We live in a world of surveillance states, militarized police, and crackdowns on dissent. Meanwhile, corporate behemoths will often ally with the state to shut down dissident speech or aid and abet surveillance. 

In this context, it’s important for independent groups to develop and maintain encrypted communications platforms and independent web hosting.

But the Trump administration recently declared that an Italian tech collective is a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” for doing exactly this. That Italian tech collective is Autistici/Inventati, which operates the independent web hosting service NoBlogs along with other digital infrastructure projects for activists.

The State Department claims that “Autistici/Inventati (A/I Collective) is an Italy-based extremist group that builds and operates the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells and other far-left militants across the world.”

That emphasis on Antifa cells reflects the Trump administration’s ongoing attempt to crack down on dissent by demonizing “Antifa.” This has been the explicit aim of NSPM-7, and it has been central to prosecutions of anti-ICE activists, including the Minneapolis 15 and the Prairieland defendants.

In their obsessive desire to tie all leftist and anarchist dissent to “Antifa,” the Trump administration has made blatantly false claims. The State Department asserts: 

Oregon-based Rose City Antifa has relied on A/I Collective tools and services to organize and incite violent and criminal acts domestically, including an attack on Customs and Border Patrol helicopters that led to a federal indictment. Rose City Antifa also used A/I Collective tools and services to disseminate doxing lists and release illegally obtained personal information of Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with calls for targeted attacks on ICE agents in the streets and “in their homes.” 

However, as Torch Antifa Network points out, Rose City Antifa does not use A/I services and did not carry out these actions. Federal officials are instead referring to communications by Rose City Counter-Info, an entirely different group that does use A/I services. “Rose City” is a common nickname for Portland, Oregon. Not all groups that use this phrase in their name are identical. These outright falsehoods were credulously amplified by reporters at Fox News and the National Review. 

Yet despite the incompetence this shows, designating A/I Collective as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” poses a very serious threat. As C4SS’s Technical Coordinator William Gillis put it, “This is a HUGE attack on basic free speech. Words completely fail me when addressing the potential loss to the anarchist movement of — as the US names it — 5,500 mailing lists, and 10,000 blogs.”

The State Department emphasizes users of the A/I Collective’s services that have allegedly committed crimes, including sabotage and terrorism. But many users are engaged in clearly First Amendment protected activities. These include anarchist bookfairs, antifascist researchers who study and expose far-right groups, the blog of a peer-reviewed academic journal, and an anarchist podcast and radio show. 

The “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” classification subjects Autistici/Inventati to sanctions. This means that purely based on a decree from the U.S. executive branch, anyone who engages in transactions with the A/I Collective becomes vulnerable to legal reprisal. As a result, the collective’s website has been taken down, PayPal has blocked their account, and the Italian bank Banca Etica plans to close their account. 

These sanctions have had a devastating effect on the A/I Collective. As Sabot Media reports, “On September 6, eleven days after the United States placed the Italian technology collective on its terrorism sanctions list, A/I announced that the collective itself will close and that the email, blogging, hosting and communications services it has provided for a quarter century will soon be discontinued.” 

This is a chilling precedent. The executive branch can unilaterally declare that a provider of web hosting, email services, and other communications infrastructure is a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” By doing so, they can impose sanctions, and thereby destroy that provider. This can impose serious costs on speakers, organizers, and researchers that use the providers’ services. And the executive branch can do all of this unilaterally. No charges, warrants, trial, or due process is necessary. 

This enables the executive branch to impose substantial costs on movements that oppose them politically. It enables them to do so without any true checks or balances constraining them. 

As Jillian York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told Reason, “The idea that an organization that is an alternative host—for email, websites, and other services—could be designated a terrorist organization simply for providing a service that a lot of people want…is scary.” 

The intended effect of all this is clear. The Trump administration wants to chill and stifle dissent. They want you to be afraid to speak out. 

Do not give them what they want. Keep speaking out. Keep organizing. Keep dreaming of a better world where all are free.

To learn more about these concerning attacks on free expression, voluntary association, and technological freedom, check out some of the insightful reporting on this case from Sabot Media, CrimethInc., il Fatto Quotidiano, Decode39, the Final Straw Radio, the Outlaw podcast, and The Intercept. Two campaign sites serve to document this concerning case, one operated by Sabot Media and another at https://keepitfree.ai/