Anonymous Hackers Take Westboro Baptist Church Website, Briefly, Just to Show They Can
Over the weekend, the anarchic and decentralized group of hackers known as Anonymous, famous for clowning Scientology constantly and as fervently supporting WikiLeaks, sparred with the hate-speech aficionados of Westboro Baptist Church. After declaring war in one press release, met with a scoff from Westboro, a dissenting faction of Anonymous ruled that war wasn't worth it and backed off. Today, the battle sparked again during a live radio interview on The David Pakman Show, featuring Westboro spokesperson Shirley Phelps-Roper and an Anonymous member.
During the radio talk, which can be heard here, members of Anonymous comandeered the Westboro website (GodHatesFags.com, of course) and posted the below memo, which reads, "Despite having had the capability to hack your sites previously, we chose not to and instead responded maturely to your threats, but you have not respected this." Here's the whole thing, as captured before the website went down:
Already, Megan Phelps-Roper, daughter of Westboro head Fred Phelps, has taken to her Twitter account to react (with the hashtag #GodIsInCharge): "I am simply GIGGLING with glee at how cute these Anonymous fellows are!" She went on to thank an Anonymous member "for getting so much attn on this Word of God!" 
Basically, until Anonymous can make a more substantial dent in Westboro's operation, monetarily or otherwise, the score stays tied between the two groups of attention-mongers. And those of us who can't help but watch are almost certainly the losers.
[h/t Daily What]
[jcoscarelli@villagevoice.com / @joecoscarelli]
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