ISP FirstLight Fiber Shuts Down Entire AFTAH Website – Kowtows to Convicted Homosexual Sex Offender and Web Bully Adam Flanders

Flanders sends emails claiming mugshot from assault arrest against teen boy is “copyrighted” property; two gullible corporations buy it and close down AFTAH sites

Media Release September 17, 2018
Contact: Peter LaBarbera, americansfortruth@gmail; 312-324-3787

CHICAGO, IL—The entire website for Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH.org) was shut down for more than two weeks beginning August 24 after a convicted homosexual sex offender, Adam Flanders, threatened a lawsuit against FirstLight Fiber, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for AFTAH’s web host company–claiming his mugshot photo from a 2006 assault arrest against a minor boy was “copyrighted” material.

Flanders, a homosexual activist, is a registered sex offender in both Maine and California, where he now lives. He pleaded guilty in 2008 to “Sexual Abuse of a Minor” involving a boy aged 14 or 15. He also admitted to engaging in homosexual sex with his then-14-year-old boyfriend when he (Flanders) was 18–in a 2007 public letter exposing a Maine “gay youth” club. Later, Flanders sought to retract the letter and demanded that web sites take it down.

Flanders has a long history of making such litigious and mendacious threats containing absurd, exaggerated and sometimes nonsensical claims against pro-family leaders and websites that have exposed his past criminal offenses and other actions.

The mugshot photo in question can be viewed at upper right. AFTAH will not take it down because it is obviously in the public domain and not “owned” by Flanders. (Mugshots are routinely used in news stories and political ads.) Note also that after years of Flanders’ harassing threats and even a $1 million “defamation” lawsuit against pro-family hero Brian Camenker and his organization, MassResistance (see below), the identical Flanders 2006 mugshot photo printed by AFTAH remains posted throughout the MR site. Had Flanders’ accusations any legal merit, would Camenker leave them up, risking further ordeals?

Weighing legal options

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, and Jared Heath, CEO of Altha Technology, AFTAH’s web host company, are weighing their legal options against Flanders and FirstLight Fiber, the ISP that capitulated to his spurious email demand. Another ISP, HostGator, took down an AFTAH temporary site (see below); that site, “Americans For Truth Censored,” remains down.

“Flanders’ reckless actions and the ISPs that bowed to them have caused me and Jared Heath, the ex-Marine who runs AFTAH’s web host company, severe emotional and mental distress. They also have caused us significant financial harm and damage to our reputations,” said LaBarbera. “I know Flanders wants to erase his crimes from the web, especially his Sexual Abuse of a Minor conviction, but we will never give in to his intimidation tactics.”

LaBarbera also called on Flanders to privately and publicly apologize to Paulie Heath, Jared’s mother, for the horrific and demented web-bullying graphic he created in 2005 cruelly distorting her visage (see below).

Flanders held knife at teen boyfriend’s throat

As this 2013 U.S. District Court document reveals (p.2), Flanders was arrested again in 2007 for another, more violent crime involving the same boy, now 16. According to U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk’s decision, Flanders knifed the father of the teen boy lover after violating a court protection order to stay away from the boy. In that altercation, when the boy’s father came to rescue his son, Flanders held a knife at the boy’s throat, and knifed both the father and the boy in the altercation.

FirstLight took down the entire AFTAH website on August 24, 2018, three days after receiving an “abuse” complaint demanding “removal of copyrighted content pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).” AFTAH site has been up since September 10 using a separate IP address, but Flanders is continually working to take it down, and is again threatening legal action against LaBarbera and Heath.

FirstLight’s reckless takedown of an entire pro-family website containing thousands of articles–based on a single email containing outlandish assertions by a homosexual activist trying to erase his criminal history–demonstrates the growing crisis of anti-conservative censorship in Corporate America.

As AFTAH was reeling from Flanders’ harassment, it learned that Facebook had demanded that the AFTAH Facebook page take down a harmless post involving another homosexual activist, Phillip Picardi. The post, shown HERE and below, shows Picardi taking a selfie of him kissing another man as he defiantly gives the finger to critics upset at his defense of an article promoting anal sex in Teen Vogue, a magazine for young girls. Picardi is digital editor of Teen Vogue.

The following is a sample of Flanders’ previous outrageous and litigious stunts:

• Web Bully: In 2005, Flanders, who resided in Belfast, Maine, created a cruel online image (at right) distorting Christian singer Paulie Heath’s visage on her Amazon.com page. He did it because he despised the pro-family actions of her husband, Mike Heath, then director of the Christian Civic League of Maine. (Jared Heath is their son.) The grotesque and vicious web graphic caused severe distress to Paulie Heath and her family. In an interview with Americans For Truth, she called Flanders a “tortured soul.” Flanders never contacted the Heaths, much less apologized to Paulie for his wicked creation, according to Mike Heath. (To this day, “progressive” activist Flanders crusades against “hate.”)
• In 2007, Flanders distributed a public letter, as an open homosexual and LGBT advocate, exposing the sordid goings-on, including inappropriate sexual behavior between adults and children, at a Maine “gay youth” club. Later, he reversed course and sought to retract his published letter. When Camenker of MassResistance, who had published the letter, bravely refused to take it down, Flanders went after his web host company, HostExcellence, which shut down Camenker’s site. Flanders then outrageously (and successfully) sought a bizarre “order of protection” against Camenker from a Belfast, Maine judge—even though Camenker had never even contacted Flanders. Ultimately, the judge’s preposterous, free-speech-chilling order was thrown out in court.
• In 2012, Flanders sued Camenker for defamation for $1 million, throwing a bunch of charges at the founder of MassResistance. In his bizarre complaint, Flanders questioned his own authorship of his 2007 open letter exposing illegalities at a “gay youth” club. A federal judge dismissed his lawsuit with the help of the Thomas More Society.
• In 2012, another threatening email by Flanders led Vimeo to drop more than 200 streaming videos of “Roadkill Radio News,” a conservative site. Flanders cited his bizarre “protection” order against Camenker and claimed it was violated by a Roadkill interview with Camenker in which the Massachusetts pro-family hero discussed Flanders’ litigious assault against him and MassResistance. Roadkill hired pro-family attorney Chuck Limandri, who accused Vimeo of a breach of contract, and Vimeo restored the Roadkill videos.

• Flanders contacted HostGator [866-964-2867], the IP company for AFTAH’s temporary site, AmericansForTruthCensored.com, using the same deceptive threats to demand that the company take down, capitulated to Flanders’ deceptive threats in which he smears Americans For Truth as a “hate group” and demanded that we remove the same mugshot photo from his “Sexual Abuse of a Minor” arrest. HostGator gave AFTAH’s web host, Altha Technology, 48 hours to take down the photo. Then, after first reversing its takedown order in favor of AFTAH, the company went back to its original position based on Flanders’ false claims and shut down the site. It remains down as we go to press.

Here is an Instagram photo of Flanders a few days after Christmas in 2012, the year he launched a new wave of legal attacks against MassResistance and its founder, Brian Camenker for refusing to bend to his previous demands:

 

 

More Censorship of Americans For Truth — This Time Facebook

Below is a graphic the recent act of Facebook censorship against Americans For Truth’s FB page; our commentary is at right. The circled portion, Facebook’s notification to Peter LaBarbera, reads: “Only you can see this post because it goes against our standards on hate speech.” For more commentary on this, go HERE.