Anonymous responds to plans to protest at site of school massacre

[Reloaded]

Good on them for fighting back against these vile people.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57559468-93/hackers-target-westboro-baptist-church-after-newtown-threat/

A group attached to the online hacktivist group Anonymous claims to have hacked the Westboro Baptist Church Web site in response to plans by the controversial church to picket the funerals of those massacred Friday at a school in Newtown, Conn.

As part of a campaign dubbed #OpWestBoro, KY Anonymous said yesterday it posted the personal information belonging to members of the extremist organization, which is best known for conducting protests designed to disrupt the funerals of members of the military killed in action. The data dump included the names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and physical addresses of dozens of alleged members of the religious organization. The group did not indicate where or how it acquired the data.

The hackvitist group announced the move after several Westboro Baptist Church members announced the group's intention to target Newtown, which was the site of a school shooting Friday at claimed the lives of 26 people, 20 of whom were children age 6 to 7.

Along with the data, KY Anonymous posted a video in which it pledged to derail the church's efforts.

"We will not allow you to corrupt the minds of America with your seeds of hatred. We will not allow you to inspire aggression to the social factions which you deem inferior. We will render you obsolete. We will destroy you. We are coming. "

In addition to military funerals, the church group has also targeted the funerals of prominent civilians, including that of Steve Jobs.

In a related action, a petition has been posted to WhiteHouse.org asking President Obama to have Westboro Baptist Church legally recognized as a hate group. Posted Friday, the petition already has more than 46,000 signatures, nearly twice the number needed for it to attract the president's attention. The petition states:

[Calvin]

I only just read up on it but these people are absolutely bat**** crazy! They do seem to remind me of jasey; though, except they're real life trolls.

They're doing an AMA on Reddit right now, look at the replies they're giving.. how can anyone be that much of a ****? www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/14ymyf/we_are_members_of_the_westboro_baptist_church_we/

[GommeInc]

Westboro isn't a Church, it's an institute for the clinically insane. Good on them though, Anonymous actually does something useful for once.

[-:Undertaker:-]

While I think the Westboro Baptist Church is way 'out there', I think it's a great show of the American constitution and common law that they're allowed to protest even when i'd guess 99% of the public are totally against what they say. That's true freedom of speech and an asset to America.

A poor reflection on 2012 Britain though, the motherland of common law and liberty yet this kind of protest would be illegal in this realm.

[HotelUser]

While I think the Westboro Baptist Church is way 'out there', I think it's a great show of the American constitution and common law that they're allowed to protest even when i'd guess 99% of the public are totally against what they say. That's true freedom of speech and an asset to America.

A poor reflection on 2012 Britain though, the motherland of common law and liberty yet this kind of protest would be illegal in this realm.

As much as I completely despise the Westboro Baptist Church, I am inclined to agree with you in that it does demonstrate true freedom of speech at work, which is catastrophically limited in your part of the world.

[peteyt]

As much as I completely despise the Westboro Baptist Church, I am inclined to agree with you in that it does demonstrate true freedom of speech at work, which is catastrophically limited in your part of the world.

Isn't Anonymous pro free speech. Don't get me wrong I dislike what the people are planning to do but Anonymous seem to be the biggest hypocrites online. I'm sure I read Anonymous where annoyed when reddit (Could have been another site) announced it was going to remove some tasteless stuff e.g. stuff online without people's permissions e.g. pictures of ex's etc - Anonymous didn't like this but then I read Anonymous where then taking a site down that was just for people's ex's.

The problem with Anonymous is that there is no leader. They think this works in their favour but with anyone being able to join and do anything, it means that you end up with a group of people with lots of different views, views which will clash. I read an interview with a so called member who left after they started realising general information of random members of the public, e.g. Luzsec along with Anonymous gave out card information. The member said he wanted to help not put anyone else at risk. This is what I've been thinking for ages. It's funny that they also think their helping countries win wars when all their doing is DDOSing

[Inseriousity.]

While the Westboro Baptist Church has digusting views that I wish didn't exist in the 21st Century, I really don't see how releasing their personal information does anything. I read somewhere that when they went on one of their protests, someone organised a counter protest where they raised lots of money for the things that the church despises. That is to me a more effective way of showing these people that their views are not shared by the majority.

[DamienMarj]

Damn straight! we need more people like this in our world!

[:Markster:]

I am absolutely on Anonymous' side here, WBC ... they are just a disgrace to the human kind really, nothing better i can say about them. They should definitely be marked as a hate group like the KKK as they don't differ from them by much. Will this change anything though that's the question, i guess we'll just have to wait and see.