The Army Corps watchdog group Levees.org said it’s taking a stand. On Friday, the group reposted controversial video on the internet which they took down from their website last month, after receiving legal threats from a non-profit engineering group, which was paid money to evaluate the Corps.

The video, produced by students at Newman High School, satirically criticizes the Army Corps of Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers, the group hired to conduct an independent investigation of the corps.

“To the president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, we hereby say publicly that we reject your threats,” said Sandy Rosenthal, Founder/Executive Director of Levees.org.

But after weeks of adhering to the ASCE's letter, Levees.org was promised free representation from two law firms in the event of any lawsuit and got word that the ASCE was conducting its own review of how the group participates in investigations. And on Friday, Rosenthal put the video back on the internet.

“I am changing this to public, allowing me to share my video with the world,” Rosenthal said. “Today was a stand of sorts. We showed the citizens of NOLA that the ASCE shall not bully, shall not intimidate a small nonprofit and a bunch of high school kids out of exercising our first amendment rights.”

But Levees.org claims their video has greater meaning. The intent: to bring awareness to the need of what they call an ‘8/29 investigation,’ an unbiased and independent study of what went wrong in Katrina and what needs to happen in the future. At present, conclusions drawn by the Corps and Corps’ financed independent studies have been used.

“What is so scary is that these findings are currently being used to reconstruct Greater New Orleans entire hurricane protection system,” said Vince Pasquantonio, a Levees.org spokesman.

The scary reminder of Katrina's devastation had left Rosenthal fighting back tears during Friday’s announcement, but she said her reaction changes when her thoughts turn to the possible consequences of putting the video back online.

“What's the worst that can happen?” Rosenthal asked. “I'll get sued; well then we’ll deal with it.”

On Friday afternoon, David Morgan, President of the American Society of Civil Engineers, released the following the statement to Eyewitness News:

"ASCE sent the letter to protect our reputation. Levees.org org took the video down and we considered the issue resolved. Since the video has already been widely reposted by other organizations, moving forward, we feel our time and expertise are best utilized working to help protect the residents of New Orleans from future storms and flooding.”