On Thursday, the Arizona Department of Public Safety announced that LulzSec had hacked the department’s computer system, downloaded and published hundreds of files, including the home addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of state troopers.

LulzSec issued a statement that said that they had hacked the system because they oppose Arizona’s “papers please” law, SB1070. Their statement was as grandiose and ludicrous as any issued by 1960’s radicals. The Arizona state police didn’t pass that law. Most of the state’s sheriffs opposed it. State troopers have less to do with implementation than the individual sheriff’s jurisdictions. LulzSec said the files related primarily to the U. S. Border Patrol and counterterrorism operations. They couldn’t even hack the right agency. The Department of Homeland Security is not famous for its co-operative relations with local law enforcement. The whole Federal government law enforcement system, in fact, is notorious for jurisdictional obsessiveness. LulzSec has promised to release more documents as a way to “embarrass authorities and sabotage their work.”

The publication of personal data about the troopers has placed their families in danger.