SOUTH PASADENA, Calif.  What the @$%#? This community on the edge of Los Angeles has become a cuss-free zone. So if you're headed to South Pasadena this week, be sure to turn down the volume on that Snoop Dogg CD, and, if the little old lady from Pasadena cuts you off in traffic, don't even think about flipping her the bird. Not that police will slap cuffs on you and haul your sorry, er, butt off to jail in light of the proclamation passed Wednesday by the City Council. But you could be shamed into better behavior by the unsettling glares of residents who take their reputation for civility seriously. "That's one of the purposes of this," Mayor Michael Cacciotti said of his city's proclamation designating the first week of March as No Cussing Week. "It provides us a reminder to be more civil, to elevate the level of discourse." The proclamation will be in effect until Friday, and then the first week of every March hereafter. South Pasadena, a tranquil city of tree-shaded cottages at the base of a mountain range eight miles north of downtown Los Angeles, isn't the first to try to rein in potty mouths. Earlier this year, the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, Mo., proposed banning swearing in bars. Last year, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons called for an industrywide ban on racially and sexually charged epithets. But what's different about the latest push to stop saying in public the words that Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton recently discovered we still can't say on television is that it was proposed by a 14-year-old boy. "My mom and dad always taught me good morals, good values, and not cussing was one of them," said McKay Hatch, the founder of South Pasadena High School's No Cussing Club, during a recent break between study hall and tennis practice. "I've cussed before, I'm not gonna lie to you," Hatch quickly added. "But I try not to cuss any more." He was in junior high school when he became fed up with all the blue language around him. He understood why his friends use foul language: "They just want to fit in like everybody else and they don't know how. They figure if they cuss maybe it's an easy way to do that." But it wasn't for him. "I finally told my friends, 'I don't cuss.' And I said, 'If you want to hang out with me, you don't cuss."' It took a couple of years, but enough friends finally came around that Hatch formed a 50-member club, handed out fliers and called the group's first meeting, held June 1. Nine months later, the No Cussing Club has a website, claims a membership of 10,000 and boasts chapters in several states and countries. Hatch considers his greatest achievement, though, to be getting his hometown of 25,000 to become a cuss-free zone. Cacciotti, the mayor, isn't surprised that South Pasadena started the movement. He noted that the city broke off from its much bigger neighbor 120 years ago when residents unhappy with the saloon trade in downtown Pasadena voted 85-25 to go their own way. By midweek, however, it was unclear just how many people in South Pasadena knew about the no-cussing edict. A clerk behind the counter at Buster's Ice Cream & Coffee Shop just laughed and said, "That sounds pretty funny." David Salcedo, who manages High Life Burgers, a popular hangout near the high school, hadn't heard of it either. But, come to think of it, he said, the language among the after-school crowd has been pretty clean lately. The biggest problem these days, Salcedo said, is kids talking too loudly. "But they're good kids," he added. "They just eat their chili fries and go home." For his part, Hatch hopes his No Cussing Club will lead to cuss-free zones in other cities. He believes it could be a quality-of-life issue, and that there may be less violence if people behave better. "You have to start with the little things," he said. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Enlarge By Nick Ut, AP McKay Hatch, 14, the founder of a 10,000 member-strong No Cussing movement, jokes with his father, Brent Hatch, right, at his dad's restaurant, Wednesday. Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.
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Wikinews has learned that the internet group known only as "Anonymous" has hacked the website of the No Cussing Club (NCC),  nocussing.com, for at least two days in a row. On day one, the group hacked into the website, replacing the content with links to images of alleged e-mail conversations. The e-mails appear to be from the founder's e-mail account, accusing organization members of forgery and using the site for their own personal financial gains. The website was also replaced with Anonymous's logo and a message. On January 22, they again attacked the website, by means of a Distributed Denial-of-service attack (DDoS), bringing it offline periodically throughout the day. Anonymous attacked the Scientology website in 2008 with a DDoS attack, taking it off-line for at least two days.

"It has come to our attention that the creators of the no cussing club, McKay and Brent Hatch have done so at great personal gain. Their material promotes the organization as the brainchild of their 14-year-old son, when actually the material is written by his parents, who also manage his profitable career while using his speaking events to plug their own material," said Anonymous on the hacked website. On Encyclopedia Dramatica, a satire Wiki, they claim further responsibility for the hack and exposition saying they managed to break into McKay and Brent Hatch's email accounts. "the accounts got haxx0rd and via this astonishing development passwords were got and a certain website got its shit ruined." 

According to the NCC's website, it has 20,000 members worldwide, was founded in 2007 by McKay Hatch, a 14-year-old boy, and aims at discouraging swearing in public places such as schools. In 2008, McKay even succeeded in making cussing illegal in his hometown of South Pasadena, California and has appeared on various talk shows such as that of Doctor Phil. However, according to e-mails leaked to Wikinews, allegedly written by the boy's father Brent, a motivational speaker also owning Dawson Publishing, the parents are allegedly using the site and their son's material for their own personal financial gain. Anonymous also claims that the parents have forged some of their son's writings and claim it to be his.

The e-mails allege that Brent along with his publishing company, the name which "nocussing.com" is also registered under, were trying to set up assemblies in the No Cussing Club's name at schools across the United States for US$1,500.00 per show and would then pocket the money, doing the same for postcards they created for churches and schools.

"McKay spoke last night to a group of 40 people, and at the end of his presentation, there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd. I know this is going to work because the message is so important. Thanks for all you do and I hope we can work together for a long time, and of course make money in the process," said Brent in an alleged e-mail conversation on November 25, 2008. Earlier in August 2008, Brent spoke about hoping to reach a "goal" of "2.5 million dollars" by selling thousands of postcards to "schools and churches".

On January 19, 2009, ABC News.com reported that McKay claimed Anonymous was sending him and his family hate e-mail and death threats, nearly 50,000 per day, "almost all of them filled with obscenities" and spam. On the NCC's website, McKay calls himself the "most cyberbullied kid on the planet" because of Anonymous's attacks.
NCC logo. 
"A lot of people were saying I was taking away their freedom of speech," said McKay to ABC News on January 16. "All I was trying to do was raise awareness." He says he formed the club because his schoolmates were sick of hearing people swear in public. Wikinews contacted the NCC to confirm or deny the reports, but would only say that "the FBI is working on it the case" including "our attorney and we will press charges" against those who are responsible for the crimes.

Anonymous is known to prank and hack websites and e-mail accounts. In September 2008, the group hacked into BillOreilly.com, the official website of Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly, exposing personal information of the site's users in a document posted on the internet.

The NCC is located in South Pasadena. According to the California Penal Code §502 part C of the computer hacking laws, depending on the offense if caught, punishments could be a "fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months, or two or three years, or by both that fine and imprisonment, or by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars ($5,000), or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment".

On October 20, 2008, Dmitriy Guzner, aged 18 from New Jersey, admitted to the charges related to carrying out the DDoS attack on Scientology's website. He was subsequently charged with computer hacking crimes and faces a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment.