ANALYSIS: NSPM-7 Memorandum Equates Political Opposition with Terrorism in the United States

Maxime Marquette

2026-06-27 15:56:53

"Indicators" that describe millions of Americans

NSPM-7 identifies “common threads” that are said to unite violent activists. These indicators include: anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for “overthrowing the government”; extremism on issues of immigration, race, and gender; and “hostility toward those who defend traditional American values on family, religion, and morality.” According to the ACLU and the Brennan Center, these categories could potentially describe tens of millions of U.S. citizens—union members, socialists, libertarians, pro-immigration advocates, LGBTQ+ activists, environmental activists, Christians critical of the evangelical church, and opponents of immigration policy.

The memorandum goes even further in its legal absurdity: it classifies criminal trespassing—a simple violation of property rights, usually a misdemeanor—as a “politically motivated terrorist act.” Journalist Ken Klippenstein, who has extensively documented NSPM-7, has pointed out that this classification makes it possible to turn any routine arrest during a protest into a counterterrorism case, with all the resulting criminal consequences: harsher sentences, increased surveillance, and blacklisting.

The Entire State Apparatus Mobilized

What sets NSPM-7 apart from previous counterterrorism directives is the scale of mobilization it requires. The Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs)—these partnerships between the FBI and local law enforcement—are mandated to investigate individuals and organizations, as well as their financiers, NGO leaders and employees, and U.S. citizens with foreign ties who may be in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The Department of the Treasury and the IRS have been mobilized to track financial flows. Banks are encouraged to file suspicious activity reports. A five-year retrospective review of all activism files has been ordered.

In April 2026, the federal budget revealed that the FBI had established the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center, bringing together personnel from ten federal agencies, with a budget of $12.5 billion. This center is tasked with identifying and prosecuting targets defined not by their violent acts, but by their ideas. Its creation represents an unprecedented institutionalization of ideological surveillance within the U.S. security apparatus.

I have to pause here. Twelve and a half billion dollars. Ten federal agencies. All of this to monitor people who post on Facebook against the deportation of undocumented immigrants or who protest in front of government buildings. I am pro-West, sincerely. I believe in liberal democracy. But what I’m reading here seems less like the defense of democracy than its methodical dismantling, agency by agency, budget by budget.

Semantic Drift: How a Word Is Turned into a Weapon

The Word “Terrorism” and Its Historical Shifts

The word “terrorism” has a history. It was coined to describe acts of organized violence aimed at instilling terror in the civilian population for political purposes. Bombings, targeted assassinations, hostage-takings—these constitute terrorism in its original and most universally recognized sense. The PATRIOT Act of 2001, passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, broadened this domestic definition to include any act that endangers human life, violates federal or state laws, and is intended to intimidate the civilian population or influence government policy through coercion. This was already a broad definition—but one that retained the essential criteria of danger to human life and coercive intent.

NSPM-7 goes a step further by linking these legal criteria to a list of ideologies and beliefs that, in and of themselves, are not violent in nature. Being anti-capitalist is not a crime. Being hostile to “traditional American values” is not a crime. Criticizing immigration policy is not a crime. But by listing them as “indicators” of domestic terrorism, the Trump administration creates a continuum between opinion and violence that does not exist in law, but now exists in the practices of federal agencies.

The Analogy with McCarthyism: An Obvious Comparison

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich was among the first to sound the alarm about NSPM-7 in October 2025, pointing out that its accusatory language—“anti-American,” “anti-capitalist”—is directly borrowed from McCarthyist vocabulary. McCarthy used these same terms to destroy careers, persecute the innocent, and instill fear in the American public sphere. The difference? McCarthy did not have the FBI, the IRS, the DOJ, and the DHS acting in concert within a Joint Mission Center equipped with twelve billion dollars and tasked with compiling lists of suspicious organizations.

The parallel is all the more striking given that Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the DHS, described NSPM-7 as “Orwellian beyond belief.” Journalist Fred Kaplan has argued that Trump is “laying the groundwork for a police state.” These warnings do not come from far-left activists, but from former Republican officials and centrist commentators. When the American political center begins to use the vocabulary of authoritarianism to describe its own government, it means that something fundamental is breaking down.

