Rubio Uses Terrorism Law To Ban Secure Email Service

The State Department doesn’t accuse Autistici/Inventati of doing anything more than providing "untraceable" email accounts. But that’s enough to outlaw it as a terrorist organization.

The U.S. State Department and U.S. Treasury placed the anarchist-aligned Italian tech support collective Autistici/Inventati on the "specially designated global terrorist" list on Wednesday. This designation makes it illegal for Americans to engage in any "transactions" with Autistici/Inventati.

The U.S. government hasn't accused Autistici/Inventati of committing any crimes. Instead, the State Department announcement states that the group "builds and operates the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells and other far-left militants across the world," allowing these "militants" to "disseminate target information, tactical manuals and techniques, and communiqués about recent attacks" while staying "anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law."

In other words, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is attacking the group for running an online platform that the U.S. government can't spy on and for facilitating communications the U.S. government doesn't like. But precisely because Autistici/Inventati is based in another country—Italy—the U.S. government has basically unchecked power to impose counterterrorism sanctions on it.

The Autistici/Inventati case has strong parallels to the recent TikTok ban: Congress banned the social media network under foreign-policy pretexts because American youth were using it to share otherwise First Amendment–protected content. As with the TikTok ban, outlawing Autistici/Inventati is a way to force users to move to services that are more easily monitored and controlled by the U.S. government.

"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," says Jillian York, director of international freedom of expression at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. "This may sound a little conspiratorial, but the fact that this comes from an administration that is quite cozy with Silicon Valley giants, at a time when distrust of those companies is quite high from various parts of society, doesn't seem to me a coincidence."

Autistici/Inventati offers free email accounts, web hosting, videoconferencing, and other communications services on request to those who can demonstrate need and "share our principles of anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, and anti-militarism." Unlike commercial email providers, Autistici/Inventati stores only the bare minimum of user data and doesn't peek into users' inboxes, making it appealing to "paranoids," as the group describes itself.

"We deny all allegations included in the statements, while we strongly affirm our dedication to providing a platform of tools for digital self-defense, addressing the need of free communication for activists and other individuals, groups and associations," Autistici/Inventati wrote in a statement in English and Italian responding to the U.S. designation. "We will not back down, we will keep doing what we have been doing all these years and we will do whatever is in our possibility to counter the false allegations made by a politically desperate administration with the sole intention of swaying people and media attention away from their own violence and warmongering."

The terrorist designation will immediately cut off Autistici/Inventati's ability to collect donations, its only way to cover operating expenses, through any bank or credit card processor connected to the U.S. dollar system. It may also allow the U.S. government to seize the autistici.org domain name. The U.S. government has long argued that, because the registries for .com and .org domains are located on American soil, it is illegal to host websites for organizations under U.S. economic sanctions.

Whether the designation makes Autistici/Inventati's email services illegal to use is unclear. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which the Trump administration is using to sanction Autistici/Inventati, technically exempts any "personal communication, which does not involve a transfer of anything of value" from U.S. sanctions, in order to respect First Amendment protections.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says its lawyers believe that "simply utilizing these services, while providing no financial support to them, does not constitute material support for terrorism." But Peter Harrell, a former Biden administration official who is now a visiting scholar at Georgetown Law School, writes that it's an open question how courts would rule in this case.

The Treasury did not respond to a question from Reason about its interpretation of the law.

The Trump administration has increasingly used these kinds of foreign policy powers against dissidents, especially self-declared "anti-fascists." Last year, the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) ordered federal agencies to prioritize terrorism from the left. Rubio designated the German "hammer gang" Antifa Ost as terrorists soon after.

"There will be no refuge for violent extremists who wage war on our civilization and plot to undermine law and order, destroy critical infrastructure, assault political opponents, or conspire to conceal their crimes from authorities," Rubio told Fox News about the Autistici/Inventati designation.

The administration also tied its action against Autistici/Inventati to the campaign against Israel's enemies. The Treasury announced sanctions on Autistici/Inventati alongside new sanctions on the British organization Palestine Action for "breaking into defense infrastructure and British military installations," and the Palestinian diaspora party Masar Badil for being "a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization."

The State Department's announcement, meanwhile, blames Autistici/Inventati for allowing one of its users "to publish official communiqués and calls to action for U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations," naming Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Fox News reported that the State Department announcement "reveals Portland Antifa connection to Hamas, Iran's IRGC," because of those third-party posts. Of course, by that same logic, there is a "connection" between Rubio himself and all of the same designated terrorists because their messages are disseminated on the same social media.

The Treasury's announcement at least pointed to a designated terrorist organization that actually used Autistici/Inventati's services: the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). But though the U.S. government considers the PKK terrorists, U.S. forces have also worked with its members and affiliates in Syria for more than a decade. Rubio met with Kurdish commander Mazloum Abdi, a former PKK member, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference earlier this year.

Some people, it seems, are friendly enough to have an audience with cabinet officials, yet too dangerous to have an email address.