WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.159 [Zoraida Sambolin]... 6:23 in the East, and new this morning 00:00:02.159 --> 00:00:04.249 The US government's websites are now back online 00:00:04.249 --> 00:00:07.872 after facing a major attack from online activist group Anonymous, 00:00:07.872 --> 00:00:13.816 Anonymous lashed out after the Department of Justice busted the downloading site Megaupload. 00:00:13.816 --> 00:00:17.113 Authorities arrested four people, including the site's founder. 00:00:17.113 --> 00:00:21.249 Anonymous retaliated by shutting down the DoJ and FBI websites, 00:00:21.249 --> 00:00:24.451 as well as sites for several major entertainment companies. 00:00:24.451 --> 00:00:27.887 And here with the latest is Amber Lyon, she spoke exclusively 00:00:27.887 --> 00:00:31.556 with members of Anonymous. What did they tell you? 00:00:32.510 --> 00:00:35.457 [Amber Lyon]: Well, they said that yesterday the shut down of MegaUpload.com 00:00:35.457 --> 00:00:38.446 was really the straw that broke the camel's back 00:00:38.446 --> 00:00:42.748 we've seen Anonymous protesting anti-piracy legislation all week 00:00:42.748 --> 00:00:46.788 legislation such as SOPA, they say after this website was shut down, 00:00:46.788 --> 00:00:50.643 almost immediately Anons started gathering in online chatrooms 00:00:50.643 --> 00:00:52.825 discussing what they were going to do, and they began 00:00:52.825 --> 00:00:58.398 what is known as Distributed Denial of Service attack against these US government websites 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 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 00:01:08.708 --> 00:01:13.723 this operation they called it, it was called...Op Megaupload. 00:01:13.723 --> 00:01:17.187 They were watching it very closely, and here's what they had to say. 00:01:18.669 --> 00:01:24.799 So Anonymous sees the shut down of MegaUpload as a type of internet censorship? 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 00:01:32.276 --> 00:01:35.155 regard the internet as sort of independent from any governments 00:01:35.155 --> 00:01:38.499 and they regard a government interfering in the free flow of the internet 00:01:38.499 --> 00:01:40.542 as stepping outside of the jurisdiction. 00:01:40.542 --> 00:01:43.979 How long did it take for the Department of Justice's website to go down? 00:01:43.979 --> 00:01:45.790 I would give it seven to eight minutes, not even - 00:01:45.790 --> 00:01:47.323 Seven or eight minutes? 00:01:47.323 --> 00:01:50.016 I say seven minutes. 00:01:50.016 --> 00:01:53.778 Is - What was the thoughts within Anonymous that it was that easy 00:01:53.778 --> 00:01:56.370 to take down the Department of Justice's website? 00:01:56.401 --> 00:02:02.323 With enough power, and with enough manpower you can take down really much anything 00:02:02.323 --> 00:02:07.077 It's basically the power of an absolutely massive group of people coming together 00:02:07.077 --> 00:02:11.518 they're not happy, and this wouldn't be possible with one or two people 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. 00:02:19.790 --> 00:02:26.007 Those Anons were covering up their faces because they wanted to conceal their identities, obviously. 00:02:26.007 --> 00:02:30.047 On the other side of things the Department of Justice says that this site was 00:02:30.047 --> 00:02:32.927 Allowing the illegal upload of copyrighted material 00:02:32.927 --> 00:02:37.571 Costing the industry somewhere near half a billion dollars a year 00:02:37.571 --> 00:02:41.426 But you talk to Anons, the other side they believe this was some type 00:02:41.426 --> 00:02:44.629 of internet censorship, Zoraida. 00:02:44.629 --> 00:02:47.416 [Zoraida Sambolin]: Well they have that kind of collective effort that they can do this 00:02:47.416 --> 00:02:50.017 A twitter account that is affiliated with the group said 00:02:50.017 --> 00:02:56.472 that FBI.gov is next to go down. Did they talk about that, what was next? 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 00:03:02.044 --> 00:03:05.945 yesterday, and there's still traffic going online saying that Anons 00:03:05.945 --> 00:03:10.869 are targeting more websites today. We'll be monitoring that all day on CNN. 00:03:10.869 --> 99:59:59.999 [Zoraida Sambolin]: Alright, Amber Lyon, thank you so much.