In responding to the pizza legislation, the news media demonstrated that it is capable of using a bizarre story to educate. Meanwhile, Kelly demonstrated just how Fox News continues to serve as an embarrassment to journalism.

First, the pizza. In a law on school lunches, Congress declared pizza to be a vegetable. The tomato paste used as sauce on frozen pizzas is apparently nutritious enough to be in the same food group as peas, corn and celery.

The news media pounced on the story. They talked about why the decision was made (real shocker here: it was corporate lobbying) and why it made very little sense. The chemical composition of frozen pizza sauce was mentioned on more than one occasion.

It’s nice to know that when lobbyists exercise their influence to make ridiculous laws, the news media will seize on it. I doubt the same will apply in more complex cases, but at least the idea of corporate influence in politics has been made tangible to anyone who knows what a vegetable is.

Though in some ways, the coverage leaves a number of questions unanswered. For example: does this mean that Pizza Hut can solve America’s obesity problem? Will Gatorade ever become a fruit? Does Herman Cain’s time as the CEO of Godfather Pizza make him Jamie Oliver’s perverse predecessor?

Okay. I’m done now.

Meanwhile, on Fox News, Megyn Kelly made a similar upgrade to pepper spray. In a conversation about the now internet famous ‘Pepper Spraying Cop,’ she explained to Bill O’Reilly that it is “essentially a food product”

An ordinary talk show might have brought on an expert in the field of police work or first amendment law, or even someone involved in the protest or UC Davis police department.

But this is Fox News. This is a network on which hosts often bring other hosts onto their shows to give sweeping opinions on subjects that they typically have second-hand knowledge of.

Kelly’s defense was that she eventually told O’Reilly that pepper spray was abrasive and that she didn’t know whether what the officer in question did was legal. She urged readers to watch the whole clip, in which she said one positive thing about the protestors.

What struck me about Kelly’s statement was that she admitted to knowing next to nothing about a topic she came on The O’Reilly Factor to discuss and that she seemed to know little about pepper spray other than the fact that she carries it.

I understand that Fox News needs to keep up its image as the conservative network, but does it really have to be a laughing stock, as well? If the network would just replace some of its talking heads with a few more authoritative ones, it could go a long way to becoming a more serious news source.

The alarming tweets that were sent out in the early morning of July 4 detailing false accounts of President Obama being shot and killed has attracted the attention of the international news media and the Secret Service, which investigates all threats made against the president.

The Script Kiddies representative, who once again spoke to us on a firm condition of anonymity, said that despite the picture their tweets painted, they had no intention to directly threaten the President.

“No harm was intended, nor ever was he in any threat whatsoever, when the tweets about President Barack Obama were posted,” wrote the representative, again via instant message.

“We were not threatening Barack Obama, only hoping to attract publicity to #antisec and ruin whatever ‘credibility’ Fox ever had in the first place,” they continued. Antisec is short for anti-security, a movement that calls for greater transparency of information held by corporations and governments.

The conversation marked the first time the hacker group claimed outright responsibility for the tweets about President Obama, and the first time they admitted to an anti-Fox News motivation for the tweets.

Several references were made to Fox News as Unfair and Unbalanced, a common criticism of the conservative-leaning network that brands itself as “Fair and Balanced” in promotional materials.

Coverage of our initial story included comments from the Secret Service referencing a full investigation into the group. When we spoke with The Script Kiddies on Thursday, they had not yet been contacted by the agency.

“It seems they opened a full-blown investigation; for what purposes I have no clue…” wrote the group’s representative. “Seems to me Obama gets 30+ death threats a day. Maybe they should investiagate [sic] something else.”

The Script Kiddies offered their own theory about why federal officials were paying so much attention to their group.

“Perhaps they’ve grown desperate to try and catch SOMEONE, because, let’s face it, they can’t touch Anonymous or LulzSec,” the individual wrote, referencing two other hacktivist organizations that have made international headlines by attacking the websites of corporations and government entities over the last several months.

Secret Service spokesman George Oglivie declined to comment on the hackers’ assertions or on the investigation itself beyond stating that the investigation is ongoing.

Think Magazine has also been part of the Secret Service investigation, and reporter and Editor at Large Adam Peck met with agents on Friday. Think Magazine declined to provide any information that would help investigators identify the hackers in the case, citing strict journalistic confidentiality we maintain with those sources that ask for it. We did offer full transcripts of our conversations with the hacker organization, and have decided to publish the full transcripts from our conversations online. Our initial conversation can be found here, and our conversation from Thursday here.

The Script Kiddies made a point to clarify that they never wished President Obama harm, nor ever meant to word their tweets as threats. But while the group was backing down from their sharp words about President Obama, they ramped up their criticism of Fox News.

“We wish no harm to President Obama; The Unfair and Unbalanced Fox News though, I can’t say as much for,” the representative wrote.

Vice President and General Manager of Fox News Digital Jeffrey Misenti was not immediately available for comment on Friday.

The hackers defended their actions and have framed this  as a first amendment issue.

“Freedoms are there for a reason; freedom of speech and press. Hacking is a crime, but so is propaganda and corruption; two things Fox News loves to incorporate into its media,” they wrote.

