Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous Hacks Westboro Baptist Church
elashish14 writes "The Westboro Baptist Church stated earlier this week that they would be picketing the funerals of the victims of Newtown Connecticut's tragic shooting in an effort to bring awareness to their hate messages. In response, the Anonymous hacker collective has hacked their website and posted the personal information of all of its members."
Happy to see Anonymous making themselves truly useful for the first time since Operation Chanology. I can think of nobody more deserving than a kick in the arse than the Westboro mob.
"What to Expect When You're Expecting Anonymous"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
these scum do it because they get the attention they want. ignore them, please!
Westboro Baptist Church wins. Anonymous and Slashdot brings more attention to hate group
I also wonder how many baptist churches preach against what this church is doing. I mean if a muslim goes out a does something, and every other muslim leader does not immediately condemn the behavior, then all the christians go and condemn all the muslims. So is turnabout fair play?
I would hope that they find the peace of the almighty and work for peace and acceptance that one's faith is not diminished just because others disagree. We have twenty kids dead because we can't just be peaceful and accepting. Now they want to make it worse.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
. . . if they're alive.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I think they are horrible but I am glad they won many of their lawsuits.
Even though most people, including me, disagree with their opinions that should still be able to picket and print whatever stuff they want.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
You didn't mention that thay hacked their website in real time, during a live radio interview. Now, that's an achievement.
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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It's funny, I was just watching Shirley Phelps-Roper (daughter of WBC founder Fred Phelps and a spokesperson for the group) talk on YouTube. The way she speaks ranges from over-the-to self-righteous indignation to outright hysteria.
Somehow, she's exactly what I'd expect from an IRL internet troll.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Or a lesson in the fortitude to live up to the harsh strictures of freedom.
To let others be free is to chain yourself.
Just the opposite, I see it as a test for those who claim to be champions of the freedom of expression.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Even unreasonable Christians already want nothing to do with them. I don't think there's anyone outside the WBC who actually thinks the religion aspect of the church is anything more than an excuse to pull crap like this.
I've always held that anyone is free to speak their mind, even if I don't agree with what they're saying.
If Westboro Baptist Church was really planning to interfere with the tragedy that has happened at Newtown, they've sunk to a level so low that no reasonable Christian should want anything to do with them. Scum.
This is too far. I don't want to say any more to further dirty the pain the families and the trauma the survivors are going through.
I think you'll find that most reasonable Christians DON'T want anything to do with these clowns. A lot of people in my church are VERY conservative, and even they are appalled anytime one of the WBC crazies opens their mouth. Small sample size, yes. But I've found it to be true in other locations as well.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
We The People petition: Legally recognize westboro baptist church as a hate group
This is how the supreme court interprets it, speech can be limited in this way.
Not everyone agrees on where the exact line between reasonable and unreasonable lies, but certainly there are times when most people agree it is unreasonable (in the middle of the night with a bull-horn in a residential neighborhood when everyone is sleeping counts as unreasonable; telling the victims' families that god hates them and their children are in hell during the funeral counts as unreasonable).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The one thing those haters from Westboro Baptist Church is after is notoriety - I mean, nobody with a sound mind would do what they are doing.
By hacking the websites of the Westboro Baptist Church, and by turning this event into a worldwide thing - face it, the news of the hacking of Westboro Baptist Church website has become a sensational news by itself, else /. wouldn't have carried it - what the Anonymous are doing, while still commendable, is to play it into the hands of those haters.
The best way to deal with haters is to ignore them.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
No they are not. They are emboldened by our willingless to tolerate them becasue we love our country more then we hate them.
Good-bye
If course the WBC are mentally deranged idiots, but they do have a (negative) Right to unlimited Free Speech, including their Web-site. Whether hacking constitutes aggression is a complicated discussion, but the Anontards' intent was clear and despicable! At least the WBC has the balls to drivel in the open, rather than hiding behind masks!
The harm that the WBC does is limited to annoyance, and can be further restricted on the basis of Property Rights - they cannot go where they're not wanted. The Anontards, on the other hand, have no respect for anyone's Rights.
--libman
posted as the "Anonymous Coward".
The irony is killing me. Not only do you hide behind the "anonymous" title like they do, you ultimately got it the same way.
Postinging in a threaded message board and not choosing to use a name.
What about the rights of the victims' families who don't want to be subject to harassment at a funeral? You have the right to say what you want, but you don't have the right to force me to listen to you by screaming your message outside my house.
WBC's freedom of speech should not be infringed upon. They should not be thrown in jail for their speech, or fined. But "free speech" does not mean "forced listening."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I think the Westboro Church is a bunch of insensitive asshole douche bags, however I don't think the answer is to form hate groups against the hate groups.
