{"id":1907,"date":"2026-08-04T21:55:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T21:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1907"},"modified":"2026-08-04T21:55:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T21:55:41","slug":"the-chilling-trump-order-threatening-all-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1907","title":{"rendered":"The Chilling Trump Order Threatening All Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-29-at-3.43.01-PM.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"The Chilling Trump Order Threatening All Americans\" title=\"The Chilling Trump Order Threatening All Americans\" \/><\/div><p><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div id=\"article-title-block_15159ea8b16bc53deabd211c88cc56c3\" class=\"article-title \">\n<div class=\"article-title__container\">\n<div class=\"article-title__eyebrow\">\n                            <span class=\"article-title__labels\"><br \/>\n                                        <span class=\"article-title__label\"><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/subject\/politics\/\">Politics<\/a><br \/>\n                    <\/span><br \/>\n                                                                            <\/span><br \/>\n                                    <span class=\"article-title__label-divider\"> \/ <\/span><br \/>\n                                                                            <span class=\"article-title__date\">August 4, 2026<\/span>\n                                    <\/div>\n<div class=\"acf-innerblocks-container\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-the-nation-dek article-title__dek\">\n<p>Why National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 is so important.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"ad-block ad siderail-ad float-r-w-3 break-r-4\">\n<p>                                    <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/advertising-policy\" class=\"ad-policy\" target=\"_blank\">Ad Policy<\/a><br \/>\n                                    <\/aside>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\n<p>Donald Trump signs the NPSM-7 memo on September 25, 2025.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"credits\">(YouTube)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"is-style-dropcap\">In 1969, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1971\/05\/14\/archives\/black-panther-party-members-freed-after-being-cleared-of-charges-13.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">21 members<\/a> of the New York Black Panther Party were arrested in predawn raids and charged with a combined 156 counts of conspiracy. To prove the defendants\u2019 dangerous ideology to the jury, prosecutors screened <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Battle_of_Algiers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The Battle of Algiers<\/em><\/a> and read aloud from Mao\u2019s Little Red Book. Among the defendants was 23-year-old Afeni Shakur, who had no attorney and no legal training and chose to represent herself. She was eight months pregnant, facing a 350-year sentence for a conspiracy the prosecution\u2019s own witnesses couldn\u2019t describe (on the stand, one of the state\u2019s key officers admitted that he\u2019d never seen her hurt anyone or blow anything up). In its quest for a conviction, the government leaned on the so-called \u201cconspiracy doctrine,\u201d which requires only agreement with the idea of an action, not action itself. In other words, you don\u2019t need to prove anyone did anything, only that they talked about doing it, or associated with people who did.<\/p>\n<p>The Panther 21 jurors didn\u2019t buy it. After seven months, they acquitted every remaining defendant, on every count, in under two hours.<\/p>\n<p>Fifty-seven years later, in a federal courthouse in Fort Worth, Daniel Sanchez Estrada was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/26\/texas-protesters-anti-ice-convictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sentenced<\/a> to 30 years in prison. Estrada was one of 22 people charged over a Fourth of July noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, in 2025. It was one of many demonstrations that had sprung up outside ICE facilities nationwide after months of armed federal agents violently sweeping communities, and a detention system on pace for its deadliest year in two decades.<\/p>\n<p>At the protest, one man (not Estrada) shot and wounded a police officer. He says he fired defensively, and that the officer was about to shoot an unarmed protester. Whatever the case, Estrada was not being tried in connection with the shooting. He wasn\u2019t in court for arson, or assault, or any other serious offense. In fact, he hadn\u2019t even attended the protest. His crime? Moving a box of his own zines and political literature from the home he shared with his wife, who had been arrested after attending the protest.