14 September 2026
The US Designates Italian Autistici/Inventati as a Global Terrorist
Marco Perugini
Marco Perugini is an independent researcher and founder of Centrifuga
Lab, working on empirical measurement of power concentration in digital
infrastructure, financial architecture, and markets.
How US Sanctions Expose the EU’s Inability to Set the Terms for Its
Own Infrastructure
On 26 August 2026, the US Department of State designated
<https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/08/designation-of-autistici-inventati-as-a-specially-designated-global-terrorist>
Autistici/Inventati (A/I), a volunteer-run Italian technology collective
that has provided encrypted email and hosting to activist groups since
2001, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order
13224. The designation freezes all A/I assets under US jurisdiction.
After a wind-down deadline
<https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0599> of 25 September,
any US person or entity is prohibited from transacting with the
collective. But the freeze itself is probably the least significant part
of the measure. What matters is the compliance cascade it sets in
motion: banks, payment processors, domain registrars, hosting providers,
and certificate authorities that maintain any dollar-denominated nexus
face obligations that make continued dealings with a designated entity
commercially untenable. The effect is expulsion from the infrastructure
of digital existence, without any court in Italy ever having issued a
ruling.
Early commentary has correctly identified the de-risking mechanism at
work. Beniamino Irdi, at the German Marshall Fund, observed
<https://decode39.com/16319/autistici-inventati-case-sets-a-new-counterterrorism-precedent-irdi-says/>
that the designation targets infrastructure rather than operations, and
that the real bite lies in preemptive severance by intermediaries. This
is accurate, but it treats the designation as a standalone event. It was
not. The A/I case is the first operational output of a policy
architecture that was declared publicly, built over six months, and
documented on primary US government sources throughout. That
architecture, not the individual designation, is the problem European
democracies need to engage with.
The Doctrinal Sequence
On 6 May 2026, the White House released its Counterterrorism Strategy
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf>
(CT) for the second Trump term.
[...]
continua qui:
https://verfassungsblog.de/the-us-designates-italian-autistici-inventati-as-a-global-terrorist/
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