On September 25, 2025, the President issued an order, NSPM-7, directing the Joint Terrorism Task Forces to coordinate a strategy to disrupt “antifa” organizations and nonprofits that advocate for “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” ACLU just released a useful analysis of it, here.
Just in case any readers mistakenly thought that this new strategy was aimed only at spying on those planning or committing acts of violence, the President supplemented his order with a September 26 article, Democrats’ Unhinged Crusade Against ICE Fuels Bloodshed, containing a list of Democratic elected officials who had suggested publicly that his administration’s acts were authoritarian, fascist, Nazi, or Gestapo-like, and describing such suggestions as a “battle cry for violence.” That same day, DHS published a memo, DHS Is Fighting Back Against Antifa Violence, that included as an example of such violence, Democratic members of Congress attempting to exercise their legal right to conduct oversight visits of ICE facilities. On October 1, DHS and FBI circulated a joint intelligence bulletin to all law enforcement agencies in the country, Domestic Violent Extremists Pose Increased Threat of Violence to ICE Facilities and Personnel, arguing that previous attacks “took advantage of First Amendment-protected activity,” and therefore making a case for pro-active monitoring of protests against ICE. In advance of Saturday’s expected nationwide “No Kings” rally against the administration, House Speaker Mike Johnson has described it as a “hate-America” rally that would draw “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.”
We should not deceive ourselves here. In the eyes of this administration, all Democrats, and all Republicans who dare to cross or even criticize the President, are now “antifa” — no matter how lawful, peaceful or reasonable their opposition is. This is a coordinated administration effort to depict all opposition to the administration as an appropriate target for DHS and FBI surveillance, spanning the whole range from mere verbal criticism through to actual, though thankfully rare, acts of violence. It won’t matter to Patel’s FBI or Noem’s DHS how much you support the police; if you cross this administration, it won’t matter even if you are the police.
This is no longer about “supporting public safety” by giving law enforcement every possible tool. This is about whether the tools previously given to law enforcement will be illegally used to criminalize political opposition. And the administration might as well right now be holding up a gigantic neon sign, saying, “We Plan To Criminalize Political Opposition.” Those going to the No Kings protest this weekend should plan accordingly.
And for those who think that, while the Trump administration might feel this way, Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and Boston PD would never, here’s the actual front cover of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association’s newsletter “Pax Centurion” from their now memory-holed fall 2018 issue, which contained a vile and lengthy poem identifying as “antifa” undocumented immigrants, socialists, liberals, students, and anybody who took a knee to protest police violence:
Want to do something about surveillance?
- MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENTS: Call the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security at the Legislature at (617) 722-2020, ask to speak to House Chair Rep. Daniel Cahill, and say that you’d like his committee to vote out favorably H. 2687, “An Act relative to protecting Massachusetts residents against federal government surveillance.”
- BOSTON RESIDENTS: Call the Police Commissioner’s office at (617) 343-4500, tell them that you oppose the deployment of surveillance technologies against people organizing or attending protests, and ask what Boston PD’s response is to these federal instructions to use counter-terrorism powers against Boston residents for expressing First Amendment-protected speech.
- CAMBRIDGE RESIDENTS: Call the office of City Manager Yi-An Huang on (617) 349-4300, and tell him that in light of what the Trump administration is doing, you oppose allowing Cambridge PD to fly drones over protests, deploy Flock Safety security cameras that DHS can access, and participate in the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
- OTHER CITIES AND TOWNS: Email your questions and concerns here.