Sony plans to release 'The Interview' as Obama calls North Korea hack attack on Sony ‘cybervandalism,’ not ‘act of war'

Sony will find a way to release "The Interview" after a North Korean cyberattack led the studio to cancel its premiere, Sony's lawyer said Sunday.

People will eventually be able to see the film that sparked so much controversy, although it is unclear when or how, David Boies said on "Meet the Press."

"Sony only delayed this," he said. "Sony has been fighting to get this picture distributed. It will be distributed. How it's going to be distributed, I don't think anyone knows quite yet."

Sony's announcement came as President Obama called North Korea's attack “cybervandalism,” not an act of war.

 

Obama plans to move forward with a review over whether to put the rogue country back on to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, he said in an interview aired Sunday.

“It was an act of cybervandalism that was very costly, very expensive. We take it very seriously. We will respond proportionally,” Obama said on CNN’s “State of the Union of the North Korean-led hack. “We have to treat it like we would treat the incidents of crime in our countries.”

“When other countries are sponsoring it, we take it very seriously,” he added. But that's something that I think we can manage through, as long as (the) public (and) private sector is working together.”

The devastating hack began earlier this month when a group identifying itself as “Guardians of Peace” began leaking a flood of humiliating emails sent by Sony executives. But the operation quickly turned more ominous when the hackers threatened terror attacks against any theater who dared show the movie — leading Sony to cancel the Christmas Day release of the $44 million comedy.

 As a result, the White House will review whether to put North Korea back on the government list of states that sponsor terrorism.

“We're going to review those through a process that's already in place,” Obama said. “We have got very clear criteria as to what it means for a state to sponsor terrorism. And we don't make those judgments just based on the news of the day. We look systematically at what's been done. And, based on those facts, we will make those determinations in the future.”

The nation was removed from the list in 2008 after the regime began negotiating a nuclear deal with the administration of President George W. Bush.

Obama also doubled down on his criticism of the entertainment giant’s decision to cancel the release.

“I was pretty sympathetic to the fact that they have business considerations that they got to make,” he said, reiterating message he conveyed during a year-end press conference Friday about shuttering the Seth Rogen flick about a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“Had they talked to me directly about this decision, I might have called the movie theater chains and distributors and asked them what the story was,” he said.

That response, however, didn’t appear to be sufficiently strong-armed for a growing number of lawmakers calling for harsher measures against the North Korean regime.

Former New York Gov. George Pataki, rumored to be considering a 2016 presidential bid, urged the U.S. to declare a “cyberwar” on the brutal isolated nation.

"This is just outrageous," Pataki said during an appearance on John Catsimatidis' 970-AM radio show. "When a small totalitarian country like North Korea can make major United States corporations pull back a movies and limit freedom of speech, there's something terribly wrong."

"At the very least, we should declare cyber war on North Korea," he added. "I don't know to what extent their society or economy is dependent on the ability to communicate electronically, but we certainly have to have the capacity and we should do everything we can now to make the North Koreans pay for this act against the United States' freedom of speech.”

Arizona Sen. John McCain slammed Obama’s assessment of the hacking as “cybervandalism,” accusing the President of failing to understand the incident as “a manifestation of a new form of warfare.”

“When you destroy economies, when you are able to impose censorship on the world, and especially the United States of America, it's more than vandalism. It's a new form of warfare that we're involved in,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We need to react, and react vigorously, including re-imposing sanctions that were lifted under the Bush administration, including other actions that will squeeze them more economically.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), meanwhile, called out Obama for going on vacation immediately after his Friday press conference.

“Saying ‘aloha’ and getting on the plane to Hawaii is not the answer,” Rogers said on “Fox News Sunday,” referring to Obama’s annual family holiday trip to his home state. “This was a nation-state attack on the United States.”