled. We have
vetted your professional bio and your resume is more bloated than that
of a recent college graduate. Moderation of the Kodak and Playtex
forums may not be construed as building brand loyalty. One might even
go so far as to suggest that your repeated failures within the
corporate world were what lead you to buying a stake in ATS and
turning it into the conspiracy theory WalMart that we know today.

Sixth, your repeated attempts at creating hoaxes to drive interest to
your website only continue to reveal your dishonesty and profit-
centered focus. This includes but is not limited to: WhispersInTheDark
(I and II), SERPO, and the O'Hare UFO hoaxes. We have ample
documentation of your deceptions, and would be happy to formalize it
for public peer review should you so desire... but I'm betting that
you don't.

There is nothing that we can do to prevent your continued public rants
regarding your claims of poor sportsmanship. As one corporate warrior
to another, suck it up: it's a dog-eat-dog world and you picked the
wrong dogpound to stake your claim. I may not like the content at
SHTF411.com, but I support their efforts and will contribute there
regularly: perhaps I can help fix that content issue they have.

Sincerely,
A Free Thinker