Barrett Brown, a sometimes spokesman for the hacker collective Anonymous, said Thursday that the Zeta Mexican cartel had freed a kidnapped member of its group, but that he would continue to battle the violent gang on his own, outside of Anonymous.

Barrett Brown, a sometimes spokesman for the hacker collective Anonymous, said Thursday that the Zeta Mexican cartel had freed a kidnapped member of its group, but that he would continue to battle the violent gang on his own, outside of Anonymous.

The issue has , with some Anonymous members calling for Brown to be stopped lest he get someone killed. Brown was unmoved, arguing in a Thursday Pastebin note that he will not abandon the plan "simply because there is a possibility of retaliation."

Last month, Anonymous that pledged to release data about members of Zeta, as well as those who cooperate with the cartel, unless they released a member of Anonymous who was allegedly kidnapped during a protest in Veracruz. "Give us back our #Anonymous participant or many of you die within a week," Brown tweeted recently.

Brown said Thursday night that "the Anon who had been kidnapped last month by the Zetas has been released, although it appears that the Zetas concerned did not know that the individual was the Anon whose release had been demanded by those who instigated #OpCartel. As such, no bargain has been fulfilled."

Anonymous members in Mexico reportedly have access to documents that expose those who have worked with the cartel. Brown that Anons were working dilgently to verify the authenticity in order to avoid exposing innocent people to danger. On Thursday night, Brown said "those who have been in possession of the e-mails have promised to provide them to me alone, which is to say that everything that proceeds from now on is my own work, and not that of Anonymous."

Brown pledged to "announce the next step in a few days."

Detractors criticized Brown as "foolish" for taking such a public stand (he did not cover his face on that YouTube video), but he called the opposition "among the most degenerate displays I have yet seen."

"The idea that I should refrain from assisting in the naming of probable criminals operating in a foreign country without a working judicial system lest I be murdered is a cowardly sentiment," he wrote. "No individual living in the free world should refrain from working to fight injustice simply because there is a possibility of retaliation."

Not everyone was impressed. "Sorry, gentlemen. #Anonymous majority does not support your idiotic #OpCartel, & YES our opinion matters," tweeted an Anon who goes by the name @Anachrynon on Twitter.

Brown responded that @Anachrynon has "no majority support, we don't need your help, and I left Anonymous months ago."

One Anon who is supporting the #OpCartel effort is a hacker known as Sabu. "How long are we to sit here idle while people die? Idle hands prolong this situation," he tweeted.

Sabu, howver, also said that he doesn't "speak for anonymous ... Those who want to work on the op can, and will."

"No one can take anonymous down as it is an idea. I am not starting a separate group. Accept it. You can't stop me," Sabu tweeted Thursday night.

To that point, those who follow Anonymous will know that the group does not have a central command. If you say you're a member of Anonymous, you're a member of Anonymous. Therefore, while a few members might be focused on the Occupy Wall Street effort, others might be targeting what they consider to be a corrupt government, and more still will be going after violent drug cartels.

Does Anonymous have any dirt on the cartel? Will releasing that information hurt the organization or just the low-level people associated with it? Stay tuned.