Ivan Eland 
Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty, The Independent Institute

Hysteria Over North Korean Hacking Is Unwarranted

Posted: 12/22/2014 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-eland/hysteria-over-north-korea_b_6366480.html

In the latest exaggerated media frenzy over a news story, the North Korean hacking of Sony Pictures' computers has been called "cyberterrorism" against "who we are" as a country." First, "terrorism" is word that should probably be retired from public usage, because no one, including academics, can agree on what it means. The term is overused and abused by governments (and thus the lapdog media), including the United States, to describe usually groups, but sometimes countries, that they don't like. For example, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose country is on the U.S. list of nations who sponsor terrorism, regularly describes rebels trying to overthrow him as "terrorists" (some are even more brutal than he is, but others may not be). The United States gives Assad that label because he provides support for Hezbollah and Hamas, organizations that are on the U.S. list of terrorist groups, primarily for their actions against Israel. If a working definition of terrorism is deliberately killing civilians to generate public pressure on their government to change political course, then these groups sometimes use terror techniques and sometimes do not -- when they try to kill Israeli soldiers or win public support by providing services or aid to the people they govern. Of course, some academics shy away from this definition, because it might implicate their own governments.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-eland/hysteria-over-north-korea_b_6366480.html