Guantanamo Bay Wi-Fi Shutdown Due To Threat From Anonymous

Guantanamo Bay Wi-Fi Shutdown Due To Threat From Anonymous

A pledge from Anonymous through Twitter resulted to the shutdown of Wi-Fi access on Guantanamo Bay Naval Base by the US military.

According to Lt. Col. Samuel House, the Wi-Fi of the base was shut down due to the public plan of Anonymous of disrupting activities at the prison. The shutdown also banned the use of all social media including Twitter and Facebook. Although no disruptions were noted, the hacking collective promised to go after the base located in Cuba.

The online protest was launched to show unity with the prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, who are on a hunger strike in the past few months. The campaign was publicized by the group through a number of “Twitter Storm” packages that had a number of hashtags that referred to some days in the month of May.

The Twitter Storm packages of Anonymous indicated that the hacker collective aimed to increase awareness of human rights violations happening at the base through social media. It also aimed to increase awareness of the indefinite custody of prisoners, including those were supposed to be released a long time ago.

Most of the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were on hunger strike. The strike was in protest against prison conditions and the indefinite confinement of many prisoners.

The shutdown was not the only problem facing the base recently. A number of files have reportedly disappeared from the computers of the lawyers who are representing the inmates. Many of the files of the lawyers were also found on the computers of the prosecutors. It remains uncertain what happened to the files or whether the disappearance of the Guantanamo Bay files was due to an illegal action.

Posted by James Fried on Tuesday May 21 2013, 9:58 AM EST. Ref: CNET. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0