Anonymous Targets U.S. Makers of Crowd Control Tools

The Anonymous hacker collective lashed out against two companies it accuses of selling crowd control technologies to repressive regimes and to law enforcement, the Associated Press reports.

Web sites belonging to Combined Systems Inc. (CSI) and Sur-Tec Inc. were both down on Friday. The hacker-collective took responsibility for the attacks, calling both companies war-profiteers and posting internal e-mails, lists of customers and sensitive data from CSI on the Web site Pastebin.com.

CSI of Jonestown, Pennsylvania sells a wide range of weapons and crowd-control devices to law enforcement, governments and other clients. The company's customers include international law enforcement and military organizations. The company found itself in the news last year when protesters and journalists discovered that Egyptian forces were deploying CSI tear gas canisters in Tahrir Square.

CSI has been the subject of protests and online criticism since its work with the government of deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak were disclosed. A blog post in January called attention to company sales to the governments of Egypt, Israel, Guatemala and other regimes.

A separate attack against Surtec.com, a CCTV surveillance company owned by former FBI director Clarence Kelley yielded that company's administrative password.

The hack comes on the anniversary of the uprising in Bahrain. At the time of publication, the website belonging to Combined Systems Inc. was not accessible.

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