May 24, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
It was to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. Family and friends of Swartz, who helped create Reddit and RSS, say he killed himself after he was hounded by federal prosecutors.
The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was taken over early Saturday. It was replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago "a line was crossed."
The hackers say they've infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public.
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