Salon.com > Westboro Baptist Church

Celebrating Anonymous: The hackers’ big year

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0000

"I love Anon."

The comment, written by a teenage boy at Berkeley High School a few days after the Sandy Hook shootings, came in response to a Facebook post made by my own 15-year-old son.

My son was passing along the word that the hacker collective Anonymous had declared war against the Westboro Baptist Church, that clan of deranged religious fanatics who routinely seek to turn the misery of others into their own grandstanding opportunity.

Outraged at WBC's plans to protest at the funeral of Sandy Hook Elementary's principal, Dawn Hochsprung, on Dec. 19, in order "to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment," Anonymous proceeded to expose the personal information of WBC members -- home and email addresses, phone numbers, etc. -- and started acting as a coordinating center for anti-WBC counter-protests. For teenage boys at Berkeley High, Anonymous' direct action was the epitome of cool.

Anti-Westboro Baptist petition the most popular ever

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:55:00 +0000

A petition to label Westboro Baptist Church a hate group has accumulated more than 260,000 signatures, making it the most popular petition to the Obama Administration's We the People program, Politico reported. Several other petitions urging that the church be stripped of its tax-exempt status have also accumulated tens of thousands of signatures.

Topeka, Kan.,-based Westboro Baptist Church, better known as those "God Hates Fags" creeps, is already considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Most recently it made news for threatening to picket the funerals of the Newtown massacre victims. The hacker group Anonymous responded with attacks on the church's online presence.

Anonymous 2012: a year in review

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 07:39:00 +0000

In 2012, the loose association of tech-based activists protested bullying, LGBT discrimination, corporate media, Israel, Muslim genocide, police brutality, election-rigging, douchebaggery/bullying, surveillance, nationalist education, and of course Internet censorship—expanding both the range of its “causes” and the tools it deployed to defend them.

Of course, it’s impossible to say with certainty which actions "Anonymous" actually pulled off, since its membership is ill-defined and anyone can claim association, not to mention that sometimes Anonymous hacktivists act alone or as part of a subgroup. Even when Anonymous has put out one of its quintessential videos claiming responsibility for a hack or DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service—shutting down a website by flooding it with requests) attack, it hasn’t always turned out to be true.

Given that, below are Anonymous’ “Top 20” for 2012. With its widening arsenal and focus, one can only imagine what these Internet denizens have in store for 2013.

[slide_show id=13151256]

Fox News thinks anti-gay protesters are “left-wing”

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:50:00 +0000

What do you call an organization that despises gay people, hates Muslims and thinks Barack Obama is the Antichrist? If you’re Fox Nation, the spinoff website that's all Fox and none of the News, you call them “left-wing.” Or at least that’s what the site -- best known for attacking Obama’s “Hip-Hop Barbecue” for creating no jobs (but featuring plenty of black people) -- called the Westboro Baptist Church, the notorious cult that pickets the funeral services of fallen soldiers.

When Westboro members planned to protest the funerals of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, they were met by counter-protesters, including a group of bikers called the Patriot Guard Riders, which specifically organized to “shield the mourning family [of fallen servicemembers] and their friends from interruptions created by any protestor or group of protestors,” i.e., Westboro activists.

Anonymous sics Westboro again

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:40:00 +0000

Anonymous has shut down Westboro Baptist website (Godhatesfags.com) with a denial of service attack (DDOS), the latest from the hacker collective after the hate group/church announced plans to picket victims of Sandy Hook's funerals. As Salon's Natasha Lennard wrote on Sunday:

Hacker collective Anonymous was swift to respond, releasing private information of Westboro members including email addresses, phone numbers and home addresses. This video, decrying the church for spreading “seeds of hatred,” was also released. It warns, “We will destroy you. We are coming.”

An Anonymous source has said it intends to keep the website offline throughout the day, with plans to take it over completely and deface it.

Anonymous hits Westboro Baptist Church over Sandy Hook picket plans

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 18:43:00 +0000

The ever-hateful Westboro Baptist Church has not failed to deliver in the wake of the Newtown school massacre. The Church, notorious for picketing the funerals of fallen troops with "God Hates Fags" placards, announced Saturday that they would picket Sandy Hook elementary school, where 20 children and six adults were shot dead Friday. Tweets from the Phelps family suggest they believe the horrors in Connecticut are a punishment from God for gay marriage.

Hacker collective Anonymous was swift to respond, releasing private information of Westboro members including email addresses, phone numbers and home addresses. This video, decrying the church for spreading "seeds of hatred" was also released. It warns, "We will destroy you. We are coming."

[h/t BetaBeat]

Son of a bigot

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

As the pastor of the much-reviled Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps has become synonymous with hatred. The pastor and his family make it a point to carry signs at the funerals saying, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers." They show up to media-friendly events with signs that read, “God Hates Fags.”

Nate Phelps is the sixth of Fred's 13 children, and he has the scars to show for it. He describes his father as verbally and physically abusive. When he was 18, Nate ran away from home and from the fundamentalist Calvinist religion in which he was raised.

Now in his 50s, Nate finds himself publicly squaring off with his father and siblings to reverse their legacy of intolerance. He lives in Calgary, where he has become a public speaker who champions LGBT rights and raises awareness about the connection between extreme religion and child abuse. He is currently writing a book about his life and is the subject of an upcoming documentary.

What was your childhood like?