<\/p>\n<p>The Prairieland prosecutors leaned on the same conspiracy doctrine used against the Panther 21, treating the defendants as a single, unified network. But Estrada\u2019s fate would be very different from that of Afeni Shakur. Despite years in jail awaiting trial, the Panthers ultimately walked free. Estrada, on the other hand, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/26\/texas-protesters-anti-ice-convictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sentenced<\/a> to 30 years. His codefendant and partner, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/26\/texas-protesters-anti-ice-convictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Maricela Rueda<\/a>, was acquitted of the most serious violent charges against her. That didn\u2019t matter either. She was sentenced to 70 years for her presence at a protest where someone else fired a gun. In all, the Prairieland defendants drew a combined five and a half centuries in federal prison. They were largely found guilty due to mere proximity\u2014being in the wrong place at the wrong time\u2014and their political beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>So what changed between 1969 and 2026? First, the Prairieland judge was able to use a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/harvardlawreview.org\/print\/vol-136\/responding-to-domestic-terrorism-a-crisis-of-legitimacy\/#footnote-ref-29\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">terrorism sentencing enhancement<\/a>,\u201d a tool that did not exist when the Panthers were tried that lets a judge multiply a sentence once a crime is deemed \u201ccalculated to influence or affect the conduct of government.\u201d (This wildly abstract concept would have been catnip for prosecutors in the days of COINTELPRO.) Second, the state\u2019s ability to reach into a person\u2019s life has grown considerably, with a new surveillance apparatus and access to our personal data that allows for repression to take new forms. What ties both together, and gives them a target, is a presidential memo signed last September that few Americans have read but every American now lives under, called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/09\/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">National Security Presidential Memorandum-7<\/a>, or NSPM-7.<\/p>\n<p>NSPM-7 is now the administration\u2019s sharpest tool for criminalizing left political organizing. It <a href=\"https:\/\/charityandsecurity.org\/news\/fbi-and-irs-concretize-implementation-of-nspm-7\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">directs<\/a> a 10-agency <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/investigate\/terrorism\/joint-terrorism-task-forces\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Joint Terrorism Task Force<\/a> apparatus\u2014including the FBI, DHS, the IRS, and the Treasury\u2019s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence office\u2014to investigate and prosecute what it calls \u201cdomestic terrorism and organized political violence,\u201d with targets defined broadly enough to include anyone whose motivations involve \u201canti-Americanism, anti-capitalism,\u201d or views that differ from the government\u2019s on immigration, race, and gender. It pursues not just individuals but networks, funders, nonprofits, or even anyone who shows up to a protest.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI and IRS have created a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/fbi-irs-investigate-nonprofits-domestic-terrorism-links\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mission control command center<\/a>\u201d\u2014the IRS\u2019s wording\u2014to examine nonprofits, and the FBI\u2019s budget request discloses a permanent \u201cNSPM-7 Joint Mission Center\u201d charged to \u201cproactively identify networks.\u201d In other words, its goal is to wield the full power of the state to replicate the repressive tactics of the Prairieland case throughout the country.<\/p>\n<div id=\"current-issue-block_618d5e7a62d8daa29726cdafd4febf6a\" class=\"current-issue  float-l-w-2\">\n<h4 class=\"current-issue__title\">\n                    Current Issue<br \/>\n            <\/h4>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/issue\/july-august-2026-issue\/\" class=\"current-issue__cover\"><br \/>\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/cover0726-1.jpg\" alt=\"Cover of July\/August 2026 Issue\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"is-style-dropcap\">It\u2019s important to stress that there is nothing new about the criminalization of left movement activity in the United States, or the presence of political dissidents in American prisons. But most prior cycles of state repression were constrained by a combination of legal hurdles and basic logistical challenges. In 1919 and 1920, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Palmer-Raids\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Palmer raids<\/a> saw federal agents round up thousands of suspected radicals in dozens of cities in a single coordinated sweep\u2014a logistical feat that required advance coordination among field offices nationwide and produced almost no usable evidence beyond membership in a suspect organization, since agents had neither the time nor the technology to build individual cases (they deported hundreds anyway, with little more due process than a hearing). COINTELPRO required <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lexisnexis.com\/documents\/academic\/upa_cis\/101095_FBIBlackExtrOrgsPt1COINTELPRO.