Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips is claiming that the hacker collective ‘Anonymous’ is attacking the Tea Party Nation website by getting supporters to pose as Tea Party members and post racist pictures and porn.
‘Anonymous’, however, has seemingly not taken credit for the attack, nor is there much evidence the attack came from them.
On Tuesday, Phillips posted (sub. req.) an “urgent” message on the Tea Party Nation site about what he believed to be a coordinated attack by the group: “We heard through reliable sources that Anonymous, the group that attacked a number of websites around the world would be coming after the Tea Party movement and Tea Party Nation. “
He continued:
So far, Anonymous’ attacks have been mostly of the juvenile nature. They have been coming online, posing as Tea Party members and posting racist messages. Those are being deleted quickly. Two nights ago, one of them posted extremely graphic and disturbing pornographic pictures. We discovered it and quickly deleted them. They then sent a suspended message saying, “expect us.”
Phillips also posted the following picture, which he said was forwarded by “a friend” from “one of the sites frequented by Anonymous.”
The group’s preferred MO is a distributed denial-of-service attack, which at least temporarily takes down the targeted site. So far, there’s been no DDOS attack on Tea Party Nation. Of course, ‘Anonymous’ is a pretty loosely organized group, so the attacks are not uniform. On Monday, they leaked what they claimed were e-mails detailing misconduct in Bank Of America’s business dealings.
But the graphic itself is questionable proof that ‘Anonymous’ was behind the offending posts. The site AnonNews, which posts press releases and news reports on ‘Anonymous’ efforts, hasn’t made mention of a recent attack on the Tea Party, or of “Project Reaganomics.”
And the site Encyclopædia Dramatica is described by Wikipedia as an open Wiki that “satirizes both encyclopedic topics and current events, especially those related to or relevant to internet culture.” Encyclopædia Dramatica describes itself as “a central catalog for organized reference pages about drama, memes, e-pals and other interesting happenings on the internets. ED is also the final arbiter of truth and human destiny, and can be used to settle any dispute, anywhere, evar.”
Its motto is “in lulz we trust,” which is referenced in the picture. The Pain_Series page does exist, though (and is incredibly NSFW).
Phillips would not reveal his sources in an interview with TPM, but says he had heard that ‘Anonymous’ was planning to target Tea Party Nation - when he saw the graphic he says it seemed to confirm his suspicions.
He allowed that the graphic could have been fake, but added that it’s from a “source I trust,” and that “based on other information we had, we don’t think so.”
“My belief based on information we have received is that this comes from somebody associated with that group,” Phillips said. He added: “If they believe in free speech, why are they trying to shut down those who disagree with them?”
‘Anonymous’ has taken down other conservative, supposedly grassroots websites. This month, they attacked Club For Growth and Americans For Prosperity in response to the Wisconsin protests.
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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