0:00:00.000,0:00:02.159
[Zoraida Sambolin]... 6:23 in the East, and new this morning

0:00:02.159,0:00:04.249
The US government's websites are now back online

0:00:04.249,0:00:07.872
after facing a major attack from online activist group Anonymous,

0:00:07.872,0:00:13.816
Anonymous lashed out after the Department of Justice busted the downloading site Megaupload.

0:00:13.816,0:00:17.113
Authorities arrested four people, including the site's founder.

0:00:17.113,0:00:21.249
Anonymous retaliated by shutting down the DoJ and FBI websites,

0:00:21.249,0:00:24.451
as well as sites for several major entertainment companies.

0:00:24.451,0:00:27.887
And here with the latest is Amber Lyon, she spoke exclusively

0:00:27.887,0:00:31.556
with members of Anonymous. What did they tell you?

0:00:32.510,0:00:35.457
[Amber Lyon]: Well, they said that yesterday the shut down of MegaUpload.com

0:00:35.457,0:00:38.446
was really the straw that broke the camel's back

0:00:38.446,0:00:42.748
we've seen Anonymous protesting anti-piracy legislation all week

0:00:42.748,0:00:46.788
legislation such as SOPA, they say after this website was shut down,

0:00:46.788,0:00:50.643
almost immediately Anons started gathering in online chatrooms

0:00:50.643,0:00:52.825
discussing what they were going to do, and they began

0:00:52.825,0:00:58.398
what is known as Distributed Denial of Service attack against these US government websites

0:00:58.398,0:01:03.181
that's a type of attack where so many computers flood a website with so much traffic

0:01:03.181,0:01:08.708
that it causes it to shut down. I spoke exclusively with some of these Anons who were watching

0:01:08.708,0:01:13.723
this operation they called it, it was called...Op Megaupload.

0:01:13.723,0:01:17.187
They were watching it very closely, and here's what they had to say.

0:01:18.669,0:01:24.799
So Anonymous sees the shut down of MegaUpload as a type of internet censorship?

0:01:24.799,0:01:32.276
Exactly, it's a violation of freedom of speech, and it's... Anonymous and a lot of other movements

0:01:32.276,0:01:35.155
regard the internet as sort of independent from any governments

0:01:35.155,0:01:38.499
and they regard a government interfering in the free flow of the internet

0:01:38.499,0:01:40.542
as stepping outside of the jurisdiction.

0:01:40.542,0:01:43.979
How long did it take for the Department of Justice's website to go down?

0:01:43.979,0:01:45.790
I would give it seven to eight minutes, not even -

0:01:45.790,0:01:47.323
Seven or eight minutes?

0:01:47.323,0:01:50.016
I say seven minutes.

0:01:50.016,0:01:53.778
Is - What was the thoughts within Anonymous that it was that easy

0:01:53.778,0:01:56.370
to take down the Department of Justice's website?

0:01:56.401,0:02:02.323
With enough power, and with enough manpower you can take down really much anything

0:02:02.323,0:02:07.077
It's basically the power of an absolutely massive group of people coming together

0:02:07.077,0:02:11.518
they're not happy, and this wouldn't be possible with one or two people

0:02:11.518,0:02:16.851
You know, it's one of those things which is very genuinely an expression of how many people are angry.

0:02:19.790,0:02:26.007
Those Anons were covering up their faces because they wanted to conceal their identities, obviously.

0:02:26.007,0:02:30.047
On the other side of things the Department of Justice says that this site was

0:02:30.047,0:02:32.927
Allowing the illegal upload of copyrighted material

0:02:32.927,0:02:37.571
Costing the industry somewhere near half a billion dollars a year

0:02:37.571,0:02:41.426
But you talk to Anons, the other side they believe this was some type

0:02:41.426,0:02:44.629
of internet censorship, Zoraida.

0:02:44.629,0:02:47.416
[Zoraida Sambolin]: Well they have that kind of collective effort that they can do this

0:02:47.416,0:02:50.017
A twitter account that is affiliated with the group said

0:02:50.017,0:02:56.472
that FBI.gov is next to go down. Did they talk about that, what was next?

0:02:57.549,0:03:02.044
[Amber Lyon]: Well, they were able to take down FBI.gov for a brief period of time

0:03:02.044,0:03:05.945
yesterday, and there's still traffic going online saying that Anons

0:03:05.945,0:03:10.869
are targeting more websites today. We'll be monitoring that all day on CNN.

0:03:10.869,9:59:59.000
[Zoraida Sambolin]: Alright, Amber Lyon, thank you so much.