The modern witch hunt of the Trump administration continues in the United States. The State Department has updated its list of terrorist entities, adding the Italian collective Autistici Inventati (A/I), which for years has worked to ensure freer communication against the Big Tech oligopoly. Accused of providing digital support to Antifa groups and other far-left organizations around the world, Autistici Inventati (A/I) has been labeled a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” The decision entails the freezing of all the organization’s assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction and a ban on U.S. persons and legal entities from carrying out transactions with it, on the model of the sanctions recently imposed on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
A few days after the September 11 attacks, then-U.S. President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13224, giving the government a new tool “to prevent the financing of terrorism.” Under that order, successive administrations at the White House since 2001 have updated the list of organizations deemed terrorist, providing for asset freezes and sanctions, as well as a significant expansion of surveillance powers. Only last February, a few days after the start of his second term, President Donald Trump added eight new organizations to the list. In November, it was the turn of one of the groups within the internationalist Antifa galaxy, Antifa Ost, active in Germany. This was a prelude to the new National Counterterrorism Strategy, in which movements defined as “anti-American,” “anarchist,” “anti-fascist,” and “radically pro-transgender” have been formally included on the list of terrorist threats.
It is in this context that the Italian collective Autistici Inventati (A/I) has been added to the list of terrorist entities, for allegedly supporting organizations branded as enemies by the White House, even though they represent mere internal dissent—the very kind of dissent that is the lifeblood of the democracy the U.S. claims to exemplify. According to the State Department, the collective provides digital tools—such as chats, emails, and blogs—to enable anonymous communication. This is an intent the organization itself does not hide: founded in 2001 during the no-global protests, it emerged “from the meeting of individuals and collectives from the antagonistic and anti-capitalist world, committed to working with technologies and active in the struggle for digital rights. We believe that this is by no means the best of all possible worlds. Our response is to offer activists, groups, and collectives platforms for freer communication,” thus challenging the Big Tech cartel.
According to Washington, these services are “specifically designed to support the operations of far-left terrorist networks.” Against this alleged threat, the United States, on the initiative of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have even organized an international summit, which Italy also attended with a delegation. The political slant of the event aims to position Washington—facing a historical juncture that is hardly favorable—as the leader of a neo-McCarthyism capable of neutralizing dissent, equating environmental protests or protests against police violence with international terrorism, a term that until a few years ago was synonymous with jihadism. Sealing this historic shift is another decision coming in these hours from the White House, which after 47 years has removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism the Syria of the former cutthroat al-Jolani.
[L’Indipendente, August 27, 2026, Salvatore Toscano]
Oh, so now you’re going to piss of the Italians? GLWT