Anonymous Threatens to Block All Webcasts of the State of the Union

The hacking collective Anonymous has issued some pretty hefty threats before and made good on many of them. For example, it just recently hacked into the Federal Reserve's system to get bank executive names. But will it be able to succeed in its latest threat to block all webcasts of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, which beings at 9 p.m. EST?

Unlike its threats a couple years ago to take down Facebook, which the main news source of the loosely connected hactivist group claimed Anonymous as a whole didn't support (and the hack never happened), this time @YourAnonNews, which breaks more reliable news about the hackers' operations, has announced several times #opSOTU.

A Message From #Anonymous to the President of the United States - anonrelations.net/mrpresident-11… | #opSOTU

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 12, 2013

Join the #opSOTU action at AnonSET - bit.ly/12J6are | #Anonymous

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 12, 2013

#Anonymous Launches #opSOTU: Plans To Kill State Of The Union Address Live Stream - webpronews.com/anonymous-laun…

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 12, 2013

Anonymous is threatening to take this action, in part, due to the House Intelligence Committee's plans to reintroduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), but also because the president would not be addressing during his speech the indefinite detention of citizens, killing of citizens with military drones and warrantless wiretapping, among other topics.

"We reject the State of the Union. We reject the authority of the President to sign arbitrary orders and bring irresponsible and damaging controls to the Internet," the group's statement read. "The President of the United States of America, and the Joint Session of Congress will face an Army tonight. We will form a virtual blockade between Capitol Hill and the Internet."

As the Washington Post pointed out, one commenter on an Anonymous' chat room wrote such an attack would "require a pretty large DDOS, or a pretty impressive hack."

To which another responded: “Anonymous is pretty impressive."