Detailed within a video released by the hacking collective known as Anonymous, the hackers are targeting members of the Westboro Baptist Church after representatives of the church announced that they will be picketing a vigil at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In addition, members of the Westboro Baptist Church announced plans to picket at least one funeral for the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting and members of the Phelps family are tweeting that the cause of the shooting is related to the legalization of same-sex marriage around the United States. The Westboro Baptist Church is most well-known for picketing funerals of members of the military that were killed in action.
As a swift response to the statements regarding picketing within Newtown, members of Anonymous quickly started attacking the Westboro Baptist Church official site in order to bring it offline. In addition, Anonymous updated and republished the personal information of the alleged members affiliated with the Westboro Baptist Church.
This includes names, email addresses, dates of birth, home and work phone numbers, the home addresses of the members and the relationships between the members of the group. Anonymous did not release details related to how they located this personal information, but previously called the release #OPWestboro.
Within the video message, the voice over states “From the time you have received this message, our attack protocol has past been executed and your downfall is underway. Do not attempt to delude yourselves into thinking you can escape our reach, for we are everywhere, and all-seeing, in the same sense as God. We are a body of individuals who fight for a purpose higher than self, and seek to bring the malevolent intent of the malefactors to light. 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.”
This isn’t the first time Anonymous has attacked the Westboro Baptist Church. During early 2011, the group took down the Westboro Baptist Church site during a live, televised interview between Shirley Phelps-Roper and a member of Anonymous.
While Anonymous has been busy attacking the Westboro Baptist Church, petitions attempting to classify the organization as a hate group have been created on the official White House site. The petition titled “Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group,” has gathered over 83,000 signatures since the creation on December 14.
The description of the petition states “This group has been recognized as a hate group by organizations, such as The Southern Poverty Law Center, and has repeatedly displayed the actions typical of hate groups. Their actions have been directed at many groups, including homosexuals, military, Jewish people and even other Christians. They pose a threat to the welfare and treatment of others and will not improve without some form of imposed regulation.”
In addition, a second petition attempting to accomplish the same goal has attracted over 18,000 signatures. Any petition that gains over 25,000 signatures within a month will be reviewed by the White House and an official response will be issued on the matter.
At least they are doing something about this group of hatemongers!!!
Westboro Baptists are the farthest thing from christians that i have ever seen.
Persecution of one extremist vigilante group by another extremist vigilante group . . . interesting.
I fully support Anonymous for what they are doin. They are targeting a hate group. That is all that WBC is. They are not a real church. They are a hate group who is hiding behind religion. I support whatever Anonymous does in taking down WBC.
Any parent that gets a child to wear a T-shirt stating “god hates fags” and also has them holding placards stating god hates you and your going to hell needs to have their children immediately removed from their “care”. I am completely non religious so this grates with me even more. Top marks to Anonymous and may they long continue to take down moronic groups like this.
Go Anonymous!
Good to see people are awake and are responding to hate groups like those baptists.
Westboro are not Baptists; though they claim to be. Even other Baptists don’t recognize them – due to their contradiction of living a life that pleases Christ and shares hope and love to all people.
Sorry for my lack of knowledge. It’s called Baptists so I assumed they are.
Considering that most of the parish is intermarried and inbred… yeah. And no, I’m not making that up.
This is when I love and support Anonymous the most. When they go after crap ass people like this! Good job Anonymous!
I have a solution to WBC: IGNORE THEM. They are trolls and feeding them only makes them crave more attention. If you ignore them, they will Darwin themselves out eventually.
Love it or hate it, Westboro has the right of free speech. If you want Westboro silenced, than you should be willing to accept it when your right to free speech is revoked.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving group. There are a couple of links to whitehouse.gov petitions in the story that want the feds to redefine WBC as a hate group.
Listen to Curt Trumbore, As for WBC, wherever they show up they should be told to leave, then removed with FORCE and arrested for inciting a riot as the consequence of their actions.