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<\/p>\nSeth Stern is the director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/p>\nJeremy Busby is a writer and activist incarcerated in Texas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Trump administration<\/span> attacking the right to publish or report information is a given at this point. The president has threatened journalists for everything from questioning<\/a> the wisdom of his failed war with Iran to touching<\/a> the peeled lining of his renovated reflecting pool<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tantrums like those may now feel routine, but this week marked a new front in Trump\u2019s war on information: Daniel \u201cDes\u201d Sanchez Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for transporting a box of zines he didn\u2019t even write. He\u2019s one of eight defendants sentenced on Tuesday to a combined 450 years \u2014 the first prison sentences<\/a> against so-called \u201cantifa\u201d handed down under the framework of NSPM-7<\/a>, President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping \u201ccounterterrorism\u201d memorandum to clamp down on dissent from the left.<\/p>\n The prosecution\u2019s theory was that Sanchez moved the zines, which discussed anarchism and other anti-government ideas, to conceal evidence<\/a> in the case against his wife, Maricela Rueda. Rueda attended a July 4, 2025, protest at the Prairieland immigration jail in Texas where a police officer was shot. (She was not accused of shooting him or having anything to do with the shooting but was herself sentenced to 70 years.)<\/p>\n But that nuance is cold comfort: It assumes that simply possessing years-old political pamphlets<\/a> that said nothing about the protest or shooting<\/a> could somehow constitute evidence of a crime. Sharing the political ideology of the shooter, the government contended, meant Rueda and her co-defendants were culpable for the shooter\u2019s actions \u2014 and by allegedly attempting to prevent officers from finding out about Rueda\u2019s ideology, Sanchez shared in the blame as well.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve reached the point in the erosion of the First Amendment where the government considers possession of anarchist zines and membership in a terrorist cell to be more or less the same thing. Once the box of zines was discovered, there was no need to prove Rueda planned or had any idea that anyone would be shot at the protest.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s worse is that this will likely only ramp up the administration\u2019s efforts to criminalize being in possession of information. Whatever you may think of former CNN host Don Lemon, he\u2019s no anarchist or extremist, and the content of his broadcasts bears little resemblance to the zines Sanchez was convicted of transporting. And yet, after indicting him and independent journalist Georgia Fort on frivolous charges<\/a> relating to their livestreaming of a protest at a Minnesota church, the government sought a warrant<\/a> to obtain the identities of subscribers to their YouTube channels.<\/p>\n This will likely only ramp up the administration\u2019s efforts to criminalize being in possession of information.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Fortunately, a judge rejected that warrant. But it\u2019s a chilling revelation of the administration\u2019s modus operandi. Lemon and Fort\u2019s YouTube subscribers would, of course, have no knowledge of what happened at the church protest beyond what was publicly broadcast. Their identities are as irrelevant to whether Lemon and Fort committed a crime as the box of zines was to Rueda\u2019s case. The only conceivable reason the government might want a list of YouTube subscribers is to keep an eye on people who watch disfavored shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n And let\u2019s say someone who\u2019d watched Lemon and Fort\u2019s livestreams and then heard about their arrests had cleared their browser history because they (rightly) feared the administration might target them. Could they then be prosecuted for concealing evidence under the same logic applied to Sanchez? If they\u2019d downloaded the video, could they be accused of possessing contraband? Would forwarding a link equate to trafficking?\u00a0<\/p>\n It all sounds preposterous, but virtually nothing is too absurd for this Department of Justice. In fact, it\u2019s already argued that documents investigative reporters receive from whistleblower sources can constitute contraband<\/a>. (It\u2019s worth pointing out that Joe Biden\u2019s DOJ used this same logic when it pursued its own ridiculous<\/a> \u201ctransporting\u201d of information case against Project Veritas for moving Ashley Biden\u2019s diary across state lines).\u00a0<\/p>\n These frivolous actions create a catch-22 for all Americans. The more people are investigated for engaging with ideas the administration deems dangerously anti-government, the more likely others are to conceal evidence of their own controversial beliefs \u2014 not because they are evidence of any real crime but because prosecutors are out of control. But if they do so, they risk incriminating themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n NSPM-7, which was issued last September, tasks federal agencies<\/a> with dismantling networks of \u201canti-fascist\u201d actors, a purposely overly broad term since expanded to include<\/a> those with \u201cextreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Given that antifa, as a singular, cohesive organization, is a figment of the right\u2019s imagination, agents cannot accomplish that task by uncovering a membership registry<\/a>. They can only do so by identifying people with viewpoints they consider \u201cextreme,\u201d like anti-ICE protesters officers have told<\/a> they\u2019re being added to watchlists<\/a>, or pro-Palestine opinion writers<\/a> they\u2019ve sought to deport.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Chicago and other cities ICE invaded, activists and organizers packaged<\/a> whistles and zines to distribute to residents. Under the logic of NSPM-7 and Sanchez Estrada\u2019s conviction, that is a network of actors engaged in organized political violence. If you read one of their zines, you could be deemed a member of an illicit enterprise, and if you hide one, you\u2019re covering for criminals.<\/p>\n\n