The Sony Corp logo at the company's headquarters in Tokyo. (Reuters Photo)
A US senator Friday urged Secretary of State John Kerry to consider designating North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism after the FBI concluded the rogue nation was responsible for hacking Sony Pictures.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Robert Menendez wrote Kerry warning that the Pyongyang regime had set a "dangerous precedent" through cyber attacks that were "able to inflict significant economic damage on a major international company."
He also roundly condemned the threats of violence against Sony Pictures that ultimately led the studio cancel the Christmas Day release of "The Interview," a satirical film about a CIA plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
"This is an unacceptable act of international censorship which curtails global artistic freedom and, in aggregate, would seem to meet the definitions for acts of terrorism," Menendez wrote to Kerry.
"I write to urge you to consider the necessity of re-designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism."
The State Department, judging that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was not known to have sponsored terrorist acts since bombing a Korean Airlines flight in 1987, rescinded its designation of DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism in October 2008.
Other lawmakers have also reacted with outrage against Pyongyang, including House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce.
"North Korea is attacking our infrastructure. It is also attacking our values," Royce said.
"We better quickly respond comprehensively to defend freedom of speech in the face of terrorist threats and cyber attacks."
Some lawmakers have also urged Sony to go ahead with its release of the film and not bow to North Korean pressure.
Republican Senator Mark Kirk announced he wanted to screen the movie himself.
"With Sony's surrender to North Korea, I plan to host a movie screening of 'The Interview'" as part of a fundraiser for his re-election campaign, Kirk said Thursday on Twitter.
House Republican Marsha Blackburn said Congress should take steps to allow businesses to interact more comprehensively with US officials when they suspect hacking has occurred.
Congress should put guidelines in place "so that the private sector has the ability to share with government when they spot the algorithms that they think are problematic, and then go ahead and give that to US intel agencies," she told MSNBC.