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">infiltrators<\/a> embedded for years in movements like the civil rights struggle, the <a href=\"https:\/\/cldc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/COINTELPRO.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">American Indian Movement<\/a>, and the Puerto Rican independence movement; the Panther 21 prosecution required the state\u2019s own agents to create the conspiracy it then charged people with. What changes from era to era is not the targets\u2014those stay remarkably constant\u2014but the cost, both legal and technological, of proving association and manufacturing criminality.<\/p>\n<p>In 2001, the <a href=\"https:\/\/epic.org\/issues\/surveillance-oversight\/patriot-act\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Patriot Act<\/a> began unraveling some of that constraint, handing the government easy access to the paper trail of a life: Internet history, financial records, travel patterns, library and bookstore records, phone metadata, and\u2014through expanded \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/documents\/how-usa-patriot-act-expands-law-enforcement-sneak-and-peek-warrants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sneak and peek<\/a>\u201d warrants\u2014the ability to search a home or seize property without notifying the owner until well after the fact. And a private <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/pages\/atlas-surveillance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">surveillance apparatus<\/a> has since wound itself around the federal one like beans up a trellis\u2014cameras in stores, on transit, on your neighbor\u2019s porch, at protests; license plate readers; facial scans; data brokers selling your locations to anyone willing to pay, including government agencies. That last part isn\u2019t hypothetical: The FBI <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/06\/24\/fbi-surveillance-social-media-cellphone-dataminr-venntel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">renegotiated<\/a> a data broker contract around the time of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and a separate data broker was caught <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/carolinehaskins1\/protests-tech-company-spying\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">boasting<\/a> that it had harvested location data from nearly 17,000 phones at BLM demonstrations across four cities.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the federal government has spent more than a decade failing to contain mass mobilizations (the 2020 George Floyd Rebellion, Standing Rock, Occupy Wall Street, the student encampments, Stop Cop City, the crowds now blocking ICE\u2019s vans) through either ordinary policing or legal repression. Prosecutors in St. Paul charged the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2008\/9\/4\/eight_members_of_rnc_activist_group\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">RNC 8<\/a> under a state terrorism statute after a protest at the Republican National Convention, then dropped the terrorism counts; a Chicago jury <a href=\"https:\/\/news.wttw.com\/2014\/02\/07\/nato-3-acquitted-terrorism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">acquitted<\/a> the NATO 3, accused of plotting Molotov cocktails, of every terrorism charge; the great majority of the roughly 800 people charged at Standing Rock over a winter-long standoff saw their cases dismissed or won them outright (even after the federal government sent <a href=\"https:\/\/sourcenm.com\/2024\/03\/19\/fbi-sent-several-informants-to-standing-rock-protests-court-documents-show\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">informants<\/a> into the protests). After 200 people were kettled downtown at Trump\u2019s 2017 inauguration and charged with felony rioting for simply being in a crowd, six were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/7\/7\/us-drops-charges-against-all-j20-anti-trump-defendants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">acquitted<\/a> at trial; the government dropped the charges for the rest. The criminal conspiracy case against Stop Cop City protesters has almost completely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/sep\/13\/cop-city-case-georgia-prosecutors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">collapsed<\/a>, with the RICO charges against all 61 people dropped.<\/p>\n<p>NSPM-7 is best understood as both a response to those failures and the latest attempt to transcend them. It is an architecture broad enough, with a Department of Justice aligned closely enough with the executive, to make the earlier attempts look meek. <\/p>\n<p>It does this not by creating new laws but by redirecting existing power. It steers the FBI\u2019s roughly 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces toward leftist organizing, directs agencies to use authorities they already had against nonprofits and activists, and hands the attorney general a new administrative designation, \u201cdomestic terrorist organization,\u201d for groups engaged in offenses as minor as trespass or as vague as \u201ccivil disorder.