A few weeks ago, Anonymous, the group of activist hackers, declared war on Iceland’s whale hunts. So far, they’ve laid claim to bringing down five government websites, including the Prime Minister’s official site.
Back in the mid-’80s, a global ban on commercial whaling was put in place by the International Whaling Commission. Although Iceland signed on for the ban, whale hunting is still relatively common both there and in Norway, and they’re doing it while a large part of the world screams at them to stop. Both Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Society have wrangled with Icelandic whalers for decades, but so far, nothing has worked. Anonymous, the group that evolved out of the 4Chan board into a global phenomenon battling against censorship, might have the final solution.
They’ve got a pretty decent track record, anyway–in addition to their most recent fight against ISIS, they’ve taken on some very powerful organizations. From their response to the Arab Spring in Egypt, hacking both PayPal and Mastercard when they shut down WikiLeaks’ payment system, to their much-publicized fight against Scientology and the Westboro Baptist Church, Anonymous has been very successful as making life hell for those they deem deserving.
The Icelandic government, it seems, doesn’t care all that much about either public sentiment or the moratorium on hunting whales. In June, they issued a quota of over 150 fin whales and 229 minke whales to local whalers, despite a petition with nearly a million signatures and the 1986 ban.
