Trump Goes After Anonymous Email Provider in Italy. The Real Target Is Free Speech in the U.S.

In the latest escalation of the Trump administration’s war on the left, the U.S. government’s designation of a popular antifascist webhosting provider as a terror group could shutter a swath of radical websites in the U.S.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday that they were targeting the Italy-based A/I Collective with terror sanctions. Federal law gives the Treasury Department broad discretion to apply the terror label to foreign groups.

A wide array of anarchist, antifascist, and far-left groups in the U.S. and abroad use the privacy-minded collective’s offerings, including an anonymous email service and its popular noblogs.org blogging platform.

The practice of designating an internet platform and service provider as a terror group — rather than those pursuing violence themselves — has “huge” implications for the future free speech on the internet, warned Jillian York, the director of international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“They are going after the messenger,” York said. “I don’t think that the members of the group would necessarily condone the actions of the people that they hosted. What they do condone is the freedom to host, the ability to be anonymous, the ability to be private.”

The A/I Collective told The Intercept that it is exploring its legal options to fight the sanctions, which block U.S. citizens and companies from providing the group with financial support.

In an unsigned statement, the group said that it denies the U.S. government’s allegations. 

“Antifascism and anticapitalism are not terrorism,” the group said. “Protesting is not terrorism. And everyone has the right to speak out and to struggle for humanity.”

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The U.S. government’s move could have ripple effects far beyond Italy. 

Groups using the A/I Collective’s services range from an anarchist radio show in Asheville, North Carolina; to a blog documenting attacks on anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” under the Jane’s Revenge moniker; to the Seattle Anarchist Bookfair. The bookfair warned Wednesday that its website “will most likely go down soon because of US sanctions on Noblogs.”

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The State and Treasury Departments justified the designation by alleging that the A/I Collective, also known as Autistici/Inventati, has provided services to foreign terror groups, including anarchists who have launched attacks on railroads and pipelines in Europe, and by domestic left-wing groups that have employed violence.

“A/I’s cadre of radical hackers and tech developers provide a full spectrum of services — including encrypted chats and email, web hosting, secure video conferencing and streaming, anonymity shields, and a suite of other technological tools — to Marxist, anarchist, and other left-wing extremist groups in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere,” a State Department spokesperson said in a press release. “These tools are specifically designed to support the operations of far-left terrorist networks.”

It is unclear how many groups in the U.S. could be forced offline, or to shift their providers, because of the terror designation. The A/I Collective said it could not provide an estimate of U.S-based groups that it hosts, because it does not ask its users for any private or personal information.

Nor was it immediately clear whether simply hosting a site using the collective’s services would be illegal if no money changes hands. Still, the collective says that it relies heavily on voluntary, suggested donations, and many U.S.-based groups appear to be scrambling for alternative hosting providers.

The A/I Collective was sanctioned under the Treasury Department’s authority to label groups specially designated global terrorists. U.S. citizens convicted of violating those sanctions can face stiff penalties of up to 20 years in prison.

If U.S. groups continue to use the collective’s services, the U.S. government could use that affiliation against them, said Shayana Kadidal, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. The Treasury Department can even label U.S.-based groups as specially designated global terrorists, although they have more standing to challenge that designation in court.

The designation of the A/I Collective as a foreign terror group is the next step in a sequence that began with Trump’s designation of antifa as a “domestic terror organization” last September, said Mark Bray, a historian at Rutgers University who wrote a book about antifascism.

Where the Trump administration goes next is the “million-dollar question,” Bray said.

“It seems to be they’re playing a bit of a long game,” he said, “where they try to establish the existence of a supposed violent, left-wing terror network — which they have had trouble doing, but they have tried. But then, of course the way they make that affect the left more broadly is to criminalize those who they claim are aligned with it.”