The seizure of a server belonging to the Italian tech collective Autistici/Inventati in Amsterdam raises questions about the US campaign against left-wing groups in Europe. One possible explanation lies in the powers of the National Security Agency, which could allow US authorities to monitor domestic communications without a court order.

Police in Amsterdam seized a rented server at a data centre on Tuesday at the request of US authorities. The police confirmed the operation, which was reported by the newspaper “NRC”. According to the report, the device belongs to the now-defunct Italian left-wing tech collective Autistici/Inventati (A/I). For more than 25 years, it provided free web hosting and email services to thousands of groups.

Under the US mutual legal assistance request, the Dutch police are creating a digital image of the data and forwarding it to the public prosecutor’s office there. The server is then supposed to be returned to the data centre. If it was indeed rented by A/I, the data stored on it are likely to have been deleted and overwritten several times by now: left-wing tech collectives have long been subjected to repression and know how to counter it.

Groups in Europe on US terror lists

The operation in Amsterdam is the latest in a campaign launched by the US government a year ago, initially targeting groups at home. On 22 September 2025, Donald Trump designated “Antifa” a domestic terrorist organisation by executive order. Three days later, a “National Security Memorandum” on combating domestic terrorism and organised political violence followed. On 29 September, the then Attorney General Pamela Bondi also declared protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) a target of the measures. A further internal memorandum issued on 4 December singled out “Antifa-aligned extremists” as a particular threat.

On 13 November 2025, the State Department under Marco Rubio then designated four foreign left-wing radical groups as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” for the first time: the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front from Italy, the Armed Proletarian Justice and the Self-Defence of the Revolutionary Class from Greece, and Antifa Ost from Germany. A week later, the four groups were additionally designated as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations”.

€9 million reward for information

The designations are implemented by the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department. For decades, it has maintained a list of “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons”. In the case of the four left-wing radical groups, the listing does not have a direct effect in the European countries where they live and operate. However, their financial transactions in the United States, for example through Visa, the Swift system or providers such as PayPal, are blocked, and US citizens are prohibited from doing business with them. Anyone who provides material support to such organisations risks up to 20 years in prison.

Six weeks ago, the US government finally used this instrument against Autistici/Inventati, alleging that the collective had supported “Antifa”. The Treasury Department also justified adding it to the list by citing the fact that US groups used its services. Among other consequences, A/I lost the domain name used for its hosted blogs because the registrar for “.org” domains is based in the United States. A/I has since permanently shut down all its services, apparently also to protect the left-wing groups whose websites it hosted. The seizure in Amsterdam suggests that these concerns were justified.

Backdoor for monitoring US citizens

It is unclear why the government is going to such lengths to target left-wing groups in Europe. Several legal experts in the United States suspect that one reason may lie in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: designating the groups as foreign organisations could also make it possible to monitor domestic activities. Similar to a provision governing Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, the section allows the telecommunications of US citizens to be monitored when it passes through internet exchange points abroad.

The notorious National Security Agency (NSA), the country’s largest intelligence agency, is responsible for surveillance abroad. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which investigates domestic terrorism, can access NSA information without specific suspicion and, above all, without a search warrant. This backdoor could therefore be used to target anti-fascism in the United States without having to go through the courts to obtain warrants.

Plans for autumn since summer at an “early stage”

Another possibility is that the A/I server seized in Amsterdam is intended to provide new material for the US campaign of cross-border repression against left-wing groups. On 16 July, Secretary of State Rubio hosted a “Ministerial Conference on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism” in Washington, at which he portrayed Cuba as the mastermind behind such activity.

Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior also attended the conference. Rather than contradicting the US conspiracy theories targeting the left, it is even supporting them: a follow-up meeting is to take place in Germany soon, a spokesperson confirmed. However, details of this “workshop of expert professionals” have remained secret since it became known in July.

In response to a further enquiry from “nd”, the ministry repeated the information it had provided in the summer, stating that the planning and preparations were still at an “early stage”. Not even the calendar week of the workshop, which is supposed to take place “in autumn”, has been disclosed. The State Department is leading the preparations on the US side and, as far as is currently known, is also setting the agenda.

Published in German in „nd“.