Anonymous has made a grand claim ahead of Tuesday night\u2019s State of the Union address. In a communiqu\u00e9 posted on AnonRelations.net and spread through Anonymous\u2019 social media channels, the hacker collective announced it \u201cwill form a virtual blockade between Capitol Hill and the Internet\u201d such that \u201cthere will be no State of the Union Address on the web tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
What exactly Anonymous has in store for this evening is not detailed in the communiqu\u00e9, nor is it clear whether hackers could indeed disrupt the feeds screening President Obama\u2019s speech online. However, the communiqu\u00e9 took the opportunity to decry the president for some of the worst civil liberties and privacy abuses perpetuated by his administration and to renew the hackers\u2019 tribute to the late Aaron Swartz.<\/p>\n
The message reads:<\/p>\n
Tonight, the President of the United States will appear before a joint session of Congress to deliver the State of the Union Address and tomorrow he plans to sign an executive order for cyber-security as the House Intelligence committee reintroduces the defeated CISPA act which turns private companies into government informants.<\/p>\n
He will not be covering the NDAA, an act of outright tyrannical legislation allowing for indefinite detention of citizens completely outside due process and the rule of law. In fact, lawyers for the government have point-blank refused to state whether or not journalists who cover stories or groups the Government disfavors would be subject to this detention.<\/p>\n
He will not be covering the extra-judicial and unregulated justifications for targeted killings of citizens by military drones within the borders of America, or the fact that Orwellian newspeak had to be used to make words like \u201cimminent\u201d mean their opposite.<\/p>\n
He will not be covering Bradley Manning, 1000 days in detention with no trial for revealing military murders, told that his motive for leaking cannot be taken into consideration, that the Government does not have room for conscience.<\/p>\n
He will not be covering the secret interpretations of law that allow for warrant-less wiretapping and surveillance of any US citizen without probably cause of criminal acts, or the use of Catch-22 logic where no-one can complain about being snooped on because the state won\u2019t tell you who they\u2019re snooping on, and if you don\u2019t know you\u2019re being snooped on, you don\u2019t have a right to complain.<\/p>\n
We reject the State of the Union.<\/p>\n