Anonymous bragged on Twitter, as it has in the past, about its work.a
By Suzanne Choney
For the third time in less than 10 days, confidential information from Arizona's law enforcement community was hacked and posted online, with the same basic group of hackers behind the effort.a
The information, posted late Thursday, was shared Friday by Anonymous, a loose collective of hackers. Some of these hackers were affiliated with LulzSec, a related group that said last Saturday it was disbanding.a
On June 23, LulzSec committed its first hack in Arizona. The group said it was to protest SB 1070, a tough immigration law passed a year ago by state legislators, now being challenged in the courts.a
"For the third knockout blow against Arizona law enforcement, we decided to get destructive," Anonymous said in a statement on public clipboard site PasteBin.a
"We're defacing eight (Arizona) Fraternal Order of Police websites and releasing a master list of over 1,200 officer's usernames, passwords and email addresses. Additionally we are leaking hundreds of private (Fraternal Order of Police) documents and several more mail spools belonging to FOP presidents, vice presidents, secretaries, a police chief and the FOP Labor Council executive directory and webmaster whose insecure web development skills was responsible for this whole mess.a
"We're doing this not only because we are opposed to SB 1070 and the racist Arizona police state, but because we want a world free from police, prisons and politicians altogether."a
John Ortolano, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, told The New York Times that Anonymous' racist label was “very disturbing” to him and his fellow officers, most of whom are not white, he said. The accusation "couldn’t be further from the truth," he said.a
Anonymous is heading an "Anti-Security" hacking campaign, or #AntiSec, as it's called on Twitter, aimed at what it deems to be "corrupt governments" and "corrupt companies."a
On Wednesday, Anonymous, using the "AntiSec" banner, said it hit Arizona police again, "dumping booty pirated from a dozen Arizona police officer's personal email accounts looking specifically for humiliating dirt."a
Earlier this year, Anonymous gained notoriety for its denial-of-service attacks on Visa and MasterCard. Those attacks were retribution, Anonymous said, because the companies halted online donations during the WikiLeaks controversy, blocking contributions to Bradley Manning, the accused document leaker now in custody. a
Exposing and posting confidential information and documents, though, seems to be of more interest now to members of the group, whose statement on Friday sounded smug — and almost delusional:a
Let this third and crushing blow against Arizona police send a strong message to the ruling class around the world. You will no longer be able to operate your campaign of terror against immigrants and working people in secrecy: we will find you, expose you, and knock you off the internet. Many lulz [laughs] have been had while we purposefully strung you along slowly and painfully for the past two weeks. We know exactly what we're doing, so think twice before considering crossing us.a
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