\u201d The designation itself creates no new offense (there is still no crime explicitly called \u201cdomestic terrorism\u201d that a person can be charged and convicted of), but it does create a long target list, and lets prosecutors use tools already at their disposal: conspiracy doctrine, material support statutes, terrorism sentencing enhancements. The absence of new law is sort of the point\u2014nothing in NSPM-7 needs, for example, congressional approval.<\/p>\n<p>Nationally, the memo runs through an entity called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.levernews.com\/the-war-on-terror-vets-running-trumps-anti-americanism-task-force\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Joint Task Force Vanguard<\/a>, which greenlights prosecutions across the country. Washington\u2019s instruction has been explicit. On a conference call this year, a senior DOJ official told prosecutors the department wanted headlines with the indictments. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/CpX24\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Go big<\/a>,\u201d he said, \u201cand go loud.\u201d Days before signing NSPM-7, Trump signed a separate executive order purporting to designate \u201cAntifa\u201d\u2014an ideology against fascism with no members, leadership, or headquarters\u2014as, you guessed it, a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/09\/designating-antifa-as-a-domestic-terrorist-organization\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">domestic terrorist organization.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"cta-block_b0cb13317133702cb086e066d0d87a5b\" class=\"cta float-l-w-2\">\n<p class=\"is-style-dropcap\">Two things are being further criminalized under NSPM-7, and neither is violence. The first is the group. Conspiracy law punishes agreement to commit a specific unlawful act\u2014not membership in an organization, and not sympathy with its aims. The Constitution has drawn that line explicitly, twice, through the NAACP: in 1958 the Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/357\/449\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">refused<\/a> to let Alabama pry loose the NAACP\u2019s membership list, holding that the freedom to associate for a cause is inseparable from the freedom to speak at all; in 1982 it struck down <a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/458\/886\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">liability<\/a> against NAACP boycotters in Claiborne County, Mississippi, for other people\u2019s violence, because belonging to a group whose members sometimes break the law is not itself a crime.<\/p>\n<p>But association requires something to belong to, and \u201cAntifa,\u201d the concept used by the state to throw the book at the Prairieland defendants, is not a thing you can belong to. It has no members, no leadership, no headquarters, no dues; the FBI itself described it for years, accurately, as an ideology, not an organization. Trump designated it a domestic terrorist organization anyway, and the invention has proved more useful than a real organization, because a group without a membership list is one whose members the government simply gets to make up. (And the inventions keep expanding: in July, the State Department <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/national\/article_414c675c-d513-4807-94ab-bdeadaa2a255.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">convened<\/a> representatives from more than 65 countries for what officials informally called the \u201cAntifa summit,\u201d where the Secretary of State accused Iran and Cuba\u2014without offering a shred of evidence\u2014of working with \u201cAntifa\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>The second thing criminalized is thought. NSPM-7 writes politics directly into the charging framework, listing \u201canti-capitalism\u201d among the motivations that turns ordinary protest into terrorism and, in practice, presence into conspiracy. The state no longer proves what you believe by what you did; it proves what you did by what you believe.<\/p>\n<p>Implementing this new repressive regime has not come without its hiccups. The day after the memo was signed, six protesters were arrested outside the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/08\/chicago-broadview-six-trump-administration\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Broadview ICE<\/a> facility near Chicago; when grand jurors refused to indict them, prosecutors dismissed the grand jurors and re-presented until they got their indictment\u2014which then collapsed after the government conceded there was no plan, only a \u201cspontaneous conspiracy\u201d that coincidentally began the moment the protest did. The charges have since been dropped entirely. <\/p>\n<p>In those same months, the DHS announced the arrest of a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/annals-of-immigration\/shot-by-border-patrol-then-called-a-domestic-terrorist\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Marimar Martinez<\/a>\u2014a 30-year-old teacher whom a federal agent had shot multiple times. The affidavit contradicted the press release; her lawyers say the body cameras contradicted both; a grand jury declined to indict. By spring, more than a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/caught-in-crackdown-ice-cbp-doj-trump-arrests-convictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">third<\/a> of around 300 anti-ICE protest cases had fallen apart, by <em>ProPublica<\/em> and <em>Frontline<\/em>\u2019s count. The department\u2019s answer was not to retreat but to escalate, right as public opinion turned sharply against it. By February <a href=\"https:\/\/maristpoll.marist.edu\/polls\/the-actions-of-ice-february-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2026<\/a>, two-thirds of Americans said ICE had gone too far, up from just over half the previous June; independent support for the agency\u2019s tactics had cratered further still.