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Anonymous's chain-smoking collaborator Barrett Brown insists that the previously cancelled Operation Cartel is most definitely a "Go!" And the whole danger of getting people killed? That's old hat for the hacktivists. Often erroneously referred to as the collective's spokesman or former spokesman, Brown says he's been in touch with the Anonymous members leading the operation, who have decided to release a cache of over 60 names of people that have collaborated with the notoriously brutal Zetas cartel in Mexico on November 5. While he brushes off any official role, Brown has been the "public face" of Anonymous since early 2010 and has represented the organization accurately in past exploits, like the Sony Playstation hack earlier this year. (Brown wrote in The Guardian that Anonymous didn't do it and had been framed; spin-off group LulzSec later claimed responsibility.)
As all things Anonymous tend to do, however, the confusion over the Operation Cartel being cancelled leads us to reserve some skepticism about what's true and what's being misreported based on hearsay and Twitter chatter. "It actually was initially cancelled but the decision was made without the input of everyone involved," Brown told The Atlantic Wire, adding that the story wasn't misreported this time but lacked all the details. "After it was cancelled we got to talking about it, and the video got a whole lot of views. [Members of Anonymous] had a vote amongst themselves and decided to go ahead."