Anonymous posts usernames and passwords of US Congress staffers

As a sidenote, it is interesting that water issues underlie so much CA politics even now, many decades later, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

Ben Franklin, 1787

http://www.bartleby.com/268/8/12.html

"Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice—the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but, when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall, at the same time, be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it. The vast number of such places it is that renders the British government so tempestuous. The struggles for them are the true source of all those factions which are perpetually dividing the nation, distracting its councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous wars, and often compelling a submission to dishonorable terms of peace.

And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable preeminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? It will not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your government and be your rulers. And these, too, will be mistaken in the expected happiness of their situation, for their vanquished competitors, of the same spirit, and from the same motives, will perpetually be endeavoring to distress their administration, thwart their measures, and render them odious to the people."

Which is why the idea of a 'false flag' Anonymous operation seems absurd to me, there is no 'false' Anonymous flag, any more than a 'real' Anonymous.

Sure, there are the "core" Anonymous groups that you might associate with LulzSec, but those were very different from the WhyWeProtest Anonymous groups that continue to fight the Church of Schientology, which are in turn different from the Anonymous groups that supported Occupy Wall Street, which are in turn different from those involved in the Arab Spring, which are in turn different from those working with the FBI to take out child porn rings on TOR, etc. They may share some common ideals, and perhaps even membership, but they're all disparate groups and none is more or less Anonymous than any other. The people who did this are just as deserving of the label as those who worked to bypass internet surveillance in Iran, as they both choose to fly the flag.