<\/p>\n<section aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"ad fullwidth-ad contained row position-relative ad-block alignfull \">\n    <!--Ad policy starts here--><br \/>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/advertising-policy\" class=\"mid-ad-policy\">Ad Policy<\/a><br \/>\n        <!--Ad policy ends here--><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"is-style-dropcap\">Despite these bumps, the NPSM-7 rollout has generally been smooth, its road graded long ago by both parties. \u201cTerrorism\u201d is now a word that gets stretched until it means whatever the state needs it to. Bill Clinton\u2019s 1996 <a href=\"https:\/\/open.mitchellhamline.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1963&amp;context=wmlr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">terrorism<\/a> law (the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act) built the material support doctrine, which didn\u2019t require violence, or even intent to enable it\u2014just a connection to a designated group. <\/p>\n<p>Under George W. Bush, the FBI declared \u201ceco-terrorism\u201d the nation\u2019s leading domestic terrorism threat, and Congress passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act with barely a dissenting voice. DHS fusion centers monitored Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter under a Democratic president, and soon after, the FBI <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/press-releases\/leaked-fbi-documents-raise-concerns-about-targeting-black-people-under-black-identi-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">invented<\/a> a short-lived \u201cBlack Identity Extremist\u201d threat category. After the January 6 insurrection, Democrats <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/118th-congress\/senate-bill\/1591\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pushed<\/a> for a new domestic terrorism statute, over objections from civil rights groups who warned\u2014correctly\u2014that every such tool eventually bludgeons the left.<\/p>\n<p>In Atlanta, weeks after NSPM-7 was issued, an activist named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jul\/23\/cop-city-protester-phone\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sam Tunick<\/a> was indicted for wiping his own phone during an attempted search by a Customs and Border Protection \u201cTactical Terrorism Response Team\u201d at the airport\u2014not for anything he did at any protest but for what he did with his own phone afterward. And after a Fulton County judge dismissed the Cop City RICO case, the federal government came back, bolstered by NSPM-7, and charged two people over a four-year-old protest, using the same consumer-fireworks-as-terrorism enhancement as Prairieland. There will likely be more such instances: The attorney general\u2019s implementation memo ordered five years of files be mined for \u201cAntifa-related intelligence,\u201d which is how conduct from 2022 becomes an indictment in 2026.<\/p>\n<section id=\"popular-block_d16993e4d0d26389dfa7072aa75c4b56\" class=\"popular-articles\">\n<div class=\"swiper\">\n<p><h2>Popular<\/h2>\n<p>            <span class=\"swipe-msg\"><span class=\"sr-only\">\u201cswipe left below to view more authors\u201d<\/span>Swipe \u2192<\/span>\n        <\/p>\n<ol class=\"popular-articles__list\">\n<li class=\"popular-articles__list-item swiper-slide\">\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"popular-articles__list-item swiper-slide\">\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"popular-articles__list-item swiper-slide\">\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"popular-articles__list-item swiper-slide\">\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>In Minneapolis, 15 residents were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/28266882-indictment-minnesota-immigration-15-defendants-unsealed-61626\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">charged<\/a> with felony conspiracy to impede federal officers over anti-ICE protests earlier this year. Four also face separate, individual charges\u2014a kicked SUV, a knocked-away notepad, a sideswipe during a vehicle follow, tailing agents across a state line. But those specific acts aren\u2019t what holds the case together. The conspiracy charge binds all 15 defendants regardless of what any one of them actually did\u2014that\u2019s simply how conspiracy law works, and has for a century. What NSPM-7 supplies is the will to use it broadly: to charge 15 people as one network over conduct this thin.