Hacking group Anonymous said Thursday it knocked out the websites of the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice, the Recording Industry of America, Motion Picture Association of America and Universal Music as retribution for anti-piracy efforts by the government and private industry.

In the past, Anonymous has gone after opponents of Occupy Wall Street and WikiLeaks, but starting with the new year, the group has focused on executives who support the legislation known as SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act.

As long as western governments fail to live up to their ideals, there will be those who are determined to embarrass them Over Christmas a busy, secretive group were at work, with their own views on who had been naughty and nice. However it was not Santa's elves, but the amorphous " Anonymous " collective making the decisions. This group of hackers released a vast trove of email addresses …