The international hacking organization Anonymous says it is focusing its efforts toward protesting the city of Denver’s actions towards the homeless population.
The city began clearing the homeless out of camps downtown two weeks ago.
Two members who claim to be with Anonymous met with Denver7 to explain why they are putting efforts toward cyber attacks against the city.
“There is a form of protesting on the streets and there’s a form of protesting online,” said one man.
Anonymous claims to have hacked into the city of Denver’s system for a short time, also briefly taking down the Tattered Cover’s website. The Anonymous members said the Tattered Cover is a target because of its association with the Downtown Denver Partnership. In recent weeks, the Downtown Denver Partnership has come out as proponents of the city’s camping ban and the homeless sweeps.
“It’s not that they have to leave the Downtown Denver Partnership, it’s that the Downtown Denver Partnership needs to take a different stance,” said one man. "We believe as a collective they’re putting us in a position where these people have nowhere to go, with my communications with homeless people, they’re not sleeping.”
The Anonymous members said the small amount of hacks so far are just the tip of the iceberg. They said the first phase is to raise awareness to the issue, the second phase, to be released in the near future, will be a solution that everyone can live with.
The city of Denver responded with the following statement:
“There is more work to do. Homelessness is not something that happens because of a single issue – people experience homelessness for a wide spectrum of reasons so our approach to helping those who are homeless must be just as broad. In 2015, the City and County of Denver spent approximately $40.7 million on a variety of programs and initiatives for those experiencing homelessness, those at-risk of falling into homelessness and the formerly homeless. This year the city projects it will spend approximately $47.6 million on programs and initiatives geared toward helping this population.”