How a U.S. counterterrorism designation against an Italian digital collective raises new questions about political dissent, technological infrastructure and freedom of expression
On 26 August 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions against Autistici/Inventati, Palestine Action and Masar Badil under Executive Order 13224, the presidential order created in the aftermath of the attacks of 11 September 2001 and subsequently expanded to target individuals and organizations accused of providing support for terrorism.
The sanctions were imposed through the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which also added the organizations to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.
The Treasury described the organizations within a broader campaign against what the Trump administration calls violent far-left terrorism.
The U.S. government stated that its objective was not merely to target groups directly involved in violence but also to disrupt what it describes as the infrastructure that allows such groups to operate, coordinate and spread violence across borders.
That word — infrastructure — is essential to understanding the Autistici/Inventati case.
Washington alleges that the Italian collective provides digital architecture including email, website hosting, chat, videoconferencing and services connected to the Noblogs platform to organizations it considers violent extremist or terrorist groups.
The United States formally designated Autistici/Inventati under Executive Order 13224 for allegedly having materially assisted, sponsored or provided technological support, goods or services in support of terrorism.
The designation is recorded in the official OFAC sanctions notice.
This is therefore not simply political rhetoric. It activates a sanctions regime with potentially severe practical consequences.
What is Autistici/Inventati?
Autistici/Inventati, generally abbreviated A/I, was founded in Italy in March 2001 by people and collectives working on technology, privacy, cyber rights and political activism.
According to the collective’s own history, for more than two decades the project has provided non-commercial communication services including email accounts, mailing lists, websites, blogs, instant messaging, videoconferencing and streaming.
The collective describes its work as a form of digital self-defense.
Its stated objective is to provide communication tools outside the commercial platforms that dominate the internet, with particular attention to privacy, anonymity, freedom of expression and the protection of activists.
Autistici/Inventati operates through volunteer work and says its financial strategy relies exclusively on voluntary donations.
The collective explains its political and technological principles in its manifesto.
It is openly political.
A/I describes itself as emerging from autonomous and anticapitalist movements and does not present itself as a politically neutral technology provider.
This political identity is important because it forms part of the context in which the U.S. government interprets its provision of technological services.
The accusation made by Washington
The U.S. Treasury argues that Autistici/Inventati has provided technological services to violent left-wing groups, including organizations already designated by Washington as terrorist organizations.
Among those mentioned by the U.S. government is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has been designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997.
According to Washington, providing infrastructure to such organizations can constitute material or technological support.
The Treasury therefore presents Autistici/Inventati not simply as an internet service used by political activists but as an “enabler” within a larger network.
It is important to distinguish the allegation from the established facts: the publicly available Treasury announcement does not accuse members of Autistici/Inventati of personally carrying out the violent acts cited in the designation.
Instead, the accusation concerns the relationship between technological infrastructure and organizations using it.
Palestine Action: from direct action to terrorism
The designation of Autistici/Inventati cannot be understood separately from the simultaneous targeting of Palestine Action.
Founded in Britain in 2020, Palestine Action describes itself as a direct-action movement seeking to disrupt companies it considers part of or connected to the Israeli military-industrial complex.
Its principal target has been Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest defense technology company.
Palestine Action activists have occupied factories, blocked facilities and damaged property.
In June 2025, activists entered RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military aircraft.
The British government subsequently proscribed Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The UK government’s official entry for Palestine Action on the list of proscribed organizations states that the government considers the group’s campaign of serious property damage to have crossed the threshold from criminal direct action into terrorism.
Palestine Action disputes this characterization.
The decision has produced an intense legal and political debate in Britain over where direct political action ends and terrorism begins.
ChannelDraw had already documented a related controversy surrounding the use of British counterterrorism powers against pro-Palestinian activism in Protest Against the Abuse of Terrorism Act Powers and in Defense of Mohamad Al-Mail.
Masar Badil
The third organization sanctioned on 26 August was Masar Badil, also known as the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement.
The U.S. Treasury alleges that Masar Badil operates as a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, which the United States designates as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
The Treasury also links Masar Badil to the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.
These descriptions should be attributed specifically to the U.S. government: they are part of Washington’s justification for the sanctions rather than neutral descriptions of the organizations’ identities.
The simultaneous designation of Masar Badil, Palestine Action and Autistici/Inventati is significant because the three organizations perform very different functions.
One is primarily associated with direct action.
Another is a transnational Palestinian political network.
The third provides digital infrastructure.
The sanctions therefore target not one specific form of political activity but different components of what Washington describes as an interconnected extremist ecosystem.
The United Nations intervenes
On 27 August 2026, the United Nations Human Rights Office criticized the American designation of Palestine Action.
As Reuters reported, the UN human rights office described the designation as appearing to be a “disproportionate and unnecessary restriction” on freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, as well as participation in public affairs.
The UN also warned that an expansive use of the term terrorism can have a chilling effect on civic space.
This distinction is fundamental.
The argument is not that criminal acts committed during political protests should be immune from prosecution.
Property damage, assault and unlawful entry can already be prosecuted under ordinary criminal law.
The controversy concerns the decision to move those actions into the exceptional legal framework of terrorism.
Daniel Sanchez-Estrada: when political literature becomes evidence
There is another recent case that illuminates the same problem from a different direction.
In Texas, Daniel “Des” Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to thirty years in prison in the case surrounding the protest outside the Prairieland detention facility.
His case drew particular attention because anarchist zines and political literature became part of the prosecution’s construction of the case.
I documented the case in ChannelDraw in Daniel Sanchez-Estrada Sentenced to 30 Years: The Limits of Free Speech.
Again, the factual and legal circumstances are different.
But the conceptual progression is striking.
In one case, political literature enters the evidentiary architecture surrounding terrorism.
In another, direct political action enters terrorism law.
In another, digital infrastructure itself becomes alleged material support.
When a drawing became “terrorism”
This expansion also has a history inside ChannelDraw itself.
In July 2016, Turkish authorities sought to block online content including one of my drawings about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and my Twitter account, alleging that the material promoted terrorism and threatened public order.
The episode is reconstructed in ChannelDraw in Ten Years Later: When a Drawing Became “Terrorism”.
The Turkish case should not be conflated legally with the current American sanctions.
But it illustrates something important about the political power of the word terrorism.
Once attached to speech, an image, a publication, an activist network or a technological platform, the term changes the legal and political environment surrounding it.
What would ordinarily be discussed as expression, protest, publishing or communication becomes a matter of national security.
