Anonymous says U.S. senators were 'incorrectly outed' as KKK members

Nine names, 23 email addresses and 57 unlabelled phone numbers were published by hackers lastweekend as part of an Anonymous-organized effortto "unhood" members of theKu Klux Klan.

There are doubts, however, about the #OperationKKK data dump's veracity and about one file,in particular, that alleges fourU.S. senators and fivemayors havehate group associations.

"These are the officials that have political power in the usa that are associated with either kkk or racist related," reads a document posted to PasteBinby an individual calledAmpedAttacks onSaturday evening. "Addresses will not be released so nobody gets it in their mind to take out their own justice against them."

All nine politicians listed in that file have since issued public denials of their involvement with any hate groups, many of them expressing shock, hurtand outrage over the allegations.

Still, news that Klan members are being identified by#OperationKKK(as Anonymous pledged would happenlast week)continues to spread online.As of Monday afternoon, the story was atopGoogle'sU.S. trends list.

To clarify the situation,Anonymous took to Twitter on Tuesday evening to share the handle of"the twitter account that released the pastebin with the government officials that are clearly not KKK" with its nearly 1.5 million followers.

"The actual release for Operation KKK will be 5 Nov," the account stated.

The main account used by Anonymous for its anti-KKK campaign, @Operation_KKK, also weighed in to say, in part, that "#OpKKK was in no way involved with today's release of information that incorrectly outed several politicians."

Amped Attacks has taken credit for the file that linked nine politicians to the KKKon Twitter as well.

He wrote:"i am not apart of anonymous nor have i ever claimed to be. i am my own man that acts on my own accord. i do however respect #OpKKK."

The #OperationKKK campaign continues to promote Nov. 5 as the date it intends to reveal the names of 1,000 alleged KKK members.

Still, as many others online caution, Anonymous suggested on Tuesday that appearing on such a list does not necessarily make someone a hate group member.

"Regarding #OpKKK: the phone numbers and e-mail adresses were found on KKK website databases.Be careful with the information and fact-check,"wrote@YourAnonNews. "Anyone can provide fake information when signing up to a website, reporters should be aware of this."