Hacker activist group Anonymous has been active in tandem with the happenings in Ferguson, Mo. since the beginning of the protests there. The group has managed to hack into the Ku Klux Klan‘s Twitter account and says it will expose the identities of over 1,000 members of the hate group.
Anonymous made their threat known via Twitter on Oct. 22, stating that it intends to unleash the identities of the KKK members in November to coincide with the one-year anniversary of a cyber-war known as “Operation KKK.”
The tweet from the Operation KKK account read, “We’ve gained access to yet another KKK Twitter account. Using the info obtained, we will be revealing about 1000 klan member identities.”
More from a press release from Anonymous:
The anons involved in this operation still believe you no longer particularly deserve the right to Freedom of Speech and Freedom to Assemble but that is not up to us. Let us make this especially clear: We are not oppressing you, Ku Klux Klan. We are not here to strip you of your Freedom of Speech. Anonymous will never strip you of any of your Constitutional rights. There is no “hate speech” exception to the Constitution. In a free society, we do have a duty to protect free thought, even when especially offensive. Your hateful ideas and words remain yours to keep. You are allowed to speak and in kind, we are allowed to respond. You are legally free to live and be any which way you choose to live and be. Keep in mind, it is not illegal nor oppressive to hurt your feelings. With that said – We are stripping you of your anonymity. Again. This is our protected speech.
After closely observing so many of you for so very long, we feel confident that applying transparency to your organizational cells is the right, just, appropriate and only course of action. You are abhorrent. Criminal. You are more than extremists. You are more than a hate group. You operate much more like terrorists and you should be recognized as such. You are terrorists that hide your identities beneath sheets and infiltrate society on every level. The privacy of the Ku Klux Klan no longer exists in cyberspace. You’ve had blood on your hands for nearly 200 years. You continue to inflict civil rights violations, commit violent crimes and solicit others to commit violent criminal acts. You seek to intimidate and/or eliminate those that are different from you and those that you dislike by any means possible. You seek to terrorize anyone and anything that you feel is a threat to your narrow view of the “American way of life”.
There hasn’t been an official response from the Ku Klux Klan as of yet.
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Photo: Luxpim/CC By 2.o
