© Arturo Rodriguez/APPeople wearing masks often used by a group that calls itself Anonymous take part in a rally in Madrid.
Louise Mensch, the Conservative MP, didn't react as perhaps the sender of the threatening email she received on Monday had hoped. She came out swinging - as anyone who knows her even a little might have been able to predict.
"Had some morons from Anonymous/LulzSec threaten my children via email. As I'm in the States, be good ... to have somebody from the UK police advise me where I should forward the email," she tweeted. And then followed up by refusing to be cowed: " I'm posting it on Twitter because they threatened me telling me to get off Twitter. Hi kids! ::waves::".
Sticking two fingers up at Anonymous might have drawn some gasps a while back. (Of course, it's impossible to prove that it really came "from" Anonymous, and many Twitter accounts from members denied the idea: "1. Not discussed in IRC [Internet Relay Chat, the favoured gathering place for Anonymous members]. 2. Email & threats of violence not Anon's MO [modus operandi]. 3. @louisemensch is not important enough," tweeted one such, JohnDoeKM.) But the group is looking less like a force and more like an incoherent rabble as a result of the past two months, when many of its ideals have been washed away in a tide of misdirected hacking, which in turn has led to a number of public defections by people disaffected with its lack of focus.
Comment: Ponerology and COINTELPRO in action! The psychopaths in power know that they can't hold back the tide of free information, but they can certainly do everything possible to corrupt it by placing paid agents within any movement.