Think Magazine will continue to follow this story as it develops.

Two quick notes: the majority of this initial conversation took place in the early morning of July 4, before any tweets about President Obama were sent out. We did not know that those messages would be sent, and if we had, perhaps this conversation would have gone differently.

Secondly, what would have certainly differed is our seeming endorsement of the group. At the time we did–and admittedly still do–stand by the message that  The Script Kiddies and other organizations like Anonymous and LulzSec are trying to relay: one of transparency, openness in our government and our corporations, and at a more baser level, greater attention to security in the digital age.

Where they lose us is in some of the actions these groups choose to employ to spread that message. A hack meant to highlight gaping security flaws or uncover corruption, or even just to showcase a hacker’s skills, can be justified, if not always rightfully. But hacks that target sensitive personal information (credit card numbers, bank accounts, passwords) with the intention of revealing it, or hacks that masquerade as serious breaking news as is the case in this instance crosses a line. We take the Script Kiddies at their word that the Obama tweets they sent were not meant as a threat and were merely tools of increasing their exposure, but there was not enough attention paid to the serious implications those messages could have had not just on the people who may have seen the message and panicked, but on their own legal safety as well.

With that said, below are the unedited messages we exchanged with The Script Kiddies starting at 12:38am EST on the morning of July 4.

At the time, the group claiming responsibility, The Script Kiddies, had not been hiding its identity or its intentions. On the Fox News Politics feed under their control, the group made themselves available for interviews with the media via AOL Instant Messaging.

Naturally I dusted off my AIM account and sent them a message. For the next 15 minutes I exchanged several messages with an anonymous person claiming to be a part of The Scripts Kiddies for an article that ran last night (and has since exploded).

A few things should be noted here: I don’t know, and have no way of verifying, the identity of the person I spoke with last night. I asked for a name and, unsurprisingly and understandingly, I did not get one.

But for what it’s worth, I firmly believe the individual I spoke with is part of The Script Kiddies. The AIM account that was used was mentioned directly by the person or persons who were posting to Twitter.

There will also be questions about why I did not ask about the shocking and false updates about President Obama that have now made news around the country

The simplest answer is that those updates came after I conducted the interview with The Script Kiddies, while I was writing the initial article. Once the first few updates mentioning President Obama were sent out, I returned to AIM to ask them about it.

2:04 am: “Ok, now I’m confused. Does Fox News have control of its Twitter account or not, because that last tweet that just came out over TweetDeck suggests otherwise

The Script Kiddies: i cannot confirm that at this time.

Stay tuned.

2:14 AM

Me: Alright, I’m going to assume that in fact Fox News does not have control of its Twitter feed because they would not be tweeting the false shooting of the president then linking back to you.

TSK: assume what you want.

That’s where the conversation ended for the evening. Because I know there will be questions, and because news reports out there woke up this morning missing a crucial half of the story, let me recap a bit:

And because we’ve already gotten questions from curious readers about it, I find it necessary to state for the record that neither myself nor anyone else from Think Magazine was aware of what was going to happen before it did. We do not know the identity of The Script Kiddies, nor would be divulge their identities if we did. I happened to be at the right place at the right time, that is all.

By all accounts, the latest round of updates are still the workings of hacker group The Script Kiddies. See our story below for an interview with a representative of the group.

Earlier: Late Sunday night, The Huffington Post reported that Fox News Politics’ Twitter account had been hacked by a group calling itself The Script Kiddies.

Think Magazine was able to conduct an interview with the organization just a few minutes after they blasted several messages out to Fox News Politics’ 33,000 followers.

The hack is just the latest in a long and growing line of media companies that have been subjected to cyber attacks from groups like The Script Kiddies and, more famously, Anonymous and LulzSec.

“I would consider us to be close in relation [to Anonymous], 2 of the members of our group were members of Anonymous,” said a representative of The Script Kiddies, who, for reasons that should be quite clear, asked to remain, yes, anonymous. “I was a member of Anonymous. We hope to be working with them soon.”

The Script Kiddies are looking to join and build upon the efforts of Anonymous and the now-defunct LulzSec in the antisec movement. Corporations and government entities have been prime targets for so-called hacktivist groups looking to uncover and expose information they feel the public has a right to know.

“We are looking to find information about corporations to assist with antisec. Fox News was selected because we figured their security would be just as much of a joke as their reporting,” said the Script Kiddies representative.

The selection of Fox News as a target seems to have less to do with their politics as it does with the fact that they represent corporate America.

“It will be a never ending battle,” said the representative. “The names change from time to time like LulzSec and Anonymous or Script Kiddies. But their will always be a group of people that need to stand up for everyone else and attempt to keep the government in balance with it’s people. Without groups like Anonymous, what is there to prevent corruption?”

By 1:30 am, The Script Kiddies said that Fox News was aware they had been hacked, and at the time of this publishing it remains unclear whether Fox has regained control of its Twitter profile.

But Fox News may not be out of the woods yet. The Script Kiddies suggested that today’s Twitter hack was just the beginning for the News Corp.-owned outlet. “I’ve looked into their security and site defacement does not seem to be an option. Everything else,” said the representative, “is fair game.”