Did Anonymous just issue Rob Ford a warning?

A video attributed to Anonymous, the international hackavist group, posted to YouTube yesterday warns the City of Toronto against interfering with the local Occupy movement. It's difficult to know whether it's authentic or not — and whether there's any weight to the warning — but it does satisfy the conventions of other videos posted by the group, which should be cause for at least some concern on the part of the City.

"The brave citizens of Toronto are peaceful and well-mannered occupiers, and we will not let the City or the mayor that uses vulgar language in public get involved," warns the computer generated voice. "You have said by next week, the occupiers shall be removed. And we say be next week if you do not change your mind, you shall be removed from the Internet. We have already planned for this."

Last month another video attributed to the group promised they would erase the Toronto Stock Exchange on November 7th, but shortly after it was posted a note was appended to the clip indicating that the action had been called off on account of a lack of support for the operation. No such note appears on this video.

One would expect that this is precisely the type of thing that Rob Ford will brush off in pursuing whatever course of action he and the City have already planned for Occupy Toronto, but this adds a whole new level of intrigue for next week, at which point the situation at St. James Park appears set to come to a head.

Photo by Tom Ryaboi