I know the counterargument: “There has been real violence.” Yes. The assassination of Charlie Kirk was a heinous act. Attacks on ICE agents are unacceptable. No society governed by the rule of law can tolerate them. But the response to actual violence cannot be to legally redefine political criticism as terrorism. This shortcut is the first step down a slippery slope that leads—as history proves—to the systematic repression of all opposition.

Target groups: a broader spectrum than previously announced

From union members to college professors, including donors

The Brennan Center for Justice has compiled a concrete list of groups potentially targeted by NSPM-7 based on a strict reading of the text: union organizers, socialists, many libertarians, critics of institutional Christianity, pro-immigration groups, anti-ICE activists, racial justice advocates, and transgender rights activists—as well as anyone who makes statements that the administration deems “un-American.” This scope is extraordinarily broad. It covers a significant portion of the American political spectrum, far beyond the extremist fringe that would actually engage in violence.

The indictments issued on June 16, 2026, in Minnesota vividly illustrate this reality. Among the 15 defendants is Erik Davis, a professor of religious studies at Macalester College. His “terrorist acts”? Attending meetings. Posting on social media. Forming peaceful human barricades in front of a building used by ICE. David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute—not exactly a bastion of the radical left—found only a single documented act of violence against a federal agent in the 94-page indictment. The rest? “A series of fundamentally non-criminal incidents, with a few minor offenses, virtually all acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.”

NGOs and Donors in the IRS’s Crosshairs

NSPM-7 is not limited to activists on the street. It also targets the entire American nonprofit sector. The IRS has been ordered to investigate nonprofit organizations that directly or indirectly fund political violence or domestic terrorism—terms whose elastic definitions are now becoming clear. Banks are urged to report suspicious transactions. Senior officials and NGO employees may be personally targeted. Donors—whether individuals or foundations—are also within the scope of the investigation.

In October 2025, Reuters revealed that the Trump administration had targeted a list of organizations including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, Blue—the Democratic Party’s funding arm—Indivisible, pro-Palestinian Jewish organizations such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as pro-immigration coalitions. This list perfectly illustrates the political—rather than security-related—nature of the initiative: it does not include networks of armed violence, but rather ordinary components of American civil society.

When I saw that Blue—the Democratic Party’s funding arm—was on the list of organizations suspected of funding “domestic terrorism,” I realized that we were no longer in the realm of national security. We were in the realm of political struggle by other means. And those means have a historical name: the persecution of the opposition.

Freedom of Expression Under Pressure: Concrete and Documented Effects

FBI Raids That Silence People Before They’re Even Charged

Perhaps the most formidable effect of NSPM-7 is not the number of indictments—which remains relatively limited—but the deterrent effect it has on ordinary civic participation. In October 2025, FBI agents began visiting the homes of people who had participated in peaceful protests. One example documented by Raw Story: a citizen was visited by agents who told him that his name had come up in connection with a June protest. Before leaving, the agents made it clear that this might not be their last encounter. The result? That citizen stopped participating in subsequent protests.

Ken Klippenstein—the journalist who has documented NSPM-7 most extensively—has pointed out that this is precisely the intended effect: to create a pervasive fear that leads citizens to self-censor even before any charges are necessary. The mere threat of being placed on an FBI watchlist—with its consequences for employment, housing, access to credit, and travel abroad—is enough to discourage democratic participation. It is a mechanism of economic and social repression that does not require prison cells—at least initially.

The Press and Journalists in the Crosshairs

The context of NSPM-7 coincides with increased pressure on the media and journalists. On January 18, 2026, Don Lemon—a former CNN anchor—was arrested after covering a protest against ICE operations at a church in Minnesota. Search warrants were sought against him and another journalist, Georgia Fort. A federal judge denied these warrants twice, rebuking prosecutors for failing to meet basic legal standards. The Guardian documented this episode in May 2026 as indicative of a strategy to intimidate media outlets covering anti-immigration protests.