Westboro Baptist Church is an object lesson in why it's good to have some restrictions on speech, such as limiting it to a reasonable time and place.
I absolutely agree that Westboro Baptist Church's proposed action here is beyond poor taste in this situation -- it is deplorable and disgusting.
However, I also think that limiting speech "to a reasonable time and place" is a really problematic standard as well. Who decides what is "reasonable"?
I think the Bush administration that created "free speech zones" would have argued that they were limiting free speech to places that were "reasonable." The Bush administration did in fact make a similar argument that protestors with a different message and agenda would be disruptive to the purpose of the events that the administration was organizing.
Is the argument about funerals any different? Believe me, I wish the Westboro people wouldn't do this crap. But is there any way we can prohibit peaceful assemblies of people on public property who just happen to have a different message than some other neighboring event, without also condoning crap like "free speech zones"? Or, if we allow families or churches to dictate free speech in surrounding areas on particular occasions, who decides what occasions and what areas? Can corporations take advantage of such protections as well?
I'm not trying to be argumentative here. I'm really wondering if people have good answers about how we can draw a line without also making it a lot easier to trample on free speech rights in a lot of situations that might matter.
Someone should of told Anonymous that it is never a good idea to feed the trolls.
WBC thrives on negative attention and hate.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Perhaps, but you personally also favor limitations on free speech.
For example, imagine if someone wanted to enter your house to give you a message and tell you how blind, and what a sheeple you are. Would you let them enter your house? What if they stood outside your residence at 3:00AM, with a bullhorn, and woke up everyone on the street with a message saying that all white people are evil and should be slaughtered?
Would you accept it as a test of your commitment to freedom?
It is possible for someone to both champion freedom of speech, and also believe that you shouldn't harass people at a funeral.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This is how the supreme court interprets it, speech can be limited in this way. [snip] ... certainly there are times when most people agree it is unreasonable ([snip]...telling the victims' families that god hates them and their children are in hell during the funeral counts as unreasonable).
Umm, the Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that such things are "reasonable," at least regarding civil actions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyder_v._Phelps
After some further reading the dispute is a little more complex.
aparantly someone had earlier hacked the WBC, claiming to be anonymous, but it really wasn't.
Anonymous refuted, and even apologized, and tried to explain this to WBC. WBC, didn't want to back down, and kept talking smack to anonymous, and kept provoking anonymous.
Today WBC found out what happened when you kick a sleeping bear.
They were not silenced for the speech, and the WBC does not "win", and this has nothing to do with their ongoing campaign against everything for tollerating gays.
This his what happens when the sped kid keeps picking a fight with the biggest kid in class, and he finally runs out of patience.
And yet if someone is harassing you, you can get a restraining order against them, can you not?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
And yet if someone is harassing you, you can get a restraining order against them, can you not?
Indeed, you can. And if there is a remedy in this case, that should be it -- rather than arguing about "restricting free speech," we should be arguing about whether threats to disrupt a funeral constitute "harassment."
However, given Supreme Court rulings about peaceful public property protests, however, I don't think courts are likely to grant restraining orders in such a scenario.
There have always been recognized limits to free speech. There are components of that here, especially as WBC doing this has been proven to be not political or religious speech, but simply a business model. They are lawsuit trolls. They go anywhere they can incite people, go to the nearest area to it that has an entity with deep pockets (like universities, etc), and attempt to 'protest' in the least practical and palatable manner, and then file suits against everyone involved. They had at one time roughly 1000 suits going in federal and state courts at any given time there for awhile, I am sure that hasn't changed any.
You would destroy all of the freedoms so many have died for you to obtain -- if only because a group is using speech you deem unacceptable. Shame. Shame on you sir.
I think you are confusing the perspective of ACLU lawyers with the perspective of military veterans. As for the combat veterans I have known they seem perfectly fine with the notion that some speech will get you a kick in the ass or a punch in the face from your fellow citizen.
You seem to have made the error that freedom from government consequences somehow implies freedom from consequences from your fellow citizens.
After the Virginia Tech shootings the WBC threatened to protest the funerals. Some radio guy offered to let them have air time in exchange for not doing so.
As a friend of one of the people killed in those shootings I was very happy the family wouldn't go through this even if it resulted in a sick group like the WBC getting radio air time.
I think we would be serving the families of these new victims well by making some sort of similar compromise. I doubt anywhere near the number of people listened to that radio interview as would have seen the protests in the news, so I don't think it even helps the WBC cause at all.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/define-westboro-baptist-church-hate-group-due-promoting-animosity-against-differing-cultural/xHF0d3nq?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Slave Owner's didn't WANT to hear messages of their slaves.
