AI Summary
5 min readOn August 26, 2024, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added Autistici/Inventati (A/SI) to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The group, which has operated openly since 2001, provided free email, listservs, and blog hosting to roughly 10,000 users worldwide—activists, citizen journalists, and community organizers. They did not hack systems or coordinate attacks. They did the “reproductive labor of social movements,” as guest Margaret Kiljoy put it: building non-corporate communication infrastructure. Within days, their bank accounts were frozen, their domain names were seized, and the organization announced it could no longer function. The U.S. government had not alleged that A/SI itself committed any violent act. The charge was that it hosted platforms used by others who did.
Who were Autistici/Inventati, and what did they actually do?
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What you'll learn
- 1 (03:25) **Introduction to the Composition Episode** - Robert Evans explains this is a compilation of the week's episodes with fewer ads.
- 2 (03:50) **Segment 1: The Government Declares Left-Wing Tech Groups Terrorists** - James and Margaret Kiljoy discuss the U.S. designating Autistici/Inventati as a "specially designated global terrorist" group.
- 3 (12:30) **Segment 1: The Mechanism of the Sanction & Its Immediate Impact** - James details the specific legal and financial mechanisms used against A/I.
- 4 (24:50) **Segment 1: The Death of A/I and the Fragility of the Internet** - The hosts describe the final collapse of the organization and what it portends.
- 5 (43:30) **Segment 2: Should We Do Outreach to the MAHA Movement?** - Garrison and Dr. Kaveh ask whether public health advocates should engage with the "Make America Healthy Again" movement.
- 6 (60:58) **Segment 2: AOC's Outreach Strategy & the Debate It Sparked** - Garrison and Dr. Kaveh analyze the specific approach taken by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
- 7 (76:58) **Segment 2: The Risks and the "Off-Ramp" Theory** - Garrison and Dr. Kaveh conclude their analysis of the outreach debate.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file:
- Sanctions, Terror, and the Internet
- Should AOC talk to MAHA?
- Debating the American Role in the Middle East
- A History Built of Uprising
- Executive Disorder: Oil Crisis, New Mail-In-Voting Rules Blocked, Macklemore Based??
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Sources/Links:
Sanctions, Terror, and the Internet
- https://www.inventati.org/campaign/press
- https://keepitfree.ai/announcements/a/i-shuts-down-stay-human/
- https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/
- https://davidgraeber.org/articles/the-new-anarchists/
Should AOC talk to MAHA?
- https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/28/poll-maha-health-fractures-kennedy-00972253
- https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/maha-health-concerns-resonate-broadly-but-lag-behind-health-care-costs-even-for-maha-voters/
- https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/kff-health-tracking-poll-maha-and-the-midterms/
- https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2026/09/05/inside-aocs-maha-outreach-01066409
- https://www.youtube.com/live/h6fe9CaVZCI
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRgeXPsihXI
Debating the American Role in the Middle East