Earlier, in January 2026, the Pentagon had implemented a media access policy deemed unconstitutional by a federal court, which blocked it following a complaint by The New York Times. These incidents are not isolated. They are part of a pattern consistent with the spirit of NSPM-7: defining critical journalism as a potential threat to “national security” and using available tools to discourage it. The space for independent journalism, peaceful dissent, and civil disobedience is shrinking as prosecutions mount.

I am a columnist. I comment on current events. If tomorrow a French-speaking government were to apply a similar logic—classifying anti-capitalism or criticism of institutional Christianity as indicators of terrorism—would my writings make me a suspect? The question seems absurd. But for millions of Americans, it is no longer so.

The Lack of a Legal Basis: A Paper Architecture with Steel Teeth

No Stand-Alone Domestic Terrorism Offense Under U.S. Law

One of the most striking points in the analysis of NSPM-7 is this fundamental legal reality: domestic terrorism is not a standalone crime under U.S. law. The PATRIOT Act defines domestic terrorism, but this definition serves as a framework for investigation—not as a basis for criminal prosecution. There is no charge titled “domestic terrorism” in the federal criminal code. To prosecute, prosecutors must rely on existing offenses—conspiracy, assault on a federal officer, destruction of property, obstruction of law enforcement.

What NSPM-7 does, within this framework, is particularly devious: it uses the “terrorist” label as a pretext for investigation to identify a target population—defined by its ideas, not its actions—and then searches within that population for existing offenses to prosecute with the greatest possible severity. As Ken Klippenstein explained in a June 2026 interview: “NSPM-7 tells federal agents who to monitor. Then we look for the crime.” This is a reversal of the fundamental republican principle that a crime must precede an investigation, not the other way around.

Attorney General Bondi Expands the Arsenal

On December 4, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an operational memorandum that transforms NSPM-7 into a doctrine of action for the entire DOJ. This document—analyzed in detail by the law firm Arnold & Porter—goes even further: it mandates a five-year retrospective review of all political activism cases, orders the FBI to create and update a list of domestic terrorist organizations every 30 days, establishes a cash reward system for informants, and requires every federal prosecutor’s office to designate a “district coordinator” responsible for NSPM-7 cases.

Bondi has also broadened the operational definition of domestic terrorism to include “organized doxing of law enforcement,” “mass riots,” and “violent efforts to obstruct the enforcement of immigration laws.” Each of these terms is vague enough to encompass acts of civil disobedience, social media posts denouncing ICE agents, or protests outside detention centers. The law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler noted that Bondi’s memorandum targets those who “hold extreme views on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment”—legitimate political positions, not criminal acts.

A reward system for reporting activist neighbors. A list of terrorist organizations updated every 30 days. A five-year review of all activism records. I am not naive enough to believe that this infrastructure did not exist before Trump—the FBI’s abuses against MLK or anti-war groups are well documented. But their institutionalization on this scale, with these resources, in this political context, represents a qualitative leap that history will judge harshly.

The First Indictments: NSPM-7 in Legal Proceedings

From Prairieland to Minneapolis: The Pattern Continues

In March 2026, eight protesters at the ICE detention center in Prairieland, Texas, were convicted of material support for terrorism—the first terrorism conviction involving alleged Antifa members in U.S. history. This legal victory for the Trump administration was presented as validation of the NSPM-7 approach. Then, in June 2026, the number of cases multiplied: two activists from the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta were indicted on June 12; about fifteen anti-ICE organizers in Minnesota were indicted on June 16; and eight pro-Palestinian activists from the University of Michigan were also indicted under the NSPM-7 framework.

What is striking when reading these indictments is their content. For the Minnesota activists, among the “manifest acts” of the alleged terrorist conspiracy are: attending meetings, posting on Facebook, distributing flyers, and organizing post-action debriefings. Cameron Kennedy is cited for a Facebook post: “We need to become ungovernable.” ” Three words on a social media platform. Isaac Auman Sant is charged with causing “substantial emotional distress” to a federal agent. These charges, in the context of counterterrorism, carry potential sentences exceeding 20 years in prison.

