Hacktivism:
(a portmanteau of hack and activism) is "the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends. These tools include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service attacks, information theft, web site parodies, virtual sit-ins, virtual sabotage, and software development."
-- From SensAgent

At the risk of sounding like a luddite, let me reminisce about the good old days. People used to buy newspapers and read them for their news (which supported jobs like reporters and fact-checkers). People used to actually talk to each other face-to-face, or occasionally on the phone. And when a political statement needed to be made, people showed up in droves with hand-made signs and protested... and they didn't expend more energy recording it on their phones to post online than they did actually participating.

Nowadays of course everything is electronic. News is online, texting has replaced talking, and clicking a button in an email to add a signature to a petition has replaced actually going door-to-door with a clipboard. One of the worst examples of our new electronic age is the advent of "hacktivism".

The problem with hacktivism - unlike real activism - is that it rarely accomplishes anything. Sure it can be hilarious, or can embarrass a company or the government, but it doesn't lead to change. Here are some recent examples...

Recently, PBS produced a story about Bradley Manning, a hero to the hacking community (as well as certain liberal factions). Many people in these groups were unhappy with its less than reverent tone, so they hacked PBS's website:

Did this accomplish anything constructive? It was an anonymous protest by those not willing to show their faces and be accountable. It was also lazy, since the "protesters" didn't even need to bother leaving their computer chairs.

One of the other big hacking stories is Rep Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) twitter account getting hacked. The "prank" was crudely done, and not very creative:

As might be expected, Andrew Breitbart has tried to run with this, to the detriment of his already shoddy reputation.

Another hacker claims to have accessed the FAUX News ticker on their building in NYC and changed it to an economic class message. FOX is claiming the hacking is a hoax. It's only a matter of time, though before it happens for real...

None of these are life-or-death, or anything serious. Most fall under the "prank" category. The reality, though, is that if it's possible to do these things just to make a political point, it's possible to do something much more serious. In anticipation of more serious hacking attacks, the US Government is re-classifying cyber attacks as acts of war:

Is this a good development? On one hand, it seems that it's necessary. On the other hand, it seems like fertile ground for suppression, as well as easy-to-fake false flag attacks to justify military action. Such is the stuff of unintended consequences. Hackers acting under the guise of freedom may actually be triggering a response that makes matters worse.