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A month after<\/span> Donald Trump issued an executive order purporting to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist group, an intelligence unit inside the Miami-Dade Sheriff\u2019s Office in Florida sent out a confidential bulletin.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s announcement was widely criticized as a legally baseless attempt<\/a> to criminalize<\/a> his enemies on the left, but the Southeast Florida Fusion Center took it very seriously.<\/p>\n Citing sources that included right-wing social media accounts, the bulletin described antifa as a \u201cdecentralized autonomous network of cells\u201d that \u201cstand against capitalism and want to overthrow governments they feel are oppressive through violence and silence their opposition by any means necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAntifa has been very active, their most prevalent presence during the George Floyd riots and recently during the anti-ICE protests,\u201d it said, citing the 2020 national uprising against police brutality<\/a> and the protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that followed<\/a> Trump\u2019s rise to power.<\/p>\n The Miami-Dade bulletin<\/a> went on to describe the National Lawyers Guild \u2014 a left-leaning<\/a> collective once villainized by Joseph McCarthy \u2014 as the \u201clegal representative\u201d of antifa. It also warned about the danger of zines as tools to \u201crecruit new sympathizers\u201d and of inflatable animal costumes as a \u201cform of propaganda implemented by Antifa to soften their image.\u201d<\/p>\n It was just one example of how, as the administration accelerates its crackdown on left-wing organizers, Trump\u2019s push to paint antifa as a terror group<\/a> has seeped into local law enforcement. <\/p>\n Previously unreported documents obtained by The Intercept show how local fusion centers are borrowing the tone and some of the language of Trump\u2019s invectives against the left. They draw on his September 22 executive order<\/a> designating antifa as terrorists and on prosecutions launched after a similar but more wide-reaching directive<\/a> issued three days later, known as National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tone set by leadership is important,\u201d Brendan McQuade, a University of Southern Maine professor who studies fusion centers and domestic surveillance, said of the documents obtained by The Intercept. \u201cIn the Trump administration the incentive structure is clear: Trump wants to mobilize the security apparatus against his perceived enemies, and in some sense the FBI and the Florida fusion center are both responding to that incentive structure.\u201d<\/p>\n A White House spokesperson said the administration\u2019s approach was part of a \u201cnew law enforcement strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe President\u2019s Memorandum is focused on investigating, disrupting, dismantling, and prosecuting individuals and entities engaged in organized political violence and domestic terrorism,\u201d said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. \u201cThe Trump Administration will get to the bottom of this vast network inciting violence in American communities.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Florida Report<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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