Release The Hounds

Hacker group Anonymous has announced its latest corporate web target:  the FOX News website.  But I'm not convinced they've thought this through politically.

In a video statement carried recently by several official channels maintained by members of the hacker activist group “Anonymous,” a digitally generated voice explains that the online collective has decided to take down the Fox News website on Nov. 5th of this year.

The date, Nov. 5, is significant for its dramatic placement in the film and comic book “V for Vendetta,” about a freedom-loving terrorist who destroys an authoritarian government that’s come to power in the U.K. “Remember, remember the 5th of November,” is his saying, hearkening back to the “Gunpowder plot” of 1604, in which the terrorist Guy Fawkes was captured and executed for his attempt to blow up Parliament.

The mask used by the Guy Fawkes character in “V for Vendetta” has also become a ubiquitous symbol for “Anonymous.”

To mark this 5th of November, the latest “Anonymous” video points to the network’s “continued propaganda against the occupations” as reason for vowing to “destroy the Fox News website.”

“Since they will not stop ridiculing the occupiers, we will simply shut them down,” the digitized voice explains, adding that an Anonymous-driven “propaganda campaign” against Fox News would follow.

“Fox News, your time has come,” it concludes. “Operation Fox Hunt. November 5th. May the hunt begin.”

I'm not sure how good of an idea this is considering A) how good FOX is at playing the victim card and B) given the fact they have a number of cable networks at their disposal.  They're going to enjoy this as much as Anonymous, I should imagine.  Anything substantial of course will instantly get them inducted into membership of "Obama's army of digital thugs" with cries that Eric Holder should be fired for not stopping the group before.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they took down their own website and blamed the President.  I certainly don't mind seeing FOX get smacked around, but I completely see Murdoch's network using this as a distraction from their own major problems.

We'll see if anything happens.  Either way, I suspect FOX is eagerly looking forward to the date.