A sweeping memorandum from the Justice Department and a leaked reporting thread suggest the federal government is preparing a centralised catalogue of Americans it regards as ‘extremists’, a move that civil-liberties advocates warn could criminalise dissent.
The White House’s NSPM-7 presidential memorandum and an attorney-general directive reviewed by reporters instruct the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) to identify, investigate and disrupt networks the administration characterises as engaged in political violence or ‘organised political violence’.
The directives broaden counter-terror tools to target institutions and movements whose views are labelled ‘anti-American’ or ‘radical’, which sparked urgent legal and constitutional questions.
What the New Directives Say
The White House‘s National Security Presidential Memorandum, titled ‘Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organised Political Violence’, directs executive departments to build ‘a national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt networks, entities, and organisations that foment political violence’. It explicitly instructs Treasury and the IRS to examine financial networks and tax-exempt actors for links to political violence.
An internal Justice Department memo attributed to Attorney-General Pam Bondi, obtained and published by reporters, orders line prosecutors and federal law enforcement to ‘prioritise’ investigations into movements such as antifa and other groups described by the memo as animated by ‘extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment’.
The memo directs the FBI to ‘compile a list’ of organisations that ‘may be engaged in acts that constitute domestic terrorism’ and to mine agency files for relevant intelligence.
Those instructions follow an executive order and public statements by the president designating the decentralised antifa movement as a ‘domestic terrorist organisation’, language that rights groups and some legal scholars say is unprecedented and legally fraught given the movement’s lack of formal structure.
Legal, Practical and Constitutional Concerns
Lawyers and civil-society groups say the memos and NSPM-7’s language risk turning belief or advocacy into predicate evidence for criminal investigation. The memorandum and the NSPM rely on broad, capacious descriptions of conduct and motive, ‘anti-Americanism’, ‘radical gender ideology’, ‘hostility towards those who hold traditional American views;’ terms that do not correspond to statutory elements of crime and could sweep in protected speech.
DOJ also labels “impeding” immigration enforcement as “domestic terrorism”, even though we already know that DHS has deemed following, recording, honking, and protesting all as “impeding” activities… https://t.co/YCwTghL2lL
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) December 8, 2025
The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocates have already warned that extending counter-terror tools, including financial scrutiny, tax-status reviews and investigative databases, to civil organisations and protest networks invites chilling effects and potential First Amendment litigation.
Legal briefs and analysis firms note NSPM-7 asks the IRS to refer tax-exempt entities ‘directly or indirectly’ financing political violence to the DOJ, a formulation carrying high risk for nonprofits and foundations.
Historically, FBI intelligence products that categorised political movements as ‘extremist’ have triggered controversy. Leaked and declassified documents from earlier years show the bureau tracked Black-led protest movements and civil-rights activists under counter-extremism frameworks, provoking congressional scrutiny and calls for transparency. Civil-liberties groups fear a return to broad surveillance and ‘mapping’ of speech networks.
Leaks, Implementation and Who Ends Up on the List
Reporting from Ken Klippenstein and others, published material described as leaked internal intelligence and memos that illustrate how JTTFs and field offices might operationalise these directives — from tip-line enhancements to ‘mapping the full network of culpable actors’. Klippenstein’s reporting describes internal bulletins and intelligence guidance that frame protests and certain civil actions as potential avenues for ‘domestic violent extremists’.
🚨Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list” of Americans who may be extremists, per signed memo leaked to me: https://t.co/kfcJcvxayZ
— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) December 6, 2025
Reuters confirmed a Bondi memo instructing the FBI to compile a list of entities and to dig through prior incidents spanning five years, citing examples from doxxing to alleged targeting of public officials. The memo asks the FBI to develop ‘strategies similar to those used to counter violent and organised crime’ to ‘disrupt and dismantle entire networks’. That language indicates enforcement calibrated to multilateral investigations rather than single-incident criminal probes.
But the government has not published a public framework with objective criteria for inclusion, nor has it released any oversight safeguards for civil-society actors or journalists. The absence of transparent standards raises a practical question: who decides what constitutes the requisite level of support, funding or coordination that transforms advocacy into a prosecutable nexus with political violence?
Originally published on IBTimes UK
