Anonymous has played judge, jury and Internet God once more in its attack against Texas Police, exposing racist private email communication between police officers and taking down the main website from the Texas Police Chiefs. Their stated reasons included as retaliation for Texas law enforcement harassing imigrants and an incredible amount of shocking and disparaging emails regarding racism and misogynism.
The police chiefs site was defaced for more than 3 hours before being restored and subsequently defaced again. The site is still currently down.
From an ethical standpoint, this brings up a very similar debate to what Batman has inspired over the years. Is taking the law into your own hands socially acceptable as long as we all largely dislike the victims of Anonymous’ attacks?