U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

Everyone’s missing the big picture here which is that this targeting of infrastructure providers as “terrorists” is unprecedented and concerning: https://decode39.com/16319/autistici-inventati-case-sets-a-n...

If a radical group sets up shop on I2P, are I2P users and devs now terrorists? This is a problem.

What about Monero users/devs? Veilid? Tox? Signal?

> Only months after Paranoia [their first server] went online, the G8 came to Genoa. Many A/I participants were also involved with Indymedia Italy. They helped construct the movement’s media center, laying cables, configuring servers and building workstations through which protesters could report what was happening across the city. What followed was historic: enormous demonstrations, the police killing of Carlo Giuliani, indiscriminate beatings in the streets, torture and abuse inside the Bolzaneto barracks and the nighttime raid on the Diaz school. Official narratives competed with photographs, recordings and firsthand testimony transmitted through independent infrastructure. Genoa became one of the earliest major demonstrations to be documented from nearly every direction by its participants rather than exclusively through institutional media.

https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10083/2

Very curious. My latest submission is the video of Larry Ellison with the "The police will be on their best behavior[,] Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on". (It was triggered by a piece on TheOnion.)

Turns out, other people had been recording events, so that a covering narrative may not prevail over the truth.

There is also an article on we will free us [1] if you want to dive deeper into that rabbit hole.

[1] https://www.wewillfreeus.org/the-server-called-paranoia-defe...

I clicked around a bit, read the manifesto, I still have no idea what these people do. I guess they claim to have been around for a while, but a bunch of the links don't work and the manifesto has definitely been updated to reflect 2026 opinions.

What is this?

For those like me who don't have context, here is the New York Times article on this recent news / event

https://archive.fo/e8Gss

> The State Department on Wednesday designated three groups based in Europe, including two that advocate Palestinian rights, as transnational terrorist organizations.

> The move is part of the Trump administration’s fight against what it calls a “resurgence of far-left political terrorism” worldwide, a focus that many security experts say is disproportionate.

> In a statement, the department said that it would impose sanctions on Palestine Action, which is based in Britain and organizes acts of support for Palestinians and opposition to Israeli policies; Masar Badil, another pro-Palestinian group with branches in Western Europe and Canada; and Autistici/Inventati, known as A/I Collective, which is based in Italy and offers free digital tools to leftist activists around the world.

a/I collective in the OP is the third on this list.

> based in Italy and offers free digital tools to leftist activists around the world

Did they find evidence of weapons of mass destruction? No? It should be soon then.

Could the persons that mention the PKK all over this thread kindly find links now that noblogs.org is partly dysfunctional and autistici.org is down?

Google Search yields a very small amount of third party support for the PKK, all unreachable now.

I cannot find any evidence at all and neither can LLMs that this organization has ever directly supported the PKK or hosted a PKK website.

Well, the State Dept is anything but vague about its argument:

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

"The A/I Collective exclusively offers its tools and services to radical left-wing actors and manually vets all potential users for ideological affinity before granting them access to its infrastructure. The group has become a key node in a transnational campaign by violent and criminal far-left networks to destabilize the United States and its partners across Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and beyond...."

"The anarchist cells responsible for sabotaging rail systems across France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands in 2026, relied on A/I Collective tools and services to claim responsibility for the attacks, publish official communiqués, and disseminate manuals for constructing improvised incendiary devices to target railways and other critical infrastructure.

The anarchist cell responsible for sabotaging the Transalpine Pipeline (TAL) in March 2026, which temporarily halted crude oil flows to Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic, relied on A/I Collective tools and services to claim responsibility for the attack and publish official communiqués, as well as to disseminate a manifesto calling for additional attacks on critical infrastructure and referring adherents to another A/I Collective platform, which provides detailed sabotage manuals as well as maps of vulnerable critical infrastructure across North America.

The far-left extremist network responsible for multiple arson attacks and acts of sabotage against Germany’s rail and energy infrastructure between 2011 and 2026, including a January 2026 attack on Berlin’s power grid that cut power to 45,000 households and resulted in a fatality, relied on A/I Collective tools and services to claim responsibility for attacks, publish official communiques, and disseminate a manifesto calling for additional attacks on energy infrastructure worldwide."

Do I see "Free palestine" in the corner there?

I guess bombing them got some pushback.

Everyone's a terrorist nowadays.

seems like PIR (the .org registry) now also suspended their main domain: https://www.whois.com/whois/autistici.org (it is on serverHold)

> We believe that this world is far from being the best world possible

This is like straight out of every evil villains mouth.

Actual link: https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10076

Title: A Statement by A/I Collective About US Sanctions

I'm bothered by their incorrect use of the root word 'autistic' - That's just a poor choice on their part. Very bad look.

