To those saying the government will just hire these people...no.
The government hires good hackers. If it takes no more than a couple months for the FBI to snag you, you aren't a good hacker. Lulz Sec aren't good hackers, they are simply famous ones, much like Kevin Mitnick. Mitnick was primarily a social engineer, he just convinced people to grant him access to their systems. From there, he did tons of damage, but little actual hacking was involved.
Instead of social engineering, Lulz Sec took advantage of the fact that there are tons of very insecure systems out there. Every single attack I've heard of them doing was a result of one thing, and one thing only. Failure on the part of the victim to prevent the hack. They've been using the most well known, and simple, exploits there are to compromise accounts, occasionally just guessing passwords when the administrator failed to use a secure one.
This barely qualifies as hacking, and certainly isn't impressive. The government won't put these people to use, they're going to crucify them. They're going to use these people to send a message, loud and clear. You are not anonymous, we will catch you and you will go to prison.
Expect maximum sentences in federal prison for all of them, minus Sabu since he cooperated. He'll probably end up with community service or some other slap on the wrist.