Anonymous claims hack of Texas police website

The group has released controversial email said to have been sent by Texas police officers

Anonymous has attacked the website of the Texas Police Chiefs Association, in retaliation for the arrests of alleged members of the hacker group.

It said Thursday it had defaced the website, and leaked information that was classified as "law enforcement sensitive" and "for official use only". Among the leaked documents were also said to be some private emails from police officers, that had racist and sexist content.

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Anonymous also claimed in a message on Twitter that it had brought down the police website for over three hours. The site which was subsequently restored, and the defacement removed, was however defaced again late Thursday. "It seems they restored the website somehow without removing the backdoors," Anonymous said in a Twitter message.

The Texas Police Chiefs Association did not respond to a request by email for comment.

Separately, Anonymous claimed it had taken down the website of the United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday, as justice argues that "civil disobedience is cyber-terrorism".

The Antisec operation by the hacker group and affiliates is protesting the arrest of people suspected to be its members, including Topiary, the person regarded as the spokesman of Anonymous and another group called LulzSec. Jake Davis, the person suspected to be Topiary, was arrested in July in the U.K. and charged with conspiring with others to conduct DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks against the website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), a British law enforcement institution.

Police in the U.K. said Thursday they had charged two more persons in connection with investigations into online attacks, according to reports. Two others were also charged earlier this week, according to the Metropolitan Police.

Anonymous has been involved in a number of attacks on the websites of U.S. law enforcement agencies and defense contractors, and also government websites in Malaysia, Turkey, and Brazil. Its Antisec program targets governments, law enforcement, and corporations.