Reports from AnonNews, an “an independent and uncensored (but moderated) news platform for Anonymous” indicate that the members of the hacktivist collective have hacked into and leaked around 1.7 gigabytes of data from the United States Bureau Of Justice Statistics (BJS), a federal agency operating under the aegis of the Department Of Justice.
According to a video posted by the Anons responsible for the leak, hackers initially accessed the information from a website operated by BJS; the website has since been taken down, according to the hackers. The Anons didn’t specify the website through which they accessed this allegedly sensitive data, which they claim contains internal emails and other classified information contained in the site’s database.
Anonymous has uploaded the data they retrieved to The Pirate Bay. (Link)
Here’s a transcript of the video:
Greetings world,
We are Anonymous.
Today we are releaseing 1.7GB of data that used to belong to the United States Bureau of Justice, until now.
Within the booty you may find lots of shiny things such as internal emails, and the entire database dump.
We Lulzed as they took the website down after being owned, clearly showing they were scared of what
inevitably happened.We do not stand for any government or parties, we stand for freedom of people, freedom of speech and freedom of information.
We are releasing data to spread information, to allow the people to be heard and to know the corruption in their government. We are releasing it to end the corruption that exists, and truly make those who are being oppressed free.
The price we pay very often is our own freedom. The price governments pay is the exposure of their corruption and the truth being revealed, for the truth will set us free in the end.
So once more we call on you. Hackers, activists, and freedom fighters; join us in our struggle against these corporate hypocrites.
Toward the end of the video, an unmasked man who appears to be on a television set for Russia’s RT News adds:
What’s next? What’s next is… all they can do is shut down the Internet itself. And we see, how that went for them, in Egypt. And we the people know, that when the government shuts down the Internet, that’s when it’s time to shut down the government.
We are Anonymous.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.And now, expect a whole lot more.
According to what a Department Of Justice spokesperson reported to ZDNet:
The department is looking into the unauthorized access of a website server operated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that contained data from their public website. The Bureau of Justice Statistics website has remained operational throughout this time. The department’s main website, justice.gov, was not affected.
It’s unclear what details may come out of this database dump, whether it will indeed reveal government corruption and conspiracy, as Anonymous claims in the video.
