Occupy sympathiser hacks mayor's website

A supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movements sweeping the nation has hacked into the website belonging to the St. Louis mayor, defacing it and publicly exposing contact information and emails.

The hacker, apparently affiliated with the Anonymous online collective, dumped the contact details of hundreds of Mayor Francis Slay's political supporters, in addition to 2,000 emails sent by Slay since he became mayor in 2001, according to a Reuters report. The stolen information was posted in a Pastebin document, which since has been removed.

The site -- www.mayorslay.com -- also was defaced to include the all-capitalized message: "You can remove the movement from the city, but you cannot remove the movement from your systems!"

The message references Occupy St. Louis, and it may be understandable why members of the movement are upset. According to a report, the city announced Thursday afternoon that protesters have 24 hours to remove their tents from a park where they have been staying. They also must abide by city law, which sets a 10 p.m. nightly curfew at the park.

A call to the mayor's spokesperson was not returned. Slay's website appears to again be working normally.

This article originally appeared at scmagazineus.com