Anonymous - Message to the United States Government 2016

The Anonymous collective may have started off as chat room pranksters and small-time hackers targeting individuals and corporations who they disagreed with, but it has since developed into a major national and global movement with the capacity to topple Governments and influence the masses of entire nations.

In Tunisia, in 2011, Anonymous members crashed the stock market, and simultaneously sparked widespread protesting and anarchy, which ultimately resulted in the toppling of the Tunisian Government, after which at least one of the Anonymous members who orchestrated the movement claimed a position within the new Government. Another faction of Anonymous was responsible for hacking into the Government websites of multiple nations, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States Senate, and several other organizations, while under the supervision, but not control, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

These actions, along with many others, show the power and capabilities of the collective should they decide to use them, and illustrate the need to develop the means and methods to effectively differentiate their factions, and to target, monitor, counter and potentially subvert Anonymous operations when they do in fact pose a threat.

What is the real threat to National Security posed by Anonymous today, and how dangerous could this most recent declaration of War on the United States Government really be?