Tea Party Nation claims to be under attack from 'Anonymous'

The Tea Party Nation announced on its website Tuesday that its online forums had been attacked by the decentralized collective of hacktivists known as "Anonymous."

Judson Phillips, the founder of the Tea Party Nation, said the cyber attacks had been "mostly of the juvenile nature." He claimed that members of "Anonymous" posed as Tea Party members and posted offensive content on the website's forum, such as racist messages and pornographic pictures.

"We became aware of what 'Anonymous' intended and have been watching," Phillips said in a forum post. "Through things we have seen and sources we have, we were able to confirm that 'Anonymous' was in fact targeting not only the Tea Party movement but Tea Party Nation in particular."

He added the Tea Party Nation "probably should feel honored that this leftist group has targeted us" because "it means we are effective."

"Anonymous" has no formal structure or political objectives. Anyone is free to join or begin a campaign in the name of "Anonymous" and the success of an operation usually depends on how many others decide to participant.

New operations are posted on websites such as AnonNews.org, advertised on social networking websites like Twitter, or discussed on Internet Relay Chat (IRC). No mention of an operation against the Tea Party Nation could be found at AnonNews.org or on Twitter.

"'Anonymous' is a very formidable group," Phillips continued. "They have taken down websites belonging to governments and major corporations.  There is little doubt if they tried to take TPN down, they could, at least for a while."

The group has targeted the websites of a number of governments, including Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Yemen and Italy. In December 2010, "Anonymous" was successful in taking down Visa, Mastercard and other websites of organizations that refused to do business with secrets outlet WikiLeaks.

Phillips concluded that, being leftists, "Anonymous" only believed in free speech for themselves and not for those who they disagreed with.