A-Infos (en) France, Monde Libertaire - Autistici/Inventati: Global Terrorists? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The slide toward dictatorship via the gradual abandonment of democratic 
"rules" is nothing new. Nevertheless, the designation of 
Autistici/Inventati as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" 
(1)[note]by the US State Department (2) on August 26, 2026, is 
significant. ---- Autistici/Inventati provided not only an email service 
considered one of the most private in the world but also a full range of 
privacy-focused services covering virtually every aspect of online 
information and communication. A fundamental point to note is that, in 
doing so, A/I was simply upholding the Web's original vision-a concept 
now considered obsolete-that "information wants to be free" on the 
Internet. This mantra was tirelessly chanted by the early architects of 
the global Web in the 1990s (3), including Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor 
of hypertext-and thus of Internet browsing. Of course, we have long 
known that major Web corporations have relegated this idea to the 
dustbin of history, despite having initially capitalized on it. This 
ideal of free communication has been subverted, with Google at the 
forefront of this movement that stifles freedom (4), employing methods 
with which we are all familiar.

If you are reading this article and use Gmail, Hotmail, or Wanadoo for 
your email, please switch to a privacy-focused service. For a month now, 
Google, Microsoft, and Orange have been systematically routing A/I 
messages to spam folders, and since August 26, it has been impossible to 
connect to A/I, regardless of the browser used. It is a well-known fact: 
Resistance fighters were considered terrorists by Radio London...

The State Department states: "Autistici/Inventati is an Italy-based 
extremist group that provides and manages digital infrastructure for 
violent antifa cells and other far-left activists worldwide. A/I's core 
group-comprising radical hackers and software developers-offers a full 
range of services, such as encrypted chat and email, web hosting, secure 
video conferencing and streaming systems, anonymity tools, and a suite 
of other technological resources, to Marxist, anarchist, and far-left 
groups in the United States, Europe, and across the globe. These tools 
are specifically designed to support the operations of far-left 
terrorist networks; they are built to enable them to organize, recruit, 
communicate, disseminate propaganda, share information on targets and 
tactics, and carry out violent attacks, all while remaining anonymous, 
untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law" (our translation).

According to the State Department, A/I hosted 16,000 email accounts, 
1,500 websites, and 5,500 mailing lists. Individuals who funded A/I 
(which invited users to contribute occasionally-roughly once a 
year-without any obligation) are now liable under U.S. law for 
supporting a terrorist organization. The U.S. "designation" concludes 
with a somewhat ridiculous list of claims circulated by A/I, yet offers 
no evidence of A/I's actual participation in the violent actions in 
question. When Information Is Outlawed

As Serge Quadruppani clearly demonstrated in his pioneering work 
*L'Antiterrorisme en France* (1989)-and later in *La Politique de la 
peur* (2011)-as well as Philippe Godard in *Le Consensus à l'époque du 
terrorisme* (published in Italian as *Il Consenso nell'epoca del 
terrorismo* by Elèuthera, 2018), the aim of counter-terrorism has never 
been to put an end to the extreme violence or terror within our 
societies, but rather to perpetuate it by justifying state violence.

By banning us from using a site that perfectly embodies the fundamental 
ideals of what some call "the early internet," the US government (5) is 
unilaterally depriving us of a tool that posed no threat to 
democracy-even in its current, imperfect form (6). Disseminating 
information is not the same as organizing terrorist groups. Whatever the 
Trump administration may think, the attacks suffered here and there by 
foreign or illegitimate occupying forces will not cease simply because 
news of their actions becomes harder to spread. In fact, the opposite is 
likely to occur: if so-called fundamental freedoms are drastically 
curtailed, the only way to "make oneself heard" will be to resort to 
acts of extreme violence (7)-acts that will inevitably become known to 
and discussed by the public, regardless of the nature of the dictatorship.

Élisée Personne

1. Let us overlook the clumsy phrasing-"designation of 
Autistici/Inventati as a specifically designated global terrorist 
organization"-with its redundant emphasis on "designation" and 
"designated"... Could the people in charge be ignorant? Surely that 
would be common knowledge...
2. See .
3. To clarify: this was after the original web, which was strictly 
military and created by DARPA, the Pentagon's technology agency.
4. See Philippe Godard, *Le Pouvoir selon Google*[Power According to 
Google], Éditions du Monde libertaire, 2025, or .
5. See "Donald Trump contre le péril rouge"[Donald Trump vs. the Red 
Menace]by Serge Halimi in the September 2026 issue of *Le Monde 
diplomatique*; the article discusses an international meeting held that 
summer aimed at defining (or "endorsing"...) the US counter-terrorism 
strategy targeting the far left.
6. We certainly wouldn't want Riseup to be next on the list; it is up to 
us, then, to support websites that prioritize privacy. As for search 
engines, one might opt for Tor or Startpage...
7. See Annette Becker and Octave Debary, *Montrer les violences 
extrêmes*[Showing Extreme Violence], Créaphis, 2012, as well as the film 
*Brazil* (Terry Gilliam, 1985), which illustrates the factors driving 
the escalation toward terrorism.

https://monde-libertaire.net/?articlen=9202
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