14 DAY TRIAL // Louise Mensch, a member of the British House of Commons, claims that she received an email from someone associated with the hacktivist collective Anonymous threatening her kids.
"Had some morons from Anonymous /Lulzsec threaten my children via email. As I'm in the States, be good to have somebody from the UK police advise me where I should forward the email. To those who sent it; get stuffed, losers," the Conservative MP wrote on Twitter.
She also revealed that the email asked her to get off Twitter, something which she is not willing to do. "I've contacted the police via the House of Commons and the email is with them now. I don't bully easily, kids. Or in fact at all," she added.
It's not clear why Mensch was targeted, but she has recently been in the news for questioning Rupert Murdoch as part of the News International phone hacking investigation.
She also attracted controversy during the recent UK riots when she called for Twitter and Facebook to be temporarily shut down to stop the spread of false reports to police.
This kind of suggestion is likely to strike a chord with freedom of information activists like those supporting the Anonymous movement.
However, sending threatening emails is not exactly part of the group's M.O. It should be clear by now that the group does not hold back from making public threats when there is a consensus.
The threatening email received by Mensch might be the work of a single individual acting alone and using Anonymous to deflect attention away from himself. The loose nature of the hacktivist collective allows anyone to act in its name.
"In my opinion it doesn't sound very likely that the threatening email (which hasn't been released) was from Anonymous or LulzSec. Neither group has a history of engaging in physical violence, preferring to sit behind computer keyboards instead," said Graham Cluley, a security expert from Sophos.
"Whether it was truly someone affiliated with Anonymous or not, a threat against someone's children clearly has to be taken seriously - and Mensch was right to report it to the police," he added.