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201covert acts\u201d in the indictment alone make the point: They include attending a meeting at a DSA office, posting a flyer to Signal, wearing a gag sweatshirt that says \u201cI\u2019m Antifa,\u201d carrying a bullhorn, handing someone a radio, and receiving\u2014twice\u2014an automated text message from U-Haul. Writing an eyewitness account for an anarchist blog counts as an overt act. So does giving a public talk in Chicago. People stood on public sidewalks photographing the license plates of government vehicles, and were charged as conspirators by a government that scans millions of civilian plates a day without a warrant.<\/p>\n<p>The alleged conspiracy is entirely about opposing ICE, peppered with mentions of \u201cantifa\u201d so that prosecutors can invoke NSPM-7\u2019s terrorism architecture instead of an ordinary obstruction charge. When reporters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/program\/news-conference\/justice-department-officials-hold-news-conference-in-minneapolis\/681174\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pressed<\/a> the US Attorney in Minneapolis on whether any defendant had actually harmed an officer, he was unequivocal: That, he said, wasn\u2019t the point. In Fort Worth, the judge who sentenced eight of the Prairieland defendants\u2014assigned their cases days before sentencing, having called the protest an \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/1\/seven-more-sentenced-over-texas-ice-detention-centre-shooting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">assault<\/a> on democracy\u201d\u2014said from the bench that he was imposing the maximum because the state wants \u201cto <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceonline.org\/news\/pcjf-statement-on-the-prairieland-defendant-sentencing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">send a message<\/a> to anyone who shares a similar ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Which is why the real question isn\u2019t what any of these protesters did but what they were responding to. Editorials and commentators and politicians have framed protest this way for as long as there\u2019s been protest to cover: The protest itself becomes the story, and whatever the protest was actually responding to gets minimized, if it\u2019s covered at all. That\u2019s exactly the inversion at work throughout the NSPM-7 prosecutions. In Minneapolis, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/media\/1446251\/dl?inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">indictment<\/a> itself quotes defendants reacting to \u201canother ICE shooting,\u201d to the shooting of Ren\u00e9e Good, to \u201cthe murder of Alex Pretti.\u201d Said plainly: Federal agents killed two people, and 15 of their neighbors were criminalized for protesting it. Indignation over a kicked government SUV, in the face of a government that kills with near impunity, would be laughable if it weren\u2019t so devastatingly real.<\/p>\n<p>After all, who are the radicals? The people NSPM-7 names as terrorists imagine a world with fewer cages in it, a place where no one can be disappeared from a parking lot or shot while driving with their toddler in the back seat. The government calls that extremism. The world its authors defend\u2014where masked agents shoot bystanders, where 2 million people sit in cells, where insulin is rationed, and corporations poison our water and air\u2014is called moderation. It isn\u2019t. It is the most radical proposition in American life: that this much cruelty is a reasonable amount, and it survives only as long as we agree to fear the people who refuse it. In Minneapolis, the <a href=\"https:\/\/unicornriot.ninja\/2026\/charged-in-anti-ice-conspiracy-two-minnesota-defendants-speak-out\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">morning<\/a> after federal agents broke down the organizers\u2019 doors, their neighbors came out with whistles. They followed the agents down the street. By evening, there were groceries on the defendants\u2019 porches, and someone was already fixing the door.<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-end-\" class=\"article-end \">\n<div class=\"article-end__authors\">\n<div class=\"article-end__author\">\n<h5 class=\"article-end__author-name\">\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/authors\/hannah-riley\/\">Hannah Riley Fernandez<\/a><br \/>\n                    <\/h5>\n<div class=\"article-end__author-bio\">\n<p>Hannah Riley Fernandez is a writer and activist based in Burlington, Vermont.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>        <!-- Tag ID: thenation_incontent_2 --><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<!-- Tag ID: thenation_registration_billboard --><\/p>\n<section class=\"collections collections--col-0\">\n<div class=\"container\">\n<h2 class=\"collections__title\">More from <span class=\"not-italic\">The Nation<\/span><\/h2>\n<div class=\"collection__row\">\n<div class=\"collections__card   \">\n            <a class=\"collections__card-image-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/politics\/fulbright-program-j-william-fulbright-anti-militarism-american-foreign-policy\/\" aria-label=\"Senator J. William Fulbright Is Remembered Today Primarily for the Scholarship Program That Bears His Name\"><br \/>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"collections__card-image\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited.jpg 1440w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited-275x173.jpg 275w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited-768x484.