Operation V - Anonymous declares war

Gotta agree.

I was also for stopping SOPA and PIPA, and I just don't understand Anonymous' thought process. How will attacking and Hacking the government (and anyone else for that matter) help or change anything?

This may have already been said on this thread, but it is worth repeating:
Anonymous is NOT a single group, nor is it in any way a formal organization. It is a mass of people with computer science knowledge who make themselves - and they believe - others of common personage and station heard by striking at government and major privite sector institutions over the internet in response to certain events.
Therefore, these messages 'by' Anonymous are more of individuals calling for their members to do a specific task than anything. Whether or not even one in a hundred of their de facto members actually comply or will comply would only be determinable when the actual date of compliance occurs. The individual/individuals who posted the call might not even really be a member or have enough computer knowledge to actually participate beyond some media-making skills to use to put out the original call.
The fact that Anonymous lives up to its name is testimate to its greatest attribute: its ability to fade into the background noise both before and after an attack. This means that the intelligence agencies of the world have increadibly difficult times catching members of the subversive group.
Therefore, the idea that they have 'declared war' makes no sense. Unless there are small groups of members out there making common decisions, there is no real concensus. It may be that in this case a small group of the members or even just a single member decided to do this. It may be that the other, unknown numbers, of members may decide not to participate.

As for Toast's statement:
I don't believe that Anonymous is dead. It is active enough to warrent attention from many groups who, like it or not, are alot more reliable sources of information on what is important and what is not than you are. It is disorganized, but that is part of what it is. So long as there is a single person who choses to follow the example set forth and use computer technology to attack the government, the organization lives on. And the idea will never die.

Chelsea brings up a valid point: what will the backlash be from the government?
Presumably, the members of this shadowy organization have acted for the prime reason that they see some injustice. Presumably, the members will carry on their activities long after the US sets up a firewall. Of course, the chance that the average US citizen will allow the government to go to such lengths is unlikely, threat of Anonymous or not. While they are, as Pedro pointed out, not as knights-in-data-armor as they may think themselves, in the eyes of the public, I have heard little more than mild complaints about inconvinence when they strike.

As for what the US can do to stop them.... It is unlikely that the US will be able to mount a decisive campaign to stop Anon anytime soon. While they certainly may have the resources at their disposal, they will inevitably end up filling the jails, not the prisions. They will arrest a single individual and find them with no real knowledge of others. Every arrest will be an end to that lead. And the legal process of trying all of them will drastically slow the process - and the courts - down, when the common citizen will complain that the courts have more serious criminals to deal with. I shudder to think the lengths that they will have to go to arrest people and the innocent that will probably end up accused as a byproduct.

The bottom line is that whether Anonymous as it is actually practices what it apparently preaches is debatable, but the existence of the organization, as de facto as it is, is certain. The public largely sympathizes with their reasons, but does not support them for varying reason and thus they do not have the appeal that they may think they have. It is unlikely that the whole of their 'members' will join this call to arms and that this will be a significantly underwhelming event in the overall timeline of actions by this group. The US government may be able to stop them, but the fact is that they have not already and any measures that they take to do so will be increadibly messy and alot of people will be caught in the crossfire.

Watch out guys there gonna fly a digital plane into the economy!!! They're going to end up fucking it up for us all.

It seems imperial is the only person who actually understands anonymous. We have people just trashing them cause they inconvenienced them during the PSN blackout.

By the way, don't discuss the mask unless you truly know the meaning. That mask represents a lot more than fags like toast suspect.

"The mask represents resistance against the man..... MAAAANNN! It represents Guy Fawkes, a true freedom fighter, who fought against big government and didn't afraid of anything!"
/ People who don't know shit about Guy Fawkes, the 5th of November, or how any of this really relates to Anonymous.

I miss the good old days when Anonymous were simply know as the guys who trolled the shit out of Hobbo Hotel ( or w/e the fuck that guyshit was called), and Guy Fawkes was just the Epic Fail Guy.

You didn't use man enough in that post.

Look at my sig, now back at your post, now at my sig, now back at your post... Human stupidity...

I oppose any elected government by any OWS, this has NEVER been approved by the general assembly. The Occupy movement is a anarchic hierarchy-less movement. All members are equal.

Can't say I like the Occupy movement. I'm a fan of free-market Capitalism.

Someone involved in Fight Club described "Project Mayhem" as what happens when a bunch of frat boys start taking themselves too seriously. I think it applies here fairly well.

Lolz.

No, they're not, and anonymous isn't one person. It is a collective of 13 year olds in an IRC channel, and they do not act as a group.

Their membership is zero, as they do not have such a thing as membership. Their participants likely number in the thousands, with only hundreds actually having any fucking clue what they are doing. It's also completely impossible that they would ever all agree on anything.

Anonymous does not have leaders, nor does it issue statements as a group. I will not read your dumb shit, but I can confirm that it was written by a single idiot or a small group of idiots, and then shipped out to fool very gullible people. In this case, that person is you.

Link is right about anonymous.

My thoughts exactly.

LOL "Who do we terrorize? Is it really true that the United States government is afraid of us?"