Intervasion of the UK

The Intervasion of the UK was a 1994 electronic civil disobedience and collective action against John Major's Criminal Justice Bill which sought to outlaw outdoor dance festivals and "music with a repetitive beat". Launched by a group called The Zippies from San Francisco's 181 Club on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, 1994, it resulted in government websites going down for at least a week. It utilised a form of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) known as the Email bomb in order to overload servers as a form of online protest and Internet activism. It was the first such use of the Internet and technology as a weapon of struggle and/or civil disobedience, and preceded the . This fact has yet to be acknowledged by the Electronic Disturbance Theater which claims to have pioneered the technique or the Free Range Electrohippies in the United Kingdom, who appear to have taken most of the credit for the event.

Under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, the definition of music played at a rave was given as: "music includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats".

Sections 63, 64 & 65 of the Act targeted electronic dance music played at raves. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act empowered police to stop a rave in the open air when a "ten or more people are attending, or where two or more are making preparations for a rave". Section 65 allowed any uniformed constable who believes a person is on their way to a rave within a five-mile radius to stop them and direct them away from the area; "non-compliant citizens may be subject to a maximum fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale (£1000)".

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