Anonymous Retaliates, Leaks Texas Police Emails

An anonymous reader sends word that hacking group Anonymous has breached servers and accounts belonging to "dozens" of Texas police departments, leaking emails, documents and personal information. They say the attacks are in retaliation for "the arrests of dozens of alleged Anonymous suspects," and were done in solidarity with "the 'Anonymous 16' PayPal LOIC defendants, accused LulzSec member Jake Davis 'Topiary,' protesters arrested during #OpBart actions, Bradley Manning, Stephen Watt, and other hackers and leakers worldwide." Predictably, some of the leaked emails paint an unflattering picture of internal operations at the police departments.

Comments

Put an end to the crime and criminal supporters

[Xemu]

Stop glorifying criminal acts. What these people calling themselves Anonymous are doing are crimes. As IT professionals and geeks, we do not endorse crime. We hate crime.
I find it is absolutely horrendous that crime seems to be regarded as justified by some, just because it is IT crime. Crime is crime--if you want to change society, you do live in a democracy and are supposed to change it by voting. Crime is not OK.
Stop crime!

Re:Put an end to the crime and criminal supporters

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a hint: not all laws are just, and not all laws should be obeyed.

Part of the reason the police are so effective is they have no problem breaking the law to see their goals met. Is it illegal to retaliate against the police in this way? Certainly. Is it immoral? In my opinion, not by a long shot. This isn't restricted to "cyber-crime" either. If a cop murders someone unjustly and gets away with no punishment (like usual), do I shed a tear if his victim's family takes his life in revenge? Of course not.

The concept of justice transcends law.

Re:Put an end to the crime and criminal supporters

[royallthefourth]

I wasn't quite clear enough, but that's exactly my point. Obama (and the Democratic congress) has been indistinguishable from Bush and the Republican congress. People vote for either of the electable choices and get the same result; the system is completely broken. It shocks me that anyone suggests participating in American electoral politics as a way of making a dent in anything.

Re:Put an end to the crime and criminal supporters

[flaming error]

Not sure if this is intended to be funny.

If not, I take it you are no supporter of Mohandas Gandhi.

"Crime is not OK" is a terribly naive statement. Often it is the law itself that "is not OK."

When voting doesn't work, those who "want to change society" have three choices:
  1) submission to tyrants;
  2) civil disobedience;
  3) armed insurrection.

Which of those you find more "OK" is up to you. But breaking a law may often be more honorable than submitting to tyranny.

Re:Put an end to the crime and criminal supporters

[Attila Dimedici]

if you want to change society, you do live in a democracy and are supposed to change it by voting.

Gotcha. *votes for Obama* *stands by helplessly as wages fall while the government demonstrates its only competence to be launching cruise missiles*

And right there is your problem. Someone says that if you want to change society, vote and your thought is the only office that makes a difference is that of President. When, in fact, you can cause greater change by changing who your Township supervisors are, or your state legislator, or your Congressman. Changing things does not happen in 4 years or 8 years, it takes a long time.
As an example, in England, William Wilberforce began working towards the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery in 1787, Parliament did not outlaw the slave trade until 1807. Slavery was not abolished until 1834, just days before his death. Changing things takes time and commitment, not just showing up at the ballot box every four years.

Re:Put an end to the crime and criminal supporters

[Asic Eng]

It shocks me that anyone suggests participating in American electoral politics as a way of making a dent in anything.

It is a way of making a dent, but a system which is badly broken can't be fixed in a single election. Just voting isn't enough for that either - you really need to get into the parties and reform them, or build alternatives to them. Which would take decades.

Note though: there is no alternative to doing that. Even if you had a revolution suddenly - at best you'd get a better election system and maybe all lobbyists thrown in jail, but you'd still need to build working democratic structures, you'd still need to find halfway decent representatives.

So you might as well start now: vote in the primaries, vote in local elections, stand for political positions or support decent people who do.

Retaliates?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Since when does Anonymous not just act because it can? Does it really need a reason?

Re:The cops who wrote those emails should be fired

[Hijacked Public]

Who would they hire as replacments?

I'm not an idiot, but I don't want to be a cop. You don't. I think the job attracts that sort so maybe it should be eliminated...

Re:The cops who wrote those emails should be fired

[Anonymous Coward]

I have family in law enforcement, and many cops are just basically your average kids who go to police academy instead of higher education. They graduate and they're still your average kids- now with guns and badges. Whether they become good, honorable men/women is still up to them and many won't. Many will be hired by departments that will make it nearly impossible to be honorable and still have a career. Don't ever think they're the best of the best or that they were thinking of your safety when they took the job. I'm thankful for the good ones and I'm thankful I don't have to deal with some of the stuff they do, but if you look behind the uniform you'll often find the same idiot you'd find in the next cubicle where you work.

Crime? No, ethics.

