Protestors involved in the internet-based form of dissent known as hacktivism (politically motivated hacking) have recently been reclassified as "cyberterrorists" by those government and military institutions that are often the subject of their protest. This essay tries to understand this
reclassification by considering hacktivism as a contemporary form of radicalism.

In an attempt to contextualize hacktivism as radicalism, the essay traces the history of English and American governmental responses to radical protest rhetorics, especially those aimed at the military. The paper reads institutional responses to a 17th century gunpowder plot aimed at James I, to the machine-breaking Luddites, to Missouri pacifists during World War I, and to GI underground presses during the Vietnam war. When read against these discourses, it is easier to understand how and why all forms of hacking and hacktivism have been figured as terrorist activity in contemporary official discourses.

Additionally, by drawing on Paul Virilio's discussion of the relationship between military technology and post-modern politics, the essay argues that the current policy on cyberterrorism emerges from three related places: the aesthetic features of the web itself, the relationship of military technologies to web-based protest, and correlative narratives about both computer hackers and terrorists in American popular and government culture.