The Institutions’ Response: Judges Who Resist

Not all authorities are complying. Federal Judge William Young of Boston—appointed by Ronald Reagan—called the Trump administration “authoritarian” and blocked measures targeting pro-Palestinian foreign academics, ruling that their constitutional rights had been violated. District Judge John Docherty has twice denied search warrants against journalists, rebuking prosecutors for their failure to meet basic legal standards. A federal court blocked the Pentagon’s press policy. An appeals court expressed strong reservations about sanctions against Senator Mark Kelly for public statements critical of the administration.

These judicial challenges are encouraging. They show that the American system of checks and balances is not dead. But they have their limits: they do not neutralize the deterrent effect of ongoing investigations, watchlists, and FBI home visits. The damage is already partially done even when charges are dismissed. Preventive intimidation works regardless of the final verdict.

These judges who stand their ground deserve to be named and commended. In a democracy under pressure, judicial independence is the last line of defense. The fact that a judge appointed by Reagan describes the Trump administration as authoritarian is not merely anecdotal—it is a major political signal, coming from the heart of traditional American conservatism.

The Administration's Strategy: Redefining the Enemy Within

Stephen Miller and the “Continuum of Violence” Doctrine

Behind NSPM-7 is Stephen Miller, a senior White House advisor and the chief architect of immigration and homeland security policy. According to Reuters, Miller plays a “hands-on” role in evaluating investigations into NGOs, receives regular updates from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and coordinates recommendations between the DOJ, the IRS, and the Treasury. It was Miller who publicly articulated the doctrine that protests marked by violent incidents constitute a “continuum of violence” representing a broader conspiracy—a rhetorical construct that makes it possible to link any peaceful protester to acts of violence committed by others, potentially years earlier or miles away.

This “continuum” doctrine is philosophically and legally tenuous, but politically effective. It allows a disparate coalition of opponents—anti-ICE activists, civil rights advocates, labor unions, and progressive NGOs—to be treated as a unified, conspiratorial network, without having to demonstrate direct links between its members. It is the same line of reasoning that, during the McCarthy era, made it possible to portray the American left as a Soviet fifth column: vague enough to be irrefutable, precise enough to appear credible.

The Gorka Strategy and the “Counterterrorism Strategy” of May 2026

In May 2026, the White House released a new national counterterrorism strategy that lists “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists” as a major terrorist threat, alongside Islamist groups and drug cartels. This strategy, which clearly bears the influence of advisor Sebastian Gorka, raises the specter of a “Red-Green” alliance between the far left and Islamists, warns against “political assassinations of Christians and conservatives” attributed to these groups, and explicitly targets pro-Palestinian organizations.

The ideological framework is coherent, even if the facts contradict it: according to data from the DOJ—from whose website the administration quietly removed a contradictory study—right-wing extremists are responsible for a far greater share of politically motivated violence in the United States than their left-wing counterparts. But the removal of this data is part of the strategy: the narrative cannot be questioned if the data contradicting it has been erased.

This suppression of data on far-right violence troubles me just as much as the memorandum itself. Policies can be debated. Security measures—even severe ones—can be justified. But when a government suppresses scientific data that contradicts its security narrative in order to construct an alternative reality that justifies its actions, we have left the realm of politics and entered that of mass manipulation.

The reaction from civil society: alarm bells ringing on both the left and the right

More than 3,000 NGOs and 30 members of Congress

The response to NSPM-7 was swift and widespread. By September 30, 2025, more than 3,000 nongovernmental organizations had signed an open letter opposing the directive. In October 2025, more than 30 members of Congress—Democrats and a few Republicans—sent a letter to Trump raising concerns about constitutional rights and civil liberties. Representative Ro Khanna called NSPM-7 “one of Trump’s most dangerous power grabs,” adding, “The goal is to silence people and groups by threatening retaliation.”

The ACLU published a detailed legal analysis concluding that the memorandum gives the administration permission to prosecute individuals and organizations for their political views. Human Rights Watch condemned the directive, with its interim executive director, Federico Borello, stating: “President Trump’s order mobilizing federal forces to investigate his administration’s perceived opponents turns reality on its head.” ” The National Coalition Against Censorship called it “a blueprint for law enforcement to cast a wide net in the name of counterterrorism, but it undeniably targets political opponents.”

