In November 2014, during the wait for a grand jury’s decision whether to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown, the KKK reportedly threatened to attack Ferguson protesters. Anonymous then commandeered a KKK-linked Twitter account and exposed social media accounts it said belonged to KKK members. The hacktivist group leaked the details of around 1000 KKK member on Pastebin including links to the personal Facebook and Google+ pages of the Klan’s supporters. The paste also contains links to Google+ pages of regional white power, white pride and KKK groups across the US. Anonymous made the announcement of the tweet through @Operation_KKK Twitter account.
With Love, Anonymous — Operation KKK (@Operation_KKK) November 5, 2015 The list comes with a 1,000 word letter explaining the “anons” publishing the names “will not support acts of terrorism and acts of hate inflicted upon the public”. “We understand this initiative is extremely controversial and we know we will face much criticism for this operation and our work will be heavily scrutinized,” the group said in its letter, before going on to say the data dump is intended as a “form of resistance against the violence and intimidation tactics leveraged against the public by various members of Ku Klux Klan groups throughout history.” Earlier this week senior US politicians were forced to deny any affiliation to the KKK after another apparent hacker collective, claiming links to Anonymous, posted a number of separate lists online. @Operation_KKK has denied it had anything to do with the previous lists, tweeting: “We have released only one list” and it also stated the only list it would publish would be on November 5 — in homage to Guy Fawkes.
