"Being such aggressive proponents for the Freedom of Speech & Freedom of Information as we are, we have hitherto allowed you to continue preaching your benighted gospel of hatred and your theatrical exhibitions of, not only your fascist views, but your utter lack of Christ-like attributes.
... ANONYMOUS cannot abide this behavior any longer. The time for us to be idle spectators in your inhumane treatment of fellow Man has reached its apex, and we shall now be moved to action. Thus, we give you a warning: Cease & desist your protest campaign in the year 2011, return to your homes in Kansas, & close your public Web sites."
"Thanks, Anonymous! Your efforts to shut up God's word only serve to publish it further. God did that! Our response to you? Bring it, cowards."Her Twitter page.
When Hannity calls you a "sick, soulless, human being" you know something's very very very wrong.Eh. Maybe. But maybe very very very right.
‘‘Now that the gauntlet has been thrown, though, Anonymous must wrestle with the Westboro problem. In the chatroom discussing a potential Operation Westboro, opinion is divided. Some urge a full-on attack on Westboro's website, godhatesfags.com : ‘Defacing their website does seem like a good thing to start off with… 'Just kidding. God LOVES fags.'posted by ericb at 11:25 AM on February 20, 2011 [2 favorites]
Others realize the self-defeating nature of an attack on Westboro: ‘going to go with the, no to opwestboro, they're just protestfags who are really good at using the same troll line on the right people to get a reaction. we've got better shit to do.’ (That ‘better shit’ would be operations in support of protests in Bahrain and Libya.)
An Anonymous associate we spoke with seemed uncertain if anything will come of the war of words. ‘I think at this point its just mud slinging. Typical Trolls Trolling Trolls moment. But after Megan called them out they might do something now.’
Eh, should be more entertaining than protesting a soldiers' funeral.” *
"[A] commentator chimes in with a link to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Phelps Timeline from 2001, which definitely shows a pattern, “Before the end of his legal career in 1989, Phelps will file some 400 suits, mostly in federal court. Estranged son Nathan Phelps will claim later that part of his father’s strategy is to file frivolous lawsuits in the hope that his targets will settle to avoid the costs of defense.”posted by ericb at 11:45 AM on February 20, 2011 [4 favorites]
The claim is strengthened by another commentator, under the handle “SuedByAWBCMoppet,” who explains that he/she was sued for “verbally abusing a minor” after getting into an altercation with the family on the sidewalk in front of his/her home. “And [I] have NO doubt and plenty of personal experience that they WILL sue you in civil court if they possibly can. I recommend not engaging them, at all…. I caution you not to engage them, not to confront them. That’s exactly what they want.”
On the whole, we get a more in-depth picture of the WBC crowd. More than just an extreme form of Fundamentalist, Phelps seems to be a lunatic, a cynical con-man, or some combination thereof.*
"Nate Phelps is the son of Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, which gained infamy from their protests at soldiers’ funerals around the United States. He is the seventh of thirteen children, and was taught his father’s extreme version of Calvinism from an early age. This was accompanied by extreme physical punishments and abuse, extreme dietary and health requirements, and other extreme expectations. Nate left home at midnight on his eighteenth birthday, and moved to California where he built a new life away from his family. He later moved to Canada, and only recently began speaking out about his story after a chance encounter with a reporter while driving a cab in Cranbrook, British Columbia. Nate has now spoken about his story to many groups around North America, and even returned home to Topeka in 2010 to tell his story to the people in his hometown. Today Nate lives in Calgary, Alberta and works for the Center For Inquiry. He is a vocal LGBT advocate, and speaks out against the dangers of religion and child abuse."Nate Phelps interviews:1, 2.
In order for Anonymous to be successful, they need to change their tactics a tad. Pulling out the same hateful rhetoric that we are all aware of will be preaching to the choir. A better tactic would be to find things that shame them to their followers. I'm willing betting dollars to donuts that Phelps has mails he doesnt want the congregation to know of.I'm not sure that I understand this.
I'm so tired of supposed liberals celebrating a bunch of kids doing stuff for the lulz as some sort of vigilante heroes. Does nobody remember when Anonymous waged all out war against the feminist blogosphere for no particular reason?Well, anyone can 'be' Anonymous. Probably the people who went after HBGary are not the same ones going after WBC. And probably not the same ones who went after the Feminist Blogsphere, etc.
Further, the Feds already have big issues with Anonymous, what with their infiltration of HB Gary and the very embarrassing revelations that the government is enmeshed with completely unethical organizations. Even if the Feds don't care for Westboro, they hate Anonymous, and this will give them a great excuse to release the hounds.I doubt the feds will go out of their way to protect WBC. WBC would need to spend years in court in order to even figure out who to sue.
I think, in other words, that Anonymous is taking a serious risk of total destruction by declaring this war, to the point that people who are only loosely affiliated, and don't have anything to do with this particular action, could see serious jail time.
Their web presence is probably only the first step. The scariest thing about Anon is how vast of a physical network it is, and how Phelps' own neighbors could just as easily be on 4chan making their own plans. Anon started online, but it is by no means synonymous with internet-only debauchery.Oh come on.
"TO THE CONGREGANTS OF WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCHposted by ericb at 1:16 PM on February 20, 2011 [11 favorites]
We know that YOU in fact posted the Open Letter supposedly from Anonymous.
We know that you thrive on attention.
We know that you are short of money.
We know that this is a trap.
We know how you work. You don't give a flying fart about what your God thinks. But you know that putting God and Fag in a sentence together is guaranteed to make someone angry. You push it. You really push it. But you stay within the law. And then when some poor fool snaps, you sue them for infringing upon your rights.
Some of Anonymous thinks you're the worlds greatest Trolls. This is bollocks. You're in it for the money.
No doubt some of us will fall for it. But know this: most of us don't give a damn. You are shamelessly riding on the /b/andwagon after Anonymous' recent mass media coverage in order to get more publicity and more idiots to sue.
Yarbles to you.
WE ARE ANONYMOUS.
WE ARE LEGION.
WE DO NOT FORGIVE.
WE DO NOT FORGET.
EXPECT US.
But we're not all idiot newfags.
Peace out /b/rothers."
"The church - which consists almost exclusively of Fred Phelps, a 76-year-old preacher, and 75 members of his extended family...10 lawyers in the family! As above, it's a fucking RACKET.
... It claims to have conducted 25,000 pickets since its formation in 1991, almost all of them anti-gay. Mr Phelps first drew national attention when he protested at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay man beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998.
The church reckons its spends $250,000 a year on air fares and other protest expenses. The bills are paid by the family, which includes 10 lawyers among Mr. Phelps's 13 children."*
And I'm trying to figure out how the Phelps could be dealt with and not coming up with much.I'm sorry to link to it twice in one thread, but I truly believe that this is the best way to deal with the WBC.
Twitter is on fire with the news of an upcoming troll-on-troll feud of Anonymous vs. Westboro Baptist Church. In case you missed it - in an Open Letter, Anonymous allegedly told the anti-gay, fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church to stop the hate now or else "the damage incurred will be irreversible" and "neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover." The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) struck back, telling Anonymous to "bring it!" and that God hates "lousy hackers."posted by ericb at 2:07 PM on February 20, 2011 [8 favorites]
In-between the two, this other Open Letter from Anonymous gained less attention, but told WBC that Anonymous knew it was a trap, and the short-on-money, thrive-on-attention WBC was in fact behind the first Open Letter supposedly from Anonymous.
WBC has made an awful name for themselves with their hate preaching, pushing the limits of freedom of speech with their hate speech. Many Christians find WBC's messages extremely far from Christ-like. Some would call WBC the ultimate IRL (in real life) trolls for such vile acts as provoking mourners outside of funerals for servicemen and women killed in combat. While picketing soldier's funerals, they hold signs such as "Thank God For Dead Soldiers." WBC, led by Rev. Fred Phelps, also picketed funerals of six Arizona shooting victims and are notorious for their anti-homosexual messages and "God Hates Fags" signs.
Shortly after WBC threw down the gauntlet, and Twitter was set ablaze about the oncoming war, an emergency press release was posted on AnonNews which urged Anonymous not to use DDoS attacks.
Before I could break out the popcorn and settle in to watch the fight, Anonymous News Network posted on Facebook, "V: I was just gonna ignore this for a good long while because it was a stupid call, but looks like Westboro Baptist Church (of "GodHatesFags.com" fame) wants to pick a fight with Anonymous. They're attention-whoring idiots. Meanwhile, on the IRC, a channel #OpWestboro has been started to discuss what to do. It's come down to either overwhelming force or ignoring them entirely: no middle ground."
And then, in perhaps the ultimate slap in the face or just for lulz, Anonymous seemed to yawn at WBC while telling them, "Next time, don't call us. We'll call you."
Anonymous released a press release warning others within Anonymous that it's a trap and urging them not to fall into honeypots meant gather IPs for WBC to sue. It also mentions that Anonymous supports free speech, quoting Beatrice Hall, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Regarding Malor's point that this is a bad idea because the WBC will sue...sue who? Anonymous does what they do and gets away with what they do because they're--wait for it--anonymous.
