Westboro Taken Down By Anonmous in Response to Newtown Protest Plans

By Ken Storey

Heard of Anonymous, you know the hacktivist community born out of the image based online bulletin board 4Chan that has brought down the sites of groups such as GoDaddy, the Motion Picture Industry of America, the CIA, and the FBI in protest?  Well it looks like Westboro, you know the God Hates Fags group that gains attention to their hatred by protesting any major event or funeral, hadn't until today but by now they have had a pretty hard get to know you with Anonymous.  What's odd is that in 2011 Westboro sent out a letter taunting Anonymous and telling them to "BRING IT."

Well when word got out that Westboro was planning to boycott the funerals in Newtown, CT, Anonymous immediately lept and quickly began taking over all of Westboro's social networks and bring down their sites.  As of 1PM it looks like Westboro has been completely taken off line with the exception of their main twitter account (which oddly includes a Aug 1st re-tweet from Orlando's own WFTV Channel 9).

Anonymous - Message To The Westboro Baptist Church from @kyanonymous on Vimeo.

Westboro has turned to Reddit and are issuing statements through there though this now seems to be mostly filled with those against the church.  Anonymous has also now listed all of the personal information on every member of the hate group, a move that has upsetted Fred Phelps (the leader of the group) and the group but that has brought cheers from many who are against what Westboro does.  Throughout the morning after Anonymous admitted to the take over media outlets and Twitter were abuzz.  Along with the takeover many are turning to the official petitions page at WhiteHouse.gov where a petition asking for Westboro to be declared an official hate group has now garnered over 30,000 signatures since the beginning of the Anonymous take-over.  Search #OpWestBor for all of the latest from Anonymous.

This is still a developing story, check back for details later.