I doubt Anonymous did it. Like others have said, hackers are not all evil. Many of them follow a code of honor and frown upon credit and identity theft. I wouldn't be surprised if certain self-serving members of the group went rogue and did it. But that's not what the group's philosophy is really about. 

That all said, I definitely think they should keep an eye on Anonymous. Especially if former members may be involved.

Haha, it seems to be the opposite of this actually. 

Without Sony or Epsilon present, much of the hearing focused on potential data protection legislation that would create some kind of process for auditing a company's data security measures to make sure they conform to best practices. Breach notification rules were also discussed, and the Federal Trade Commission pushed for Congress to give it civil penalty authority to go after companies that lose data through carelessness; in the last 10 years, the FTC has brought cases against 34 such companies, though it is currently limited in the penalties it can seek.

So currently, no legislation exists, and they discussed what laws should be made. Looks like Sony is scot-free for this case.

I read that as they aren't scotfree. They can be fined, but not substantially from the government.

Pretty sure that won't prevent the class action lawsuits being filed against them from various people 

congress is very reactive to situations.  after one occurs there is often times pressure to make it look like they are doing something to make it better. 

No, he was wrong originaslly.

What about those cases? Are they government related only now?

Lol so the government that looses a laptop with all the information concerning 70 millions veterans is going to sue companies for bad security...LOL

You mean like the US military? I have yet to figure out how kill people in Libya or Iraq has made me more free but rather made my freedoms disappear.

OT: Sounds like a plant. It is very easy to plant a text file like that. Anonymous isn't for mass destruction and stealing people who have nothing to do with anything's info. Yes doxing Kaz and the Sony employees is Anon's game, not millions of PSN user accounts. Sounds like a general hacker wanted CCs to sell on the market. Probably the same hacker that hit Steam a year back.

i'm not sure what you excatly meant by this part ... protect consumer rights to modify their property?

i don't think congress will see it like this.  they will see the millions of consumers that had their private information stolen.  i imagine if any laws are passed it will be to A) regulated minimum security standards for business B) stronger more comprehensive laws to prevent hackers from hacking.