Resistance from States and Governors

The institutional backlash is not limited to the federal level. Oregon’s Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against Trump, Pete Hegseth, and other federal officials in response to the mobilization of the National Guard in Portland under the pretext of NSPM-7. Civil rights organizations have developed protective measures that governors and state attorneys general can adopt to shield their citizens, NGOs, and election workers from NSPM-7 investigations. Robert Reich, in a June 2026 op-ed, called on governors to adopt these protections and on Congress to refuse to fund the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center—whose $12.5 billion budget is currently under review.

A more than 300% increase in domestic terrorism investigations, according to testimony by FBI Director Kash Patel before Congress. Thousands of U.S. citizens and NGOs are now on a secret watchlist linked to the Joint Mission Center, according to former Attorney General Pam Bondi. These figures outline a mass surveillance infrastructure whose precise details remain partially classified—which is, in itself, a major democratic problem.

I am not partisan. I do not belong to any party, and my loyalty lies with the democratic West, not with any political affiliation. But when libertarians at the Cato Institute, former Republicans like Miles Taylor, and right-wing NGOs such as non-evangelical religious coalitions speak out against NSPM-7, it speaks to something essential: this abuse of power is not a matter of left versus right. It is a matter of democracy versus authoritarianism.

Trump as a “necessary evil”: The Limits of a Conditional Defense

What Trump Was Right to Do

We must be intellectually honest. The Trump administration is right on one fundamental point: actual political violence is unacceptable, regardless of the cause it claims to serve. The assassination of Charlie Kirk—an abominable act—and the attacks on federal agents deserve a firm response under the rule of law. The organized doxing of police officers, Molotov cocktail attacks on vehicles, and physical assaults on political opponents: these acts are criminal in nature and must be prosecuted. A liberal democracy that fails to defend itself against political violence condemns itself. To that extent, the administration’s stated intention to vigorously prosecute organized violence—regardless of its political origin—is legitimate.

Trump was also right to point out that certain protests were exploited by radical elements willing to resort to violence, and that certain civic networks may have facilitated—intentionally or unintentionally—illegal activities. A democracy has the right to investigate these networks. It has the right to use its fiscal and judicial tools to dismantle the financing of criminal activities. These principles are sound. The problem lies not in the stated objective of NSPM-7, but in the means it employs and the total absence of safeguards against abuse.

What Makes NSPM-7 Fundamentally Unacceptable

The problem is that NSPM-7 does not limit itself to combating violence. It extends the “terrorist” label to opinions, beliefs, and peaceful activities. It targets individuals based on their ideology, not their actions. It mobilizes the state’s fiscal and security apparatus against ordinary components of civil society—unions, NGOs, opposition parties, and philanthropic foundations. It suppresses scientific data that contradicts its narrative. It creates a system of paid informants. It orders retrospective reviews covering a five-year period. It does so without an explicit legal basis, without adequate judicial oversight, and without democratic accountability mechanisms.

This is where Trump ceases to be a necessary evil and becomes a direct threat to the very institutions he claims to defend. A democracy that uses counterterrorism tools against its own political opponents is no longer truly a democracy. It may still retain the trappings of one—elections, courts, a free press—but its substance has evaporated. The Trump administration faces real challenges: networks that organize violence, destabilized borders, and foreign adversaries. These are legitimate problems that call for legitimate responses. NSPM-7 is not one of them.

I’ll be blunt: Trump exasperates me precisely because he undermines his credibility on real security issues by mixing them with ideological score-settling. If tomorrow China strengthens its influence in the Americas, if Iran crosses a nuclear red line, if Russia consolidates its grip on Eastern Europe—the West will need a strong, credible, and united American democracy. NSPM-7 divides it, weakens it, and undermines its credibility in the eyes of the world.

