When "Hacktivism" Crosses the Line

Today, the Internet hacking group LulzSec announced "Operation Chinga la Migra", which translated from Spanish means "Operation Fuck the Border Patrol". In this operation, they have released sensitive information relating to hundreds of Arizona law enforcement officials. Here is what they said in their press release, published tonight:

"We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.

The documents classified as “law enforcement sensitive”, “not for public distribution”, and “for official use only” are primarily related to border patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest movements."

Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarassing [sic] personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust “war on drugs”.

Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common oppressors – the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world. See you again real soon! ;D

First off, this is beyond reckless behavior on LulzSec's part. Yes, elements of SB1070 are questionable in terms of legality and racial discrimination. Yes, the U.S. government and corporations are engaging in some immoral and destructive behavior towards the middle and lower classes of our society. But this hack does nothing to combat these injustices. Instead, it puts innocent people, who have played no real role in implementing SB1070 or other "injustices", in harms way. Police officers have no choice but to enforce the laws that are on the book. If their goal was to make a point about the racist elements of Arizona's immigration law, why not hack the Governor or state legislators? Don't get me wrong, I don't condone (most) hacking operations, but their stated source of anger and the group they targeted do not match up.

Secondly, their threat to release more classified police and military documents in order to "purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust 'war on drugs'." is complete bullshit. Wall Street is polluted with greed and corruption, our elected officials are ignoring their constituents and selling themselves to the corporations, the Chinese, Syrians, and Iranians restrict Internet access to millions of their people, and these hackers state that railing against the war on drugs is their primary goal? That is absurd. This isn't what hacktivism is supposed to be. This is some group of 18 year old kids who are pissed off that they can't smoke a joint in public without getting arrested. So spare me with all of the moral high ground claims.

I do support certain elements of hacktivism, Wikileaks in particular. I believe that they are doing good work in accurately portraying the real costs of the wars we are fighting, and the diplomatic cable leaks gave the American public insight into how our government officials conduct themselves in relation to foreign affairs. Julian Assange has been treated unjustly, and I personally believe that he has been framed in regards to the sexual assault allegations against him. LulzSec, however, is accomplishing nothing with their hacks. They are only promoting total anarchy, and the major players in Operation Chinga la Migra deserve to be arrested. What they have done is not activism. It's stupidity, plain and simple.