Westboro Baptist Church taunts Anonymous over supposed attack plan Westboro Baptist Church, the controversial church of God Hates Fags infamy, claims that the legions of Anonymous are planning to attack its website. However, according to at least one faction of Anonymous, the supposedly threatening open letter is the work of WBC itself, which is inviting an attack in order to garner sympathy …
As this WBC crowd seem to be doing all of this to provoke law suits, maybe the answer is to reply in kind.
If Gods legal representatives on Earth would like to take WBC to court on grounds of libel (the placards) I'm sure that a suitable class action could be won. I suggest $1 for each of Earths current living population would be a fair and appropriate settlement. The only WBC defense would be to prove that God actually said the statements on the placards. I believe that God would not need to be called as a witness...
WBC are seriously broke and need to get more funding. There are also a lot of lawyers in the congregation/family.
1. Provoke attack using Low Orbit Ion Cannon by fools who don't know it doesn't hide your IP
2. Send out letters along the model of ACS:Law and others - "We know it was you - pay us $1,000 or we sue you for lots more".
3, Profit.
I doubt Fred Phelps snr and his family have anything interesting in their e-mails that would provide any sort of surprises. As they mostly all live in one place, it's hardly likely they're going to have an internal mail archive of note anyway - it's a family concern, not a corporation.
If ever an organisation was not worth hacking, it's WBC.
WBC isn't a bunch of nutcases, not are they particularly religious. It's a very simple scam: they provoke people until somebody gets fed up and resorts to violence. They then sue that individual and make hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's basically a business.
They're deplorable and despicable, but here in the U.S. they can't be stopped, which in a broad sense is a good thing. The best antidote to bad free speech is more free speech.
In fact, the WBC consists entirely of the *(incestuous) family of Phelps, the "pastor" of the fake church.
And Anonymous absolutely did not target WBC; the entire load of crap was a bare-faced lie by WBC in order to get some more free publicity.
The best thing that could happen would be a tacit agreement amongst all the various news agencies to never report on anything involving the WBC.
godhatesfags.com and godhatessweden.com (I kid you not) are probably both up for renewal, and Pastor Fred is perhaps a bit strapped for cash. Just a few days to go, and these two fine websites will soon be destined for the great Google Cache In The Sky.
"I know! I'll blame them there Heynonnynonny peepul!" he cries - and the next thing we know, we have a conspiracy on our hands.
However, since the 'global village' of the Internet appears primarily to serve as a means for a globe, full of village idiots, to get together and believe irational things, I suspect the Good Pastor is merely continuing a fine tradition - while his own church demonstrates that some belief systems are simply too irational, even for the Internet!
... and I don't even see too much difference between them. Both are dogmatic and unwilling to engage with anyone that disagrees with them, the difference being that Anonymous are far more effective as bullys. From a subjective point of view I also generally consider them to be promoting things I consider beneficial, but I don't for a second agree with their tactics.
AC not intended to show affiliation, obviously.
in whose opinion? I'm sure they both feel equally justified in their opinions.
However I have to agree with the original poster about anonymous' tactics. You can beat bullies by out-bullying them, but that just makes you a bigger bully.
And at least Westboro aren't hiding who they are. If Anonymous are so convinced they are correct why do they need to hide behind anonymity?
(Caveat: I personally think god loves fags as much as he loves anyone else. He made them, after all!)
Perhaps I should reword that... Anonyous goes after the "Cause" of their ire - those that try to crush free speech by not processing payments for groups dedicated to free speech and accountability for example.
As to why they're anonymous, it has to go to their long standing anti-Scientology campaign. The COS plays very dirty, 5mins of web surfing on sites like xenu.net will explain it better than I can. The COS come after you and your family.
..then why stay anonymous when dealing with Westboro, or anyone else? Not having to take responsibility for your actions is a dangerous precedent and I've no reason to trust that anonymous will always make the right choice. Who do I complain to when they get if wrong?
Anonymous are anonymous because of the fear of being targeted by Tom Cruise's friends. Any other campaign they run is an offshoot of their original purpose.
I don't think God hates fags either. I don't think God exists actually, but I'd love to see some evidence proving otherwise. Got any? No? Thought not.
What, like HBGary who were going to do the immense wrong of attempting to use statistics to determine who some of the members of Anonymous are?
Anonymous are, literally, a vigilante group in the uninflected dictionary definition sense of the word. So whether you support them cuts to your opinions on vigilante justice.
obvious troll is obvious!
Anonymous has responded in the way i expected, by doing nothing and letting westboro know that they're not going to fall for their trolling and wont help them gain media coverage.
offline hassling has been put forward as a means to pick up the glove, a far more effective way to stay anonymous :)
I'd prefer a site hack and something about WBC supporting gay rights, AIDs research, free condoms - you know, all those things that they say God hates.
And keep doing it.
WBC is founded on taunting people they see as legitimate targets with the excuse that God hates them. They thrive on reaction as they see that as proof what they are doing is right. WBC is a family business where the kids are out there waving placards at dead soldiers and chanting that they deserved it. Legs blown off with an IED? God laughs like Nelson.
WBC is so screwed up they would do a 'Day One' job on us if they could. They most likely think the Tea Party are a bunch of radical Communists.
God hates us all.
Now do you think that those Church members are technically savvy enough to hack Anonymous which is filled with hackers?
Or do you think that there is some other 'tech savvy' organization that Anonymous has pissed off enough that they would want to start this mess?
99% of people on this forum are atheists, why does it bother you so much that some church group or other hates homosexuals?
If you try to crowbar a 2000 year old religious text into the reality of modern life, you are unlikely to come up with a coherent moral framework. You either equivocate about the text, or spout frothing mouthed bigotry, or more often some combination of the two.
You are seriously suggesting that one should ignore bigotry if it is perpetrated by a group of which one is not a member? Should that be only if the bigotry is perpetrated against a group of which you are also not a member, or does it include any bigotry that group indulges in?
How remarkably self-centred of you.
. . . suggesting that homosexuality is a new thing, given that it was massively prevalent amongst the greeks and the romans (you know, pre-dating the alleged date Christ was around).
Of course wars are new, we never had wars before, especially not ones about exerting control based on your own beliefs (well, except for the crusades, the roman expansion, Alexander the greats conquests, the creation of Mesopotamia blah blah).
Lets also not forget that the religious text in question is also not 2000 years old.
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