A precedent for Western democracies: a global wake-up call

What Europe Must Take Away from NSPM-7

NSPM-7 is not just about the Americans. It sends a signal to the entire democratic world. If the world’s leading democracy can legally redefine political opposition as terrorism—even without a solid legal basis, even against the advice of its own judicial institutions—this logic can spread. It may appeal to governments in Central and Eastern Europe that look to Washington for validation of their own authoritarian excesses. It may provide a rhetorical model for semi-democratic regimes seeking to muzzle their opposition without attacking it head-on.

The European Union, which struggles daily to uphold the rule of law in Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, finds itself in a more precarious position when the American model it is supposed to promote adopts authoritarian practices itself. The West’s normative credibility—its ability to defend liberal democracy as a universal model—is directly affected by what is happening in Washington. This is not an American crisis. It is a Western crisis.

The Risk of Escalation and the Repressive Spiral

The history of authoritarian states shows that the redefinition of terrorism as a tool of political control never stops on its own. Once an infrastructure is in place—watchlists, paid informants, retrospective case reviews, interagency joint mission centers—it follows its own logic of expansion. The targets broaden. The criteria become more lenient. Today’s opponents foreshadow tomorrow’s political prisoners. This is not inevitable: U.S. institutions have shown remarkable resilience. But the window of opportunity to halt this drift closes with every new indictment, every new memorandum, and every new expansion of the NSPM-7 framework.

Robert Reich warned in June 2026 that Congress must reaffirm its authority over emergency powers and military deployment on U.S. soil. Governors must adopt protective measures for citizens and NGOs. Civil liberties lawyers are preparing defense strategies. These counterforces exist. They are committed. But they cannot operate in silence. The role of the free press, columnists, intellectuals, and academics—throughout the West—is to call out what is happening and to refuse to normalize the unacceptable.

This risk of escalation haunts me. Not because I think the United States will become a dictatorship tomorrow morning. But because democracy is not lost in a single stroke. It unravels gradually, comfortably, with justifications that seem reasonable one by one. NSPM-7 is one step. If it is not vigorously and consistently challenged, the next step will be even harder to stop.

The Constitutional Issue: What Legal Experts Say

A Memorandum Lacking Legal Basis

From a purely constitutional standpoint, NSPM-7 is legally problematic from start to finish. The Brennan Center has noted that the text cites no statute or constitutional provision to justify the president’s authority to act in this manner. It invokes the PATRIOT Act’s definition of domestic terrorism as if it constituted a legal basis, even though it authorizes only investigations, not the designation of organizations as terrorist groups. It grants the Attorney General the power to recommend the designation of terrorist organizations—a power entirely unsupported by any statute.

The ACLU has emphasized that any attempt to legislate on the basis of ideologies—even violent ones—faces major constitutional obstacles under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has historically protected the freedom of association “to advance beliefs and ideas,” and has imposed strict limits on the government’s ability to punish even speech advocating illegal actions. The memorandum deliberately conflates acts of violence with protected ideological positions—a legally questionable but politically effective tactic in the short term.

“Material Support” Extended Beyond Legal Limits

One of the most dangerous expansions in NSPM-7 concerns the concept of “material support for terrorism”—a serious offense defined by federal law. Under existing law, material support must be provided for one of the federal offenses specifically listed in the terrorism statute. The memorandum directs agencies to investigate material support for “all illegal operations”—a massive expansion of the legal criteria, without congressional approval. This would, in theory, allow someone to be prosecuted for providing water at a lawful protest if a participant subsequently committed a minor offense. This is not a theoretical extrapolation: the ACLU explicitly cited this example.

The concept of “radicalization” is also problematic: the memorandum lists it as a target behavior, even though the Brennan Center has pointed out that it is not only non-criminal—it is not even illegal in any form under U.S. law. Investigating “radicalization” amounts to investigating thought and speech. This is the very definition of political control that the First Amendment is meant to prohibit.

I am not a lawyer. But I can read. And when I read that a presidential memorandum cites no legal basis for the powers it claims, that it targets “radicalization” even though that concept is not defined by law, and that it expands “material support for terrorism” beyond its legal boundaries, I do not see this as a drafting error. I see it as a deliberate decision to build a repressive framework in the hope that no one will challenge it before it becomes too deeply entrenched.

