The campaign to prevent the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope from becoming a reality on Mauna Kea has gone absolutely viral.
Maybe a little too viral, according to anti-TMT leader Kealoha Pisciotta, who said the recent cyberattacks on the state and TMT websites don’t really fit into the movement’s style of nonviolent protest.
"We don’t want to see anyone hurt," Pisciotta said. "We want to let everyone know we don’t want to suppress free speech. We need a dialogue to gain a greater understanding of all sides."
The Thirty Meter Telescope website continued to be under siege Monday in an "unscrupulous denial of service attack," said Sandra Dawson, Hawaii community affairs manager for TMT.
First launched Sunday afternoon, the cyberattack was still causing the TMT website server to be periodically unavailable Monday.
"The incident is being investigated," Dawson said.
Also on Sunday afternoon, the state of Hawaii website was down for a couple of hours before it was brought back up on a backup server at 2 p.m., with full site availability restored by 4:40 p.m.
Dawson said it appeared the people who engineered the attack are from outside Hawaii and have no connection to the state.
A blog site known as Operation Green Rights, which claims to be linked to the hacker outfit Anonymous, posted screen grabs of both disabled sites on its page Sunday claiming responsibility for the attack.
"Nothing will ever justify the destruction of ecosystems; filthy money can never replace them. Stand with the Hawaiian natives against #TMT," the blog site said.
Pisciotta said that while she understands the group’s aim of trying to balance power, she doesn’t approve of their methods.
"We don’t need to shut things down. We need to open things up," she said. "We don’t want to see the state government or the TMT shut down. Instead, we want to engage them in a dialogue."
Pisciotta, a former telescope operator who has been fighting the development of Mauna Kea’s summit for years, said the cyberattack appears to be an unwanted consequence of a campaign that has created lots of buzz and excitement around the world thanks largely to the Internet and social media.
Celebrities and famous athletes have helped push the cause further by posting images of themselves with the phrase "We Are Mauna Kea" written on signs and on their bodies, expressing support for the protests and calling for people to sign online petitions.
The stars include actor Jason Momoa of "Game of Thrones," actor Ian Somerhalder of "Lost," movie star Rosario Dawson and singers Nicole Scherzinger and Anuhea. Prominent athletes include former mixed martial arts champion BJ Penn; surfing pros Kelly Slater, Dustin Barca and Kala Alexander; and San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner.
On Monday former Hawaii Rainbow Warriors baseball star Kolten Wong of the St. Louis Cardinals sent out a picture on Instagram showing a bat with the words "We Are Mauna Kea" appearing to have been engraved in gold lettering.
"Excited to swing something that means so much to me! #weareMaunaKea," Wong wrote.
There was a time when only a handful of people were fighting to prevent the development of Mauna Kea, but now there’s a growing army of supporters in Hawaii and elsewhere, many of them recruited online.
There are now 26 websites mimicking the original ProtectMaunaKea.Org website, Pisciotta said. Some of them have a page like ProtectMaunaKea.Org’s "Virtual March," where people post pictures of themselves and their signs from all over the world.
There are numerous blogs, Facebook pages and other sites that have sprung up around the Internet in just the last few weeks. There are no less than seven different online money-raising sites and at least five different online petitions, including one with nearly 57,000 online signatures.
There’s even a Google world map page showing where groups of people and individuals have expressed solidarity against the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope by sharing their pictures through social media.
Some online photos are from real demonstrations, in such places as Pasadena, Calif., home to the TMT Observatory Corp. headquarters, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech; and Palo Alto, Calif., home to TMT funder the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Pisciotta said it’s difficult to control what comes out of a movement that has grown quickly, but leaders will continue to lead by example.
"As long as we continue to use a message of aloha, it can help heal things that otherwise look real contentious," she said.
Astronomers say the 18-story Thirty Meter Telescope will be the most advanced and powerful optical telescope on Earth, capable of viewing galaxies at the edge of the observable universe, near the beginning of time. It won government approvals following seven years of environmental review and more than 20 public hearings.
But the opposition has vowed to stand in its way. Thirty-one protesters were arrested April 2 trying to prevent work vehicles from reaching the TMT site near the summit of Hawaii’s tallest mountain.
