Anonymous Philippines hackers deface BSP, MWSS, other sites protesting Cybercrime Law

At the height of the Philippines’s controversial Cybercrime Law, Anonymous Philippines hackers defaced government sites including the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) on Wednesday, September 26. This is, according to their statement, in protest of the new Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

As of this writing, the hackers also defaced websites of the Philippine Anti-Piracy Team, The American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis, DENR Region 3, and the Health Department’s smokefree sites.

Replacing the hacked website is a statement from Anonymous Philippines. Below is a copy of their message:

“The Philippine Government has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Freedom of Expression in the Philippines. 

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 is the most notorious act ever witnessed in the cyber-history of the Philippines, and the language of the bill is cunningly designed to make you think it only applies to individuals who are deep in cyber-technology and doesn’t apply to everyone, but some part of the bill basically says it can imprison anyone who commits libel either by written messages, comments, blogs, or posts in sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or any other comment-spaces of other social media in the Internet. 

New technologies give us new opportunities to connect with a lot of people not only in this country but all over the world. They can also provide us with a medium through which our political, public and even private views can have an immediate and direct impact on individuals, communities and even countries. It is just so disappointing that our government, in adopting our 80-year-old antiquated libel laws to the Cybercrime Law, again seems to have retarded our march with the rest of the world with respect to giving full force to the people’s freedom of expression. 

We ask for a revision of the said bill for the betterment of the Filipino denizens. 

Protect our Right to Freedom of Expression!” 

This hacking incidents made it to the list of Twitter’s top trending topics as netizens share their opinion, mostly positive and in favor of Anonymous Philippines.

Photo Credit: legalnotes

This post was first published at KabayanTech.com.