Internet hacktivist group Anonymous plans to disrupt the 2013 State of the Union Address Feb. 12. (Long Island Press)

Internet hacktivist collective Anonymous is planning to disrupt the online broadcast of President Barack Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address, according to a communiqué received by grassroots activism publicity agency The Sparrow Project.

The message was sent to an email address assigned to a Sparrow Project volunteer Tuesday morning, says a posting on The Sparrow Project’s homepage, and “details a planned effort by the group’s affiliates online to disrupt the online streaming and syndication of the President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, scheduled for 9pm EST.”

“The communiqué goes on to elaborate that this action is in response to a proposed executive order that would reinstate the most protested elements of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Information Act (CISPA),” the publicity grooup writes. “In 2012 a synergistic movement of progressives, legislative reformers, online activists, and autonomous hackers successfully defeated CISPA and another controversial bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Many credit Aaron Swartz and the group which he cofounded, Demand Progress, with coordinating the successful campaign to stop these bills.”

Previous Anonymous DDoS [Distributed Denial of Service] attacks have targeted the White House, U.S. Department of Justice, Internet pedophiles, the Church of Scientology, PayPal and the New York Stock Exchange, among many others. Members are known to don Guy Fawkes masks when appearing in public, as they’ve done throughout the Occupy Wall Street Movement and related protests.

“We are Anonymous,” reads the introduction on cyber chat room AnonSet. “We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”

“Welcome to Operation State of the Union,” it continues, additionally directing users to #SOTU Twitter feed, which was trending. “POST NOW — ENGAGE ALL MEMES — FULL TROLL AHEAD.”

The following is the text from Anonymous’ communiqué sent to The Sparrow Project:

“Article II, Sector 3 of the US Constitution, says the President ‘shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.’

“At 9PM Eastern Standard Time, February [12], 2013 President Obama has planned to address a joint session of Congress to deliver the State of the Union Address. The following day, President Obama will be introducing an executive order, purportedly aimed at bolstering U.S. cybersecurity, after repeated failed attempts to pass legislation through Congress.

“Anonymous has reached a verdict of NO CONFIDENCE in this executive order and the plans to reintroduce the CISPA bill to Congress on the same day. As such, President Obama and the State of the Union Address will be BANISHED from the Internet for the duration of live delivery. So as not to infringe upon the President’s free speech, subsequent broadcasts will be allowed to pass unhindered. This action is being taken to underline a fact that appears to be sorely unrecognized by the Obama Administration — that the Internet is a sovereign territory, and does not fall under the jurisdiction of any nation state.

“We are the natives of this space, and its guardians, and we will fight until death to protect it as a neutral grounds for the unhindered interaction of all members of the human race, so long as they themselves act in harmony with this inviolable principle. Our determination is that President Obama is acting in direct contravention of this principle, and his brief exclusion is an educational, rather than a punitive measure. We hope that its lesson will be learnt. Punitive measures have not been ruled out. — Anonymous”

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges joined plaintiffs and supporters outside the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday, Feb. 6, in speaking out against the Obama Administration’s continued efforts to legalize the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens by the military.

The Obama Administration defended the government’s detention authority before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday against the contention by a group of journalists, scholars and activists that its vagueness allows for the limitless unconstitutional imprisonment of American citizens.

The hearing was the latest in a battle sparked by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who filed a January 2012 lawsuit in Southern District U.S. District Court challenging the constitutionality of a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), signed into law Dec. 31, 2011, which “provides for indefinite detention of United States citizens and permanent residents taken into custody in the United States on suspicion of providing substantial and/or direct support for persons or entities engaged in hostilities against the United States,” according to the complaint.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF NDAA PLAINTIFFS AND PROTESTERS

Linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, journalist Alexa O’Brien, RevolutionTruth Executive Director Tangerine Bolen, along with Icelandic Parliament member/activist Birgitta Jónsdóttir and activist Kai Wargalla, are co-plaintiffs, represented by attorneys Carl Mayer and Bruce Afron. Supporters dub the seven plaintiffs, including Hedges, “The Magnificent Seven.”

“The Act does not define the terms ‘substantially supported,’ ‘directly supported’ or ‘associated forces,’” it charges, and “is sufficiently broad or overbroad as to cause Plaintiff and similarly situated persons to be in foreseeable jeopardy of being brought within its textual provisions.”

The first round of the lawsuit went the way of the plaintiffs, with District Judge Katherine B. Forrest agreeing, deeming a subsection of the provision, known as 1021, unconstitutional, and issuing a permanent injunction on its implementation of indefinite detention in September 2012. The Obama Administration appealed It the following day; the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issuing a stay on the injunction pending the outcome of the government’s appeal.

Hundreds gathered at the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse Wednesday, many holding signs, to protest the provision, labeling it an unprecedented attack on civil liberties and violation of First Amendment rights. They filled two larger overflow rooms after the smaller chamber where the proceedings were held ran out of seats, though the audio in one of them was severely lacking and many strained to decipher what sounded like underwater garbling.

Lawyers for U.S. Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham joined attorneys for the government in presenting oral arguments, during which the three appellate judges pressed both sides of the issue on several details of their positions—pushing the government on its lack of a guarantee that journalists and other citizens wouldn’t be detained under the provision, a concise definition of “independent” journalism, and the plaintiffs on the potential lack of specific language that states they would be.

“This case is one of the most important cases in decades,” Ellsberg told supporters outside the courthouse following the appellate judges’ reserving of their decision, continuing that the provision “overturn[s] 200 years of domestic law to allow the military onto our streets” and hold those suspected “indefinitely.”

“This law seeks to make it lawful to detain U.S. citizens,” said Mayer, who joined Afron, the plaintiffs, Government Accountability Project National Security and Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack, former National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore later that evening at a two-hour long panel discussion organized by grassroots activism publicity and promotion agency The Sparrow Project.

Topics ranged from the lack of transparency in the case of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified materials to Wikileaks and Obama’s use of drones to Occupy Wall Street and major corporations’ stranglehold on elected officials and the legislative process.

Each panelist weighed in on the importance of defeating 1021. O’Brien, founder of the U.S. Day of Rage, talked about an alleged plot to link her group to Islamist fundamentalist movements, a plan exposed on Wikileaks and by confidential sources who apprised O’Brien of this effort. Drake told attendees of the Obama Administration’s attempts to convict him under the Espionage Act and its proclivity to target whistleblowers.

The audience had opportunities to ask all the panelists questions, and Moore—who said he’d contributed to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s bail—presented them with one, too, stressing the need for the public to be informed, rally and take action:

“What’s going to be the tipping point?” he asked.

Hedges, a former New York Times reporter and foreign correspondent for more than 20 years who’s covered a host of groups deemed terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department, said a major problem was that the “corporate coup” has seized the people’s avenues of communication, adding that the Occupy Wall Street Movement is a critical piece of the answer.

“That struck terror in the heart of the corporate state,” he said.

Hedges said he believed the “tipping point,” as he has witnessed in other countries, is “usually something utterly benign,” and stressed the importance of succeeding against 1021.

“What we’re talking about today is the capacity of the U.S. government to make you disappear,” he said.