Hacktivist group Anonymous has apparently released the personal information of several members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK is a white supremacist group that became famous during the American civil rights era. The group has clashed with Anonymous in the past.

Anonymous started releasing the email addresses and phone numbers of purported members of the KKK on Sunday. "There's no place for racism we're more connected, the time to cooperate and better the world is now," the group wrote on Twitter.

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According to WSBTV, Anonymous intends to release the full information by November 5. This is the date when a U.S. court decided not to charge former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for killing African-American teenager Micheal Brown last year. The decision resulted in numerous confrontations between the police and demonstrators in Missouri.

The hacktivists announced that they will launch Operation KKK or #OpKKK, a cyber attack against KKK sites including social network and media accounts related to them.

Anonymous issued a lengthy statement addressed to the KKK, the U.S. government and ordinary citizens.

The statement explained that Anonymous respects the right to free speech but the hate group's threat to use violence against protestors in Ferguson allegedly prompted them to take action.

The revealation of the identities of KKK members has elicited various comments on many social.

While many applauded the hacktivists, there are some who think Anonymous may be going too far.

A KKK Twitter account has since confirmed that many of the group's sites have crashed as Anonymous launches a major cyber offensive dubbed 'HoodsOff' this week, according to Tech Crunch.

The number of KKK members in the U.S. is estimated be as many as 8,000 people based on data from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Meanwhile, an individual hacker known as Amped Attacks claims he shut down cyber attacks on several Klan sites as well as the Westboro Baptist Church's official site.

He also claims to have secured a list of several prominent politicians including senators and local officials with secret ties to the KKK. This claim is yet to be verified. The hacker said that he examined the email database of the KKK websites that he hacked and found the names and email address of the politicians.