[ClearCase_guy]

In the first American Civil War, one side wore blue, the other gray. They marched in formation. They traveled in large groups. There was a definite chain of command.

In the second American Civil War, people will use flash mobs, DOS attacks, and coordinated anonymous campaigns against well-defined geographic locations.

I don't expect to see ordered battles like Antietam.
I don't expect to see (much) street fighting like Fallujah.
Orlando? Chicago? Philadelphia? I think I may already see the war.

[Bad~Rodeo]

I think I may already see the war

Oh it's on alright and make NO mistake that some of these groups would not stoop to blackmail to get their way

[The_Reader_David]

Interesting thought, but what we see now doesn’t look much like most FReepers’ idea of ACW II, which is likely to pit defenders of liberty against a manifestly tyrannous Federal Government. The hacktivists and flash mob organizers by and large seem to have left sympathies like the “anarchists” who smash things to protest cuts in government “services”.

I guess a hastily organized FReep of a political target might be a sort of pro-liberty “flash mob”, but where are the resolutely pro-liberty hacktivists? If there were a group of hackers thoroughly dedicated to liberty and as technically competent even as LulzSec or (the supposedly lone wolf) The Jester, we’d by now have Obama’s educational and Illinois Senate records published online along with a dump of documents about the project he and Ayers ran on the Annenberg Foundation’s dime, or definitive tenchical proof that the records had been scrubbed.

In a way I’m surprised it hasn’t happened. My impression is that hackers, politically, range from libertarian to “trustifarian anarchist”. The libertarian wing should be about as offended at the Obama administration as we here are.