This administration is on a witch hunt for anything they can identify as "antifa" when no such central organization insists. Instead it's being used as an over broad label to attack organized opposition to it's broadly unpopular policy agenda.

(If you're opposed to antifascists what does that make you?)

@dang at this point this is either Hacker News or anti-capitalist. I think this all should be banned.

the group: https://web.archive.org/web/20260101085655/https://www.autis...

> A/I (Autistici/Inventati, pronounced [au’tistiʧi]-[iŋ’vɛntati], or [iŋvɛn’tati]) was born in 2001 from an encounter of individuals and collectives of the autonomous anticapitalist movement interested in technology and active in the digital rights struggle. We believe that this world is far from being the best world possible. We react by providing a platform and tools for digital self-defense addressing the need of free communication for activists and other individuals.

> All of our services are provided for free, without any form of control or commoditization of the personal user data. We don’t receive any form of compensation for our work. We are volunteers exploiting the experiences we accumulated over years of technological, political and legal research while doing radical activism, and we are motivated and inspired by the principles of solidarity and self organization.

From their about page:

> A/I was born over 20 years ago to provide internet support (through website hosting, e-mail accounts, mailing lists, chat, blogs, and much more) to activists and collectives coming from the world of grassroot and social movements. Our principles are fairly straightforward: the world should not be run on money, should be rooted in solidarity, community, mutual help, equal rights and freedom, and social justice. Easy, isn’t it? We support individuals, collectives, communities and groups whose political and social activities fit within this worldview and who share with us some fundamental principles: anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-militarism. On top of that, one has to share our basic attitude towards money and the capitalistic world: a deep feeling of uneasyness and unrest.

The biggest free speech violation I can imagine.

As far as I can tell, there were no credible criminal charges against this group, except that they are effective organizers on the opposite side of political spectrum. In the White House’s deranged logic, this qualifies them to be officially designated as domestic terrorists [1].

Can we all agree that this is an assault on the First Amendment?

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/desi...

Keep in mind we're talking about communications services here, and one focusing on political speech at that.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

In general I think the free lunch of centrally hosted services and persistent doxxable identities is nearing a close. It was inevitable that governments would meddle more, and more, and more - implicitly treating communications are something other than speech due to how encompassing the digital world has become - and now here we are.

Related discussions:

US sanctions Italian hosting provider Autistici Inventati

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451343

US Government designates host of noblogs.org a "global terrorist"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49464391

Links to the actual announcements of sanctions:

* https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/

* https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

And - the list of people that were originally put in this category when G.W. Bush issued this executive order has 29 people/organizations: Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaida, and various affiliated/related organizations.

So, yesterday it was Bin-Laden, today it is some Italian left-wing tech guys, and tomorrow it might well be you or me. Get ready to be branded a terrorist at some point.

Given administration's obsession with Antifa being in the room with them at all times, it's impossible to take anything they say in relation to this as even close to factual.

Don't worry guys, fascist are always looking out for free speech.

What was that...

muummuummmmemmmeuuuu...

BANG

Remember, Trump and his cultists are symptoms -- not the cause. I.E. Cuba's embargo was in place long before the orange buffoon, and that is the same force at play here. Fear that the people will get a taste of a fairer, more just alternative. > “are you antifa or are you fa?”

https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10076 - Direct link to the sanctions declaration.

The actual Treasury Announce here - https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/

"The Autistici Inventati is an Italy-based far-left organization that provides a range of technological tools and services to violent left-wing extremist groups, including website hosting on foreign servers, encrypted email accounts, chat and video conferencing, and digital architecture associated with its “Noblogs” platform. Autistici Inventati identifies itself as an “anti-fascist” and “anti-militarist” organization opposed to capitalism and exclusively provides its services to vetted individuals, collectives, and groups it perceives to be aligned with its ideology, including to sanctioned terrorist organizations such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been designated by the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union for its use of terrorist tactics leading to thousands of deaths in Türkiye, Iraq, and Syria since its establishment in 1984.

Autistici Inventati is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services to or in support of, an act of terrorism."

What does it entail, in practice?

They are sanctioned, okay, and? What happens practically.

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> Our financial strategy relies exclusively on voluntary donations.

That is not a sustainable strategy in the long term. Sure after this news they will get lots of donations, but long term it is not something that is realistic.

Since they are now "sanctioned" by the US you cannot legally donate to them even if you wanted to...*[0]

[0] *Unless you now know why this collective needs crypto more than ever.

Maybe they should try couping the Italian government, rename themselves to Ragazzi Orgogliosi. That should help.

The question stays the same: “are you antifa or are you fa?”