[Kamiza Ikioi]

I heard you say the word crime a lot. But technically, what Google does is a crime in China. In the US, media tried to show that Google's Canadian Pharmacy advertisements, which was a crime in the US, make Google look evil. But if you have half a notion about health care, there is a greater argument that it is actually ethical.

What makes something unethical simply because it is a crime? Any idiotic idea can become a crime, like blasphemy laws in Iran. So saying your against crime has to have an underlying ethic of which laws you support, and which you yourself would break under certain circumstances.

Let's stick to ethics, and leave crime to politicians. We can argue the ethics, but really, crime is not crime. Saying otherwise, you validate every law ever made everywhere.

Re:The cops who wrote those emails should be fired

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of uneducated or undereducated people seem to hate the police, it's obvious why. Try living without them. If your in a situation where you need help who are you going to call? Anonymous or a cop?

Re:The cops who wrote those emails should be fired

[AngryDeuce]

They just suspended a cop here in Madison, WI the other day for illegally downloading the movie Hall Pass while he was on duty...not only did he download it on the police computer, but he got a virus in the process which he then tried to remove himself and obviously failed because, honestly, anyone that doesn't know how to even pirate a movie safely at this point sure as shit can't remove a virus...

Best and brightest they are not.

I went to school in Georgia, and I can pretty much tell you, the entire student body fell into one of two camps after graduation: Those that went to college (about 25%) and those that went into the military and/or Law Enforcement. You can probably guess which group had higher GPAs and SAT/ACT scores. It certainly gives me the warm and fuzzies knowing the guys that used to get their jollies beating up on Freshmen and drinking beer in the parking lot are now police officers...

Re:You talk about stupidity

[elrous0]

People who are really intelligent know to evaluate based on content, not form. Grammar nazi's, by contrast, are just autistics who've managed to find a dictionary.

So their, put *that* in you're pipe and smoke it.

Re:The cops who wrote those emails should be fired

[fyngyrz]

Whether they become good, honorable men/women is still up to them and many won't.

If they conceal the misdeeds of their fellow cops -- they're just as bad as they are. And if they're ignorant of those misdeeds... they aren't smart enough to be cops. The whole structure is corrupt, top to bottom. We'll know it isn't when the bad apples start getting thrown out. That hasn't started in any serious way, nor do I expect it to.... because the whole structure is corrupt, top to bottom.

Re:The cops who wrote those emails should be fired

[elrous0]

If I'm black or Muslim in Friendswood, Texas, I might be better off just calling a friend with a gun.

Still need to remain objective on this

[nharmon]

I don't get it. The gizmodo article does a good job to show how some of the e-mails paint a really bad picture of certain police officials. But then it includes this as an example of a "request for the Texan chiefs to investigate an officer's affair with a married woman", and comments that this is "tax dollars at work"...

From: Doug Lauersdorf
Sent: Thu 9/16/2010 10:06 AM
To: Bob Wieners; Luke Loeser
Subject: Complainant

Chiefs:

I conducted a preliminary inquiry into information received from Detective Price who received a call from Mr. Clements wanting us to know that one of our officers on midnight shift was having an affair with his wife. He also complained that the officer had run his criminal history. I asked KC to contact DPS to research their database to ascertain any person(s) that had ran his information to obtain information from any of the following: CCH, TDL, NCIC, TCIC, SETCIC, etc. The search revealed that the only person with the Friendswood Police Department that had run him was Elaine who had ran the information at KCÃââs direction at my request. This matter is mute until the time comes when he initiates the complaint process and provides us with the officerÃââs name.

Sergeant Douglas E. Lauersdorf

Ok, Gizmodo. You were spot on with the other e-mails, but this does not at all fit into your story. For starters, it is not a request, but rather a report. Second, the investigation was on the improper use of police computer files, not the marital affair.

See, use of police databases for personal reasons is a major no-no. And suspicions of such conduct is almost always looked into.

In this particular instance, the effort was suspended because they did not know which particular officer was being accused. Had they known, they could have looked specifically at his search history (for say, misspelled names of the complainant).

Anyway, the racist and other unprofessional e-mails should cause heads to roll. But in this last case I see nothing improper. Except that it is "moot", not "mute", Sgt Lauersdorf. :)

Re:You talk about stupidity

[TheRaven64]

If you write something that is grammatically incorrect, then it makes it harder for people to read it. The same is true of poor spelling, especially for non-native speakers for whom homophones may be difficult to follow. If your writing is bad, then it tells me one of the following:

• You made a typo and didn't notice it. Everyone does this from time to time, and if it's just an occasional mistake then I'll usually ignore it.
• You're writing about grammar and are therefore forced by Eris to make the most embarrassing mistake that you've made for a long time.
• You are not a native English speaker.
• You are too stupid to know how to write properly.
• You do know how to write properly, but you think that saving you a few seconds by writing badly is worth more than saving your readers a few seconds each by writing well.

In most cases, it's one of the last two options. In short, it means that you're an asshat or an idiot. Either way, it's not worth my time to work out which.