The government targets 'Anonymous' for the same reason it targets al-Qaida - because they're the enemy.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Anonymous is not an organization. It is an idea, a zeitgeist, coupled with a set of social and technical practices.
Al-Qaida is a worldwide organization. It's a continuous threat.
Governments regard their own citizens as their main enemy, and they have to be - protect themselves. That's why you have state secret laws. Citizens are not supposed to know what their government is doing to them.
The government must give proper weight to both keeping America safe from terrorists and protecting Americans' privacy. But when Americans lack the most basic information about our domestic surveillance programs, they have no way of knowing whether we're getting that balance right. This lack of transparency is a big problem.
Seeing Anonymous primarily as a cybersecurity threat is like analyzing the breadth of the antiwar movement and 1960s counterculture by focusing only on the Weathermen.
It's because we need to determine who in this country is poised, positioned to commit terrorist acts.
It's never a good thing to see a government agency talk in secret about the need to 'control protestors' - especially when that agency is charged with protecting the homeland against terrorists, not nonviolent demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceable dissent.
I'm not quite as anonymous as I was.
Anonymous sources are a practice of American journalism in the 20th and 21st century, a relatively recent practice. The literary tradition of anonymity goes back to the Bible.
Law-abiding citizens value privacy. Terrorists require invisibility. The two are not the same, and they should not be confused.