The full post is here  Its signed David Allen   We think you should be aware that the Secret Service contacted us today Posted by Skinner in General Discussion Thu Oct th   PM In the fiveplus years since Democratic Underground was started we have had legal issues arise on a fairly regular basis When that happens we almost never make any sort of public comment about it mostly because we think giving wouldbe legal adversaries any unearned publicity would only encourage them But an issue has come up this week which we feel we should probably share with you because we think you should know what we are doing to protect your personal information  As you are probably aware the Democratic Underground detailed rules include this short passage  Do not post messages that could be construed as advocating harm or death to the president or other highranking official in the United States government In the case of the president do not even post jokes as the Secret Service is not known for its sense of humor Fortunately the members of DU are generally levelheaded and respectful of the rules so we have not had any problems with this issue in the past But today we have had two separate inquiries from the Secret Service about posts on our website  The inquiries involved three posts by two separate visitors to our website Incidentally both of the people in question were banned last week  before we were aware that the Secret Service was looking into their postings Im not going to go into the details of the posts in question except to say that all three of them would have been covered by the passage from the Democratic Underground rules that I posted above One of these posts was deleted by the moderators two were not  The United States Secret Service has asked Democratic Underground to hand over any identifying or personal information we have about the two individuals in question   HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW  The administrators of Democratic Underground take the privacy of our visitors very seriously Even though the two people in question had already been banned from our website we will not hand over any personal information from them or from any of our visitors unless we are legally compelled to do so  After talking with the Secret Service  who were polite and professional throughout  we immediately contacted our lawyer to get his advice as we always do whenever a legal issue arises We will continue to consult with him throughout this situation so we can ensure that our rights and your rights are protected On the advice of our lawyer we have declined to voluntarily hand over any information about the two individuals in question That is where matters stand at this point  The Secret Service has informed us that they intend to get subpoenas in order to compel us to hand over the information If and when they do we will consult with our lawyer before we do anything  Please feel free to post in this thread if you have any questions   David Allen Democratic Underground Administrator Read entry  Discuss  comments