Members of Anonymous have made good on their pledge to post information on individuals associated with the Ku Klux Klan.
Although this site will not be publishing any of the personal information they released, I think their prefatory statement is important in understanding their thinking on #OpKKK and the Klan. Here’s part of their articulate and thoughtful statement, then:
We hope Operation KKK will, in part, spark a bit of constructive dialogue about race, racism, racial terror and freedom of expression, across group lines. Public discourse about these topics can be honest, messy, snarky, offensive, humbling, infuriating, productive, and serious all at once. The reality is that racism usually does NOT wear a hood but it does permeate our culture on every level. Part of the reason we have taken the hoods off of these individuals is not because of their identities, but because of what their hoods symbolize to us in our broader society.
In media, the Ku Klux Klan is an easy target to pick on. In terms of the KKK, journalists usually print what they want with very little consequence because sensational stories like this generate impressive ad revenue (just like with the bogus OpKKK leak).
We feel it is important to provide accurate information about our observations during this operation. We learned, that aside from our striking differences in overall ideology and behavior, we have found that many members of Ku Klux Klan groups actually have a few important similarities to us. For example, they are mostly poor and pissed off at the the Man. They oppose government surveillance and they generally feel persecuted for free thought. Day to day, some klan members work very hard for very little. This is a common ground we understand all to well. We feel that the ability to find common struggles with those that are very different than ourselves is important. Even if they are filled with hatred. We will never sympathize with the KKK but we do desire to understand them and learn about how they see their world. We do see their humanity, we respect their right to free thought and we know their fear of others is wrong. We also know their behaviors strike fear, anxiety and terror into others. This will no longer be socially tolerated.
In this dox list, you will find official members of various KKK groups throughout the United States as well as their closest associates (most are also in other extremist hate groups). You will see many names with ALIAS beside it. If indicated, these are CONFIRMED aliases. Other names on this list may be aliases, as well. Some aliases we were unable to crack. The klan sometimes hides behind several online identities. Given name or alias, these are the real people underneath the hoods.
It is important to note that many klan members change klan affiliations as well as go back and forth between being klan members and neo nazis etc (sometimes both, if permitted). There is quite a bit of movement between these types of groups (usually due to infighting). For this reason, you will see some names of individuals that are listed as neo nazis and so on. Some members of this list are quite dangerous, sociopathic individuals. Others are not.
Data collected for Operation KKK was gathered over approximately 11 months and those included on this list were identified primarily through HUMINT (human intelligence) data collection strategies. This means that individuals on this list were often identified by human sources of information through both overt (interviewing expert sources) and covert (digital espionage / social engineering) methods. Individuals on our list were also identified through open source intelligence strategies (OSINT). This is a broad array of information and sources that are generally available to the public. This includes: multimedia, academic records and public data. Members often told on themselves to us about their connections with the KKK during various chat conversations we had with klan members and affiliates throughout the course of our operation. You never know who you are talking to on the internet.
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. We hope this body of work speaks for itself. This is the OFFICIAL Operation KKK 2015 intel report associated with the @Operation_KKK Twitter account. The anons at @Operation_KKK are responsible for this specific liberation of information and we have done our best to ensure accuracy and avoid collateral damage to innocent parties. Erring on the side of caution, we removed several names from this list for further evaluation.
We consider this data dump 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.