Anonymous Swears Revenge If Westboro Baptist Church Protests Charleston Shooting Victims' Funerals

Anonymous threatened to hack the Westboro Baptist Church if its members picket the funerals of the shooting victims who were killed last week in Charleston, South Carolina. Anonymous, a loosely assembled group of hackers, said late Monday that it would bring back its ongoing campaign against an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center called “arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America.”

Anonymous replied to a number of tweets from the Kansas church when it promised that WBC members would picket funerals in Charleston. Anons, as members of Anonymous are known, said they would hack the church's website as well as disrupt the actual demonstration.

“The WBC maintains a rather large cyber infrastructure, and we will destroy this entirely by various means,” Anonymous said in a statement. “On the ground, Anonymous will deploy operatives who will initiate our standard operating procedure for dealing with funeral pickets by the Westboro Baptist Church.”

The small church is known for protesting the United States' increasing tolerance of LGBT rights by appearing at high profile funerals – school shootings, combat veterans – holding signs that say things like “Thank God For Dead Soldiers” and “God Sent The Shooter.”

Anonymous previously clashed with the church, posting several members' information online after the WBC promised to upset memorial celebrations for the 20 children who were killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school.