The Surveillance Arsenal: Blacklists, Watchlists, and Databases

The Practical Effects of Being Placed on a Watch List

Being placed on a federal watchlist under NSPM-7 is not merely a symbolic penalty. The consequences are immediate and practical. According to the Brennan Center, those targeted face invasive questioning and searches every time they travel, preemptive stops by law enforcement, barriers to accessing banking and financial services, and the potential loss of a job or housing if the investigation becomes public. And the FBI’s domestic terrorism watchlist—which included approximately 5,000 U.S. citizens as of September 2025—has been actively growing since the implementation of NSPM-7.

In March 2026, the FBI and the IRS formed a joint task force to investigate nonprofit organizations suspected of ties to domestic terrorism. In April 2026, FBI emails obtained by Zeteo showed the Bureau training state and local law enforcement agencies on the provisions of NSPM-7—thereby increasing the number of agents capable of opening investigations. Each layer of this architecture—watchlists, training, retrospective reviews, paid informants, shared databases—reinforces and expands the initial framework.

Social Media as a Vehicle for Surveillance

The administration’s 2027 budget, obtained and analyzed by Ken Klippenstein in April 2026, describes social media and encrypted communications as tools used by “domestic terrorists” for recruitment and planning. This description places not only social media activity but also—potentially—the private messaging tools used by millions of ordinary Americans in the crosshairs of NSPM-7. The explicit reference to encrypted communications as a terrorist tool is a troubling sign regarding the administration’s surveillance ambitions.

Combined with the informant reward system—which encourages family members, colleagues, and neighbors to report suspicious activity—this digital surveillance can create an environment of widespread mistrust within activist communities and beyond. Representative Ro Khanna has described NSPM-7 as “one of Trump’s most dangerous power grabs” precisely because it does not merely punish actions: it aims to preempt dissenting thought before it becomes action.

It is possible to survive an authoritarian government. History is full of such examples. What cannot be easily rebuilt afterward is social trust—between neighbors, between colleagues, between activists—which is destroyed by a system of paid informants. Once trust is shattered by the fear of denunciation, it takes generations to rebuild. That is why this aspect of NSPM-7 strikes me, in the long run, as the most destructive of all.

Conclusion: Identify the problem to better combat it

What History Will Remember About NSPM-7

The history of democracies facing the temptation of authoritarianism is familiar with this moment: the moment when a government—bolstered by an electoral majority, a real or fabricated security crisis, and a thirst for control—crosses the line between self-defense and political repression. NSPM-7 represents that moment for the United States in 2025–2026. Its effects are already well documented: activists, professors, union members, and journalists charged or intimidated—not for acts of violence, but for their ideas, their participation in protests, and their online posts. NGOs under tax scrutiny. Scientific data suppressed. A multi-billion-dollar interagency surveillance infrastructure.

Defending the West means defending its fundamental values—freedom of expression, the right to dissent, the presumption of innocence, and judicial independence. It does not mean defending any particular government, administration, or president. When the West ceases to be true to its own principles, it loses the moral legitimacy that underpins its role in the world. NSPM-7 is not just a threat to Americans. It is a threat to the Western model itself.

What We Can and Must Do

Resistance is possible, and it is already underway. U.S. courts have blocked several of the administration’s measures. Judges appointed by Republican presidents have ruled its actions unconstitutional. Civil liberties organizations—the ACLU, the Brennan Center, Human Rights Watch—are documenting, advocating, and winning legal battles. State governors and attorneys general are preparing legal defenses. Congress can refuse to fund the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center. All of this matters.

But institutional resistance is not enough without civic resistance: refusing to accept normalization, calling out the unacceptable, and keeping alive the memory of what liberal democracy demands of its institutions. Columnists, journalists, intellectuals, and ordinary citizens have an irreplaceable role in this process. Not by excusing political violence—never. But by refusing to allow the fight against violence to serve as a pretext for the destruction of fundamental freedoms. That is the line that NSPM-7 has crossed. And that is the line we must defend.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist