Westboro Baptist hacked for planned Sandy Hook protests
Twitter has suspended an account linked to Westboro Baptist Church, either for messages detailing the group’s plan to picket the funerals of those killed Friday in the Connecticut school shootings or because the account has been hacked by the group Anonymous.
The URL for Westboro’s Twitter feed only says the account of church spokesman Shirley Phelps-Roper has been suspended.
Phelps-Roper, hours after the shootings in Newtown, Conn., tweeted “‘Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment.”
Westboro Baptist, which has just a handful of members in Topeka, Kan., has been in the news before, of course. It first gained notoriety for anti-gay protests at the funerals of U.S. soldiers.
Anonymous hackers must have been displeased, reports are the group hacked the church’s website — godhatesfags.com — and took control of Phelps-Roper’s @DearShirley Twitter account.
Examiner.com reports the hack is the work of a 15-year-old who goes by the name CosmoTheGod. The California teen is already on probation for hacking NASDAQ, so he might want to enjoy the online accolades while he’s still allowed to look at a computer screen.
The hacking group had recently published private emails, home addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers of Westboro members.
The hackers also want the White House to declare Westboro a hate group. An online petition has 183,000 signatures in four days.
Slate says the urge to cheer for Anonymous should be contained.
“Westboro may be the closest thing to an embodiment of evil that we have handy,” writes Will Oremus, but the tiny church is “best ignored.”
Meanwhile, residents of Newtown, Conn., many of whom are preparing for the funerals of 20 children and six adults, have created a Facebook page where they are making plans to block church members from picketing near mourners.
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51 comments Add your comment
BubblesB
December 18th, 2012
2:39 pm
26 innocent people were murdered. Some idiot group is going to “protest” – protest what? Funerals for the innocent? If they are trying to tell the grieving families that they should be happy and celebrating the fact that they will never see their loved ones again, I don’t think they’ll have very many takers. Shame on them all.
Westboro Baptist hacked for planned Sandy Hook protests – Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) | Computer Security Info
December 18th, 2012
2:46 pm
[...] Westboro Baptist hacked for planned Sandy Hook protests – Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)Google News wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAtlanta Journal Constitution [...]
rob
December 18th, 2012
2:51 pm
Let someone go into this church with a gun, kill all of its members so the rest of society can DANCE ON THEIR GRAVES!!!!!!
kevin
December 18th, 2012
2:54 pm
I’m a Christian. The folks at Westboro are just as deranged/lost/crazy/etc. as the guy who did the shooting on Friday. They should call themselves Westboro-ians, not Christians, because they clearly don’t understand the Gospel.
(the other) Rodney
December 18th, 2012
2:54 pm
Westboro is not a church. They are a hate group masquerading as a church.
If you need proof, you can stream (on Netflix, and probably others) “Fall From Grace” – with interviews with Phelps and his brood. It took me three tries to watch it – had to keep stopping it and would come back to it later.
ncgreybr
December 18th, 2012
2:58 pm
One of these days those idiots are going to show up at a funeral and start protesting and a grieving father or brother is going to go back to his car and get HIS automatic weapon and come back and solve THEIR problem! I doubt if there is a jury in this country that would find that father guilty of murder. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.
Taxi Smith
December 18th, 2012
3:02 pm
Sometimes, the right to free speech just drives you crazy. But if you shut them up…who’s next?
Dawgfan
December 18th, 2012
3:04 pm
Northof 100: It is not that God doesn’t act or changes the course of natural events as He already knows what will happen. God did not cause this…SIN did and God will not be associated with sin. As a neophyte christian, I too have trouble wrapping my head around something as terrible and tragic as this and can’t even begin to imagine the incredible amounts of pain and suffering. However, it is times like these that God not only walks with us, but carries us, through these trying times. We just may not know it at the moment.
..and I agree with Rodney, Westboro not a church, but are a hate group and have twisted the Word to their own hateful ends.
BTW
December 18th, 2012
3:15 pm
I hate to share this, but for the sake of “shedding light” on why these wackos are protesting in Newtown, CT…here goes:
This came straight from their website!
The blood of the #Newtown dead is on the hands of every
preacher, teacher, parent & leader of Connecticut.
How many more of your children will you sacrifice to your filthy
f@g marriage?! You prove you hate your kids by making
Connecticut one of the first states to institute f@g marriage.
Marrying & giving in marriage. You marry wives (divorce &
remarriage) and give men in marriage (same-sex marriage), just as
Christ said would happen just before the time that He returns in
power and glory, taking vengeance on the disobedient (Luke 17; 2
Thes.1). The truth is, your children are better off dead, than raised
for such great wrath and destruction as you have brought to this
land. What sorrow! What lamentation! What woe! No hope for any
child of this nation outside of Westboro Baptist Church. Teach
them to fear God, or leave them to desolation, darkness &
destruction.
As sure as day follows night, these people will be destroyed in the worst way.
Blue
December 18th, 2012
3:17 pm
North of 100: Not all Christians are “trying to be good” for some kind of “reward”. SOME of us are relying on our faith and what we believe to be the sacrifice (Jesus) that was made for the very fact that I cannot BE good enough to earn it. And then some of us do try to live good lives. And as a Christian, I don’t look down my nose at someone who isn’t, I don’t try to brow-beat them into believing as I do, and I don’t judge them. And I certainly don’t get on a blog and then demean them for their beliefs as you did. Try a little tolerance to go along with your ignorance.