He leads a brief tour through his church. It adjoins his office: a long room, with a low ceiling and a rusty red carpet and dark, oaken pews. It has enough seating for twice the current congregation of 51....posted by crayz at 6:01 PM on February 20, 2011 [2 favorites]
Indeed, with only a few exceptions, since 1958, the 'congregation' at Westboro has been just the Phelps family. The benefits of calling one's own family a church?
First, one can go into fundraising for oneself instead of gainful employment. Each of us can at last be our own favorite charity. Second, bango to those pesty property taxes. Third, if one owns a business, they can operate it from within their church at a fraction of the honest overhead.
Fred Phelps is basically just an insane man with a psychologically abused and now also insane family, who has become a household term in much of politically aware America because they go out and troll people IRL, and act like the world's biggest possible dickheads about it. Some soldier died in Iraq, guess what that's cause God Hates Fags! It's like if every time a passenger jet crashed due to mechanical failure NORML staged a protest claiming it was because of the drug war. Dickheads
But really, who cares? It's one stupid family and they really can't make themselves known to more than maybe a few hundred of the 300 million people in this country on any given day
Oh, hi CNN!
In the same way that websites that delete or ignore trolls don't attract them, a country that just ignored disturbed, grandstanding idiots like this would see those idiots languish away on their decrepit farms or wind up in a mental hospital somewhere. Instead we get the media dredging through every square foot of cultural muck to find, lookie here, a stupid crazy man who will make liberals just froth with disbelieving rage. Loot at the buttons he pushes!
Fred Phelps should just be the town lunatic from bumfuck nowhere, worthy of a character study but little more. 300 years from now no one will know his name, because his impact on this world is pure infotainment; sound and fury, signifying nothing. And the world burns down around us and look, citizens, look at the funny circus!
DDosing through Tor would be a total dick move.
My tor node, like my open wifi, is mostly for deniability.
Mental: Briefcase ain't here, they must've taken it with them.posted by rhizome at 9:22 AM on February 21, 2011
J.P. Shay: Well, he's gotta come home sometime.
Mental: Maybe we should trash the place, send them a little message.
J.P. Shay: [looks around] I don't think he's gonna get that message, Joe. I mean, the guy's got worms in his living room.
So we've been hearing a lot about some letter that we supposedly sent you this morning. Problem is, we're a bit groggy and don't remember sending it.Clearly someone wrote that memo - someone in Anonymous, according to Anonymous' own definition. How can they claim that no one speaks for Anonymous when it's clear that some people DO speak for Anonymous? How can they claim that they have no leaders when it's clear that some people's opinions hold more weight than others?
We know that YOU in fact posted the Open Letter supposedly from Anonymous.this would be easy to verify if true. But it sounds more like rumor to me.
I had a fun counterprotest idea for the WBC when they were going to come to Tucson after the Giffords shooting..That doesn't sound like much of a counterprotest. More like a counter-performance art that no one gets.
My buddy and I were going to set up a booth selling "GOD HATES FAGS" signs, except make them *really* nice...great design, hand painted letters etc. so the WBC looked like a bunch of cheap asses.
Then our buddy was going to come set up another booth with hate signs across from us.
We would then get in a price war/shouting match until a third friend showed up with HIS signs...
No seriously, when you aren't at work, head over to 4chan.org/b/. scan through some threads. Maybe post something, or don't. Congratulations, you are a member of "Anonymous"I don't become a punk by merely visiting a punk club. I don't become a christian by attending a church.
Shirley Phelps-Roper indicated today in an interview with David Pakman of The David Pakman Show that the Westboro Baptist Church has been targeted by Anonymous, the group alleged to have taken down Mastercard and other websites in response to their handling of Wikileaks in recent months. The authenticity is being called into question, and some have denied that anyone representing Anonymous ever issued the letter which circulated over the last few days.posted by ericb at 4:58 PM on February 22, 2011
During the interview, Phelps-Roper said that she is not afraid of Anonymous, and denied the claims made by Pakman that the church's website has already been down all day. Phelps-Roper also likened Anonymous to "the Pharaoh of Egypt," adding that "God...already has punished and will punish...Anonymous."
When confronted by Pakman with claims made by her estranged brother Nathan Phelps during a previous interview with Pakman that her father, Fred Phelps, physically abused his children, and that physical abuse is prevalent in the Westboro Baptist Church, Phelps-Roper indicated that hitting children is part of "teaching children exactly like their creator told them to do it," causing Pakman to ask later in the interview whether police involvement was appropriate.
In addition to making ad hominem attacks on David Pakman and Phelps-Roper's estranged brother, Nathan Phelps during the interview, she also added that her newest granddaughter, expected to be born today, February 21, 2011, would start being taught the ways of the church, including their anti-gay views, as soon as next Sunday.
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posted by ericb at 10:02 AM on February 20, 2011