Overview

Day of Vengeance is an Anonymous-led campaign organized in direct response to the arrests of several Anonymous members during the #OccupyWallStreet protests and the FBI hunt-down of Lulzsec hackers and the execution of Troy Davis, a man who was convicted and executed by lethal injection for murder of a police officer in Savannah, Georgia. ^[7]

Background

On September 17th, 2011, hundreds of people gathered in lower Manhattan amidst heavy police presence and barricades for #OccupyWallStreet and "Day of Rage" protests elsewhere, a flashmob campaign launched by Adbusters to demand the U.S. government to end the influence of corporate interests in politics. Throughout the week, as many as seven protesters were arrested and taken into police custody on various charges.

On September 21t, F.B.I. announced it has arrested several members of the hacking collective Lulzsec across the United States, one in San Francisco, another in Phoenix and the third in Ohio. Anonymous has quickly responded to the arrests by releasing an official communique as well as plans and logistics for retaliations. On the same day, the execution of Georgia state inmate Troy Davis led to a number of protests across the country, including Operation Rainbow Dark and Day of Vengeance.

Development

On September 21th, 2011, a document entitled "Communique From Anonymous"^[1] was posted to PasteBin, calling on people to organize a series of peaceful protests across the United States.

Anonymous & the other cyber liberation groups around the world together with all the freedom loving people in the USA will NOT stand for this. We will peacefully yet forcefully resist the abuses of the NYC Police Department. And so Anonymous announces a nationwide "Day Of Vengence" to take place in dozens of cities across the USA on Saturday – September 24, 2011 at High Noon.

Unlike the previous operation #OccupyWallStreet, the announcement was near instantly reported by major news media outlets including CNetNews, PCMag and Time Magazine's Techland. The communique declared that September 24th protests would also coincide with the launch of cyber attacks on "Wall Street, Corrupt Banking Institutions – and the NYC Police Department."^[1] The text file directed readers to the Twitter account @PLF2012^[2] for additional updates on the situation.

@PLF2010 links to the Peoples Liberation Front^[3], a group founded in Cambridge in 1985 on the idea that electronic communication should belong to the people, with a history of hacking into phone lines before working on the web.

On Twitter

External References