The hacking group Anonymous claimed responsibility today for shutting down the websites for the Thirty Meter Telescope and state of Hawaii.

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The hacking group Anonymous claimed responsibility today for shutting down the websites for the Thirty Meter Telescope and state of Hawaii.

“Nothing will ever justify the destruction of ecosystems; filthy money can never replace them. Stand with the Hawaiian natives against #TMT,” hackers said on a website called “Operation Green Rights” (http://tinyurl.com/tmthack).

TMT spokeswoman Sandra Dawson said the hackers appear to have created a traffic spike that overwhelmed the website. The site itself wasn’t breached, she said.

The site (www.tmt.org) was restored by 1:45 p.m. It was offline again at about 2 p.m.

“It didn’t impact us. It just made it hard to get in,” Dawson said after the first disruption.

“This is the global Internet environment,” she later added. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Dawson said the Canada France Hawaii Telescope had its phone system interrupted last week when it received hundreds of phone calls an hour. The calls were traced to Denmark, she said.

The state’s website (https://portal.ehawaii.gov/) remained offline at 2:10 p.m.

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KAHEA, a group representing Hawaiians and environmentalists, said on its Facebook page that Anonymous “answers to no one” and is not affiliated with those protesting the TMT in Hawaii.

“This is a sign that the matter is serious,” KAHEA said. “And it is not diminishing, by any means. We pray that aloha will prevail in all, and ask that everyone join that prayer.”