The date was January 14, 2008. A video featuring Tom Cruise discussing Scientology was leaked to the internet and posted on Youtube. It featured Mr. Cruise making various statements such as "Scientologists are the only ones who can help at a car accident" and "They are the authorities on kicking addictions to drugs, disease and other afflictions", all while the theme from Mission Impossible played in the background.
Scientology called foul on this and contacted Youtube to have the video removed . They stated that the video was "edited to make them look bad" and demanded it be deleted or else legal action would be taken.
This caused a major commotion across the internets. Various users and websites did not agree with this course of action. Taking a line from Wikipedia: "Nick Denton of Gawker.com stated: "It's newsworthy, and we will not be removing it.". Many people re-uploaded the video to Youtube and various other video hosting outlets.
Anonymous has a good/bad reputation across the internet. Anonymous causes bits a chaos here and there from flooding forums of various topics to hi-jacking Myspace pages and changing them around to make it amusing to themselves and others, much at the cost of the original user's grief. Anonymous does it for the "lulz" (or as FOX NEWS refers "a corruption of LOL). Anonymous has no leader and no real command structure. Something gets mentioned, a loose plan is made, and they go with it. If Anonymous were to stand for anything it would be (and essentially is) "Freedom of Speech".
Naturally, this shit-storm over the "Tom Cruise Video" caught their attention, and they DID NOT like how Scientology was handling this situation. Project Chanology was created and plans to "Destroy Scientology in it's current form" was being discussed. They started off with some digital tactics. They harassed the Orgs phone lines, black-faxed them to waste ink, spammed Scientology related forums and DDOS'ed the hell out of Scientology.org. This brought Anonymous into the headlines. It caught the attention of Mark Bunker, long time critic of Scientology and operator of XenuTV.net. He created a new video blog mentioning how he was happy to see so many people taking an interest in Scientology and taking action against the Organization for the corruption and cult-like ways they have. But he didn't like how Anonymous was handling it. DDOS is illegal. Spamming the phone lines/email/fax machines is harassment. It was not the way this should be done. He suggested Anonymous organize protests. Get out of the basements and stand up against Scientology but in a peaceful manner.
Anonymous listened. Mr. Bunker was known to all now as "Wise Beard Man" and they heeded his words. Anonymous began researching, digging deeper into Scientology. They discovered for themselves what terrible things the organization had done. They discovered the story of Lisa McPherson and the horrible fate that befell her. They discovered Jeremy Perkins and the tragedy that happened to his family. This is just icing on the cake.
On February 10th, 2008, THOUSANDS of Anonymous took to the streets outside the Orgs of cities all over the word. They held signs and handed out flyers and informed the public all about this "Cult of Scientology". Headlines were made. The internet was abuzz. People were talking. The internet has come.
Every month since Anonymous has gathered again and again. Each city began organizing "Mini Raids" in between global protests to keep the word buzzing. Various videos and pictures have been posted chronicling these events and inspiring more and more people to join up and stand with Anonymous.
We are the Anonymous of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Here we organize our plans. Here we make our stand. Join us. Find out what you can do to help.
Expect us.