The U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday it was looking into an unauthorized access of a website server, after hacker group Anonymous released data collected from it. Anonymous on Monday claimed it had hacked the United States Bureau of Justice, releasing 1.7GB of data taken from the server. According to the group, the data included internal emails.

"We are releasing data to spread information, to allow the people to be heard and to know the corruption in their government," the group said in a statement posted online.

The The Bureau of Justice Statistics "collects, analyzes, publishes, and disseminates information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government."

The department confirmed that it has been looking into the unauthorized access of a website server operated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that contained data from their public website.