So you are saying slave owners should be forced to listen to their slaves? How does that make sense? People shouldn't have slaves, and people shouldn't be forced to listen to people if they don't want to. It is two separate issues and you are trying to use a rhetorical trick by mixing them together. Unfortunately, it weakens the actual logic of your argument.
Free speech means having to hear to people that you don't agree with at times.
No it doesn't. You have no right to make people hear you. They are free to wear ear-plugs or ignore you.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The WBC should never be prosecuted by the government. But that doesn't mean that they get to act like a-holes. If they were picketing a kids funeral and the father or uncle went up and punched them in the nose and I was on the jury I would find them not guilty. If I was on a jury of the government trying to put them in jail for hate speech I would side with the WBC.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Free speech is not just speech you just like. It's any speech.
Wrong. The constitution only prevents government reprisals or discrimination against a speaker. Private citizens are under no such prohibition. Private citizens are free to punish speakers, that is what recent boycotts against Chick-fil-A were. All we can really say is that Anon is choosing to punish in an illegal manner.
Someone on Fark pointed out that the WBC aren't really haters, or even Christians, just a bunch of lawyers trying to make extortion money from the threat of (very carefully and legally) exercising their 1st Amendment rights:
http://www.fark.com/comments/7488418/81313473#c81313473
The appropriate response is actually to just organize counter-protests that block or drown out their feeble message, until hopefully they run out of money.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030406330.html
But anytime someone actually blocks them illegally, they get to sue and collect some settlement and they get their payday.
I suppose the DDoS helps them bleed money as well, But probably not enough, esp. if they manage to catch and sue the perpetrators.
Im willing to bet all the hate comments in here towards them are from americans. Americans love to preach freedom and tollerance but they never want to tollerate things they dont like. The only time they preach tollerance is when someone isnt tollerating them, the only time they preach free speech is when they want to be heard.
If you dont like what that group has to say then dont pay attention to them. Its really that easy. But dont be a stupid american jerk when it comes to someone elses thoughts or opinions you dont like.
Do I agree with them? No. But I will never, I mean never tell them they shouldnt be able to print, say, picket or express their opinions. Nor will I ever approve of censoring them. They should be allowed to say what they want and think what they want. Nazis, whatever the black against white people group there is, KKK or whatever I wont agree with them but I always defend their right to say and think what they want to.
If you tolerate something that means you put up with something you dont like. If you dont tolerate that group then youre not tolerant, your just a closed minded moron. If youre a person who think this group is wrong and youre happy anon attacked them or made some kind of hate comment yourself then youre a bad american and the very people who give us all a bad name.
Just the opposite, I see it as a test for those who claim to be champions of the freedom of expression.
Champions? It sounds like whoever says the most offensive thing that pisses off the most people is a champion to you, right?
In that case, let me be your personal champion and tell you that you are a self-righteous pompous shithead of a moron. Does that make me your champion? You fucking idiot. (How about now?)
As much as I love the quote of how "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.", I'm pretty sure we've gone to war and killed people who were more respectful, level-headed and compassionate people that either the WBC or yourself.
So stop being so fucking proud of the worse-case scenario of the first amendment and learn to be less of a jackass.
It's not a testament to how strong the first amendment is, as much as it is a testament to how low humanity can sink during times of tragedy for the sake of attention and feeling mightier-than-thou compared to the next guy. And and by the way you little shit, I'm not just talking about the WBC, this includes you.
I realize that it's a different kind of place over there, but either that hack result is fake or there is a LOT of inbreeding going on in that church.. If you look over the list of members, there are 74 listed - and of those 74, there are only three (!) people whose last names are NOT either Phelps or Hockenbarger (or something hyphenated that includes one of those, like "Phelps-Roper").
So, 95.946% of these assholes are in one of those two families. Sounds like a genetic problem to me.
The IRS should however relentlessly audit the books of this organization. To make sure they are compliant, you know. If they end up costing the "church" a lot of money and frustration in the process, too bad so sad. If the Obama administration has no problem using government agencies to harass non-union companies, they should have no problem doing it to the Westboro terrorists.
The suppression of free speech is a pre-fascist act. The remedy for offensive speech is more speech.
I hope somebody goes to jail for this.
If that's for real, they sound kind of ... inbred, or something.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I think what happened is horrible and truly no one should go through it, however why has no one questioned the gun laws? I have yet to hear anyone blame that fact that a gun can be obtained so easily.
Are you on crack? That's pretty much the whole topic of national conversation at the moment!
what needs to happen is for all firearms to get banned.
If you want to change the Constitution to modify the 2nd Amendment, go for it. But any attempt to outlaw guns without first altering the Constitution is no less than high treason, and any lawmaker who signs his name to such legislation should be subject to the death penalty we have put in place for such crimes.
See here - http://kanewj.com/wbc/
They are con men.
What is wrong with the Bush free speech zones? I am unfamiliar with the details of those things.
Please read and learn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
Do they keep people from communicating with people who want to hear them?
I don't actually think that's a reasonable standard for what constitutes "free speech," but... actually, at times, yes. At times, reporters have been barred from interviewing people within them.
But you asked about the larger problems. Well, for one thing, they restrict speech on the basis of content, even though they pretend not to. Restricting speech on the basis of content has in fact been ruled unconstitutional many times by the Supreme Court (except under strict criteria, such as the "fighting words" doctrine or incitement to riot or imminent lawless actions...).
When you select people out of a crowd just because they are carrying a sign that you don't agree with on public property (and aren't otherwise disruptive in any way), that's content restriction... and that's exactly the same sort of thing you're talking about in relation to this funeral. That's why the free speech zones are relevant.
right
and we can't legalize gay marriage because then we have to legalize pedophilia and necrophilia
and we can't legalize marijuana because then we have to legalize meth and crack
the slippery slope is a form of fear based logical fallacy
i can tell the difference between homosexuality and necrophilia. i can tell the difference between marijuana and meth. and i can tell the difference between political speech and hate speech
the slippery slope is an idea that only works in a world where nobody can think and identify different topics. therefore, the slippery slope never works as a persuasive argument
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think Anonymous is giving the Westboro Baptist Church the respect their opinions deserve given they have exercised their First Amendment rights irresponsibly. Anonymous is just making them take responsibility for their own poor judgement so that First Amendment rights are respected.
I don't think they protect you if you're not proud of what you have to say, or you're an idiot, even though political correctness is still really offensive.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
There were a lot of Christians on my Facebook feed - none of them extremists or anything, mind you - but they certainly felt the need to tell the world that the shootings were a direct result of removing God from the school system.
To me, that is intellectually the same as what the Westboro folks believe. Just without the picketing.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
There is no forced listening. A funeral is itself a public demonstration, and when I'm walking my dog to shit on the graves I unfortunately just have to accept that I'll hear pointless sobbing and weird spells.
More violence and killings is the answer???
The Westboro Baptist Church have a right to be complete assholes and say and do completely assholish things. That's really where it starts and ends.
No matter how good it feels that someone might make them possibly feel even a little bit as shitty as they love to make other *victims* feel. Goddammit. What a bunch of sick fucks. Never protest people when they're up. Never go and spew their shit at an ROTC center, or during a parade. No, it's got to be some funeral, where a bunch of people who are already facing the worst day of their fucking lives and trying to move on now have to deal with the Westboro shit too.
But that's their right, and that's how it has to work.
But I must admit I wouldn't be unhappy, if it turned out that Anonymous were prosecuted for this only after every lost library book in America was tracked down and returned.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
You do not have the right to say whatever you want. Hate speech or inciting violence are not protected. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942.
"There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."
And that was the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court. So no, people did not die for us to have the freedom to hurt each other with hate speech.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
One should be careful when making statements of such magnitude whose veracity can actually be tested. A record of what sermons the church has given in the past 5 or 6 years can be examined, and ones which address issues that are considered hate speech isolated. The percentage of those could be then correlated with the donation levels of the church near those times, and if there is a statistically significant positive correlation then you've established some credibility for the position.
If, however, there is no statistically significant correlation between the occasions that the church does preach these issues and its income as determined by donations, then I might suggest that such a statement could constitute slander or libel.
The church's statements are immune to this sort of examination because they are not actually testable in court. You would be much better off with signs that suggest or even state outright that God hates that particular church.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
As nutty and distasteful as the Westboro folks are, I don't understand why they aren't simply ignored, like the faint smell of dung wafting over from a nearby field during a walk on a sunny day.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
If they were picketing a kids funeral and the father or uncle went up and punched them in the nose and I was on the jury I would find them not guilty
Why do you want to corrupt my court system by deciding a case not on the facts but on your little feelings?
Because he wants justice. Justice being something that the letter of the law occasionally fails to deliver. Its one of the reasons we have jurors, to cover such omissions of the legislature.
Also, it seems a fact that the protester in this case deserved a punch in the nose.
Blatant and repeated harassment should never be considered protected speech. This is why current interpretations of the first amendment are broken. WBC harasses people. There is nothing peaceful about their protesting.
It's a lovely idea, in theory. In practice, it's more likely that the rapist will have a gun than the victim. If they both have a gun, then she's likely to die, rather than be raped. Knowing that the rapist is also going to die is pretty cold comfort.