Since Anonymous is still performing these attacks, I would say that any of them still face the immediate risk of arrest. I sure hope they all understand that, though. I'm gonna feel really bad when every high school and middle school (and elementary school?) in America has one kid get arrested for participating in these protests/attacks.

The distinction here is neither bullshit nor irrelevant. The difference between a firmware trojan and a hardware trojan has huge implications in the types of affected devices, in the potential places where it could have been inserted, and the manner of fixing the issue. Calling something "hardware" just because it resides in a non-removable part of the motherboard (how do you know the chip with the firmware isn't removable, anyways?) doesn't make sense. Maybe the difference is minor to you, but as a person who is researching hardware trojans at a large university, I consider the difference significant and relevant.