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited-810x510.jpg 810w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited-340x215.jpg 340w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited-168x106.jpg 168w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited-382x240.jpg 382w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited-793x500.jpg 793w\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fulbright_edited.jpg\" alt=\"Senator J. William Fulbright and Lyndon B. Johnson in Washington, DC, on June 21, 1960.\"\/><br \/>\n        <\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"collections__card-content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-the-nation-dek article-title__dek\">\n<p>But a broader look at Fulbright\u2019s legacy reveals him as one of the most prescient critics of militarism and the \u201cimperial presidency\u201d\u2014lessons that apply more than ever today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"knockout \">\n                                                                            <a class=\"collections__author\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/authors\/julian-castanon-villa\/\">Julian Casta\u00f1on Villa<\/a>                                    <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"collections__card   \">\n            <a class=\"collections__card-image-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/politics\/ben-wikler-plan-supercharge-american-democracy\/\" aria-label=\"Ben Wikler Has a Plan to Supercharge American Democracy\"><br \/>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"collections__card-image\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705.jpeg 1440w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705-275x173.jpeg 275w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705-768x484.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705-810x510.jpeg 810w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705-340x215.jpeg 340w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705-168x106.jpeg 168w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705-382x240.jpeg 382w, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705-793x500.jpeg 793w\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1479825705.jpeg\" alt=\"Ben Wikler and his dog Pumpkin greet attendees during Wisconsin Democrats Pet Out the Vote Event at UW-Madison on April 4, 2023.\"\/><br \/>\n        <\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"collections__card-content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-the-nation-dek article-title__dek\">\n<p>Democrats can save the country from an authoritarian takeover, but to do so they must focus on systemic reforms, the author argues in this adaptation from his new book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"knockout \">\n                                                                            <a class=\"collections__author\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/authors\/ben-wikler\/\">Ben Wikler<\/a>                                    <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"collections__card   \">\n            <a class=\"collections__card-image-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/politics\/this-week-in-musk\/\" aria-label=\"This Week in Musk\"><br \/>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"collections__card-image\" srcset=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/FEAT_1440-4.gif\" alt=\"This Week in Musk\"\/><br \/>\n        <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>        <!-- Tag ID: thenation_btf_medrec --><\/p>\n<p>\t\t        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"tpContentAuthor\" value=\"Hannah Riley Fernandez\"\/><br \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"tpTags\" value=\"criminal-justice,executive-branch,government,law,police-and-law-enforcement,politics\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"b18950dcbd82b68ac8fa2006-text\/javascript\">\n\t\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n\t\t{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n\t\tif(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n\t\tn.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\tfbq('init', '233793277040432');\n\t\tfbq('track', 'PageView');\n\t\t\t\t<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politics \/ August 4, 2026 Why National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 is so important. Ad Policy Donald Trump signs the NPSM-7 memo on September 25, 2025. (YouTube) In 1969, 21 members of the New York Black Panther Party were arrested in predawn raids and charged with a combined 156 counts of conspiracy. To prove the defendants\u2019&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-29-at-3.43.01-PM.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[846,3591,3592,3593,289],"class_list":["post-1907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-americans","tag-chilling","tag-order","tag-threatening","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}