Feder: Hacker forces BGA community forum on Cabrini-Green to shut down

An online community forum hosted by the Better Government Association Saturday was disrupted by a hacker who posted images of child pornography and expressions of hate speech before the event was shut down.

The topic of the forum was "Cabrini-Green: A History of Broken Promises," billed as a panel discussion on "one of the biggest land grabs in Chicago history." Cabrini-Green was a public housing project on Chicago's Near North Side from 1942 to 2011.

Although the moderator and panelists did not see the offending images or hear the audio, those who were watching the program were subjected to three still shots of child pornography along with audio and video hate speech. The interruption lasted for four minutes before the transmission was shut down.

David Greising, president and CEO of the BGA, said the organization reported the incident to the FBI's cyber crimes unit and expects a full investigation to follow.

"The panel [was] designed to give voice to a community centered on Cabrini-Green whose lives were disrupted a quarter century ago by the city's plan for transformation, a record of broken promises that was detailed in a year-long BGA investigation," Greising said. "We will not allow hate and racism to impede this important work focused on equity and government accountability."

• Get the full report, and more Chicago media news, at robertfeder.com.