1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,159 [Zoraida Sambolin]... 6:23 in the East, and new this morning 2 00:00:02,159 --> 00:00:04,249 The US government's websites are now back online 3 00:00:04,249 --> 00:00:07,872 after facing a major attack from online activist group Anonymous, 4 00:00:07,872 --> 00:00:13,816 Anonymous lashed out after the Department of Justice busted the downloading site Megaupload. 5 00:00:13,816 --> 00:00:17,113 Authorities arrested four people, including the site's founder. 6 00:00:17,113 --> 00:00:21,249 Anonymous retaliated by shutting down the DoJ and FBI websites, 7 00:00:21,249 --> 00:00:24,451 as well as sites for several major entertainment companies. 8 00:00:24,451 --> 00:00:27,887 And here with the latest is Amber Lyon, she spoke exclusively 9 00:00:27,887 --> 00:00:31,556 with members of Anonymous. What did they tell you? 10 00:00:32,510 --> 00:00:35,457 [Amber Lyon]: Well, they said that yesterday the shut down of MegaUpload.com 11 00:00:35,457 --> 00:00:38,446 was really the straw that broke the camel's back 12 00:00:38,446 --> 00:00:42,748 we've seen Anonymous protesting anti-piracy legislation all week 13 00:00:42,748 --> 00:00:46,788 legislation such as SOPA, they say after this website was shut down, 14 00:00:46,788 --> 00:00:50,643 almost immediately Anons started gathering in online chatrooms 15 00:00:50,643 --> 00:00:52,825 discussing what they were going to do, and they began 16 00:00:52,825 --> 00:00:58,398 what is known as Distributed Denial of Service attack against these US government websites 17 00:00:58,398 --> 00:01:03,181 that's a type of attack where so many computers flood a website with so much traffic 18 00:01:03,181 --> 00:01:08,708 that it causes it to shut down. I spoke exclusively with some of these Anons who were watching 19 00:01:08,708 --> 00:01:13,723 this operation they called it, it was called...Op Megaupload. 20 00:01:13,723 --> 00:01:17,187 They were watching it very closely, and here's what they had to say. 21 00:01:18,669 --> 00:01:24,799 So Anonymous sees the shut down of MegaUpload as a type of internet censorship? 22 00:01:24,799 --> 00:01:32,276 Exactly, it's a violation of freedom of speech, and it's... Anonymous and a lot of other movements 23 00:01:32,276 --> 00:01:35,155 regard the internet as sort of independent from any governments 24 00:01:35,155 --> 00:01:38,499 and they regard a government interfering in the free flow of the internet 25 00:01:38,499 --> 00:01:40,542 as stepping outside of the jurisdiction. 26 00:01:40,542 --> 00:01:43,979 How long did it take for the Department of Justice's website to go down? 27 00:01:43,979 --> 00:01:45,790 I would give it seven to eight minutes, not even - 28 00:01:45,790 --> 00:01:47,323 Seven or eight minutes? 29 00:01:47,323 --> 00:01:50,016 I say seven minutes. 30 00:01:50,016 --> 00:01:53,778 Is - What was the thoughts within Anonymous that it was that easy 31 00:01:53,778 --> 00:01:56,370 to take down the Department of Justice's website? 32 00:01:56,401 --> 00:02:02,323 With enough power, and with enough manpower you can take down really much anything 33 00:02:02,323 --> 00:02:07,077 It's basically the power of an absolutely massive group of people coming together 34 00:02:07,077 --> 00:02:11,518 they're not happy, and this wouldn't be possible with one or two people 35 00:02:11,518 --> 00:02:16,851 You know, it's one of those things which is very genuinely an expression of how many people are angry. 36 00:02:19,790 --> 00:02:26,007 Those Anons were covering up their faces because they wanted to conceal their identities, obviously. 37 00:02:26,007 --> 00:02:30,047 On the other side of things the Department of Justice says that this site was 38 00:02:30,047 --> 00:02:32,927 Allowing the illegal upload of copyrighted material 39 00:02:32,927 --> 00:02:37,571 Costing the industry somewhere near half a billion dollars a year 40 00:02:37,571 --> 00:02:41,426 But you talk to Anons, the other side they believe this was some type 41 00:02:41,426 --> 00:02:44,629 of internet censorship, Zoraida. 42 00:02:44,629 --> 00:02:47,416 [Zoraida Sambolin]: Well they have that kind of collective effort that they can do this 43 00:02:47,416 --> 00:02:50,017 A twitter account that is affiliated with the group said 44 00:02:50,017 --> 00:02:56,472 that FBI.gov is next to go down. Did they talk about that, what was next? 45 00:02:57,549 --> 00:03:02,044 [Amber Lyon]: Well, they were able to take down FBI.gov for a brief period of time 46 00:03:02,044 --> 00:03:05,945 yesterday, and there's still traffic going online saying that Anons 47 00:03:05,945 --> 00:03:10,869 are targeting more websites today. We'll be monitoring that all day on CNN. 48 00:03:10,869 --> 99:59:59,999 [Zoraida Sambolin]: Alright, Amber Lyon, thank you so much.