Posted by Rachel Hurley on her Facebook page. Follow this link to read the original document on The White House website. This memorandum, which takes the US one step closer to full-throated fascism, has the filthy and bloodstained paw prints of Stephen Miller all over it.

Here are the operative sections:

The memorandum lists specific ‘indicia’ – indicators – that law enforcement should use to identify potential terrorists. Read these carefully:

Anti-Americanism. Anti-capitalism. Anti-Christianity. Support for overthrowing the government. Extremism on migration. Extremism on race. Extremism on gender.

Hostility toward ‘traditional American views’ on family, religion, and morality.

That’s not a terrorism profile. That’s a description of roughly half the country’s political opinions.

Peace, MAA

Democracy is officially over – and we are fucked.

While everyone was distracted by the James Comey indictment theater, Trump signed something far more dangerous. National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 – NSPM-7 for short – labels common political beliefs as indicators of terrorism. Anti-Christian. Anti-American. Anti-capitalism. If you hold any of these views, you’re now on a list of potential domestic terrorists.

Most of the media either missed it entirely or got it wrong – calling it an executive order when it’s actually something much more powerful. An executive order directs how the federal government operates day-to-day. A national security memorandum is a sweeping policy decree for defense, intelligence, and law enforcement. These are the kinds of directives that historically have changed the course of American policy for decades.

Think about what just happened. The president of the United States just directed the FBI, Department of Justice, and a network of over 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces to investigate Americans based on their political beliefs. Not their actions. Their beliefs.

The memorandum lists specific “indicia” – indicators – that law enforcement should use to identify potential terrorists. Read these carefully:

Anti-Americanism. Anti-capitalism. Anti-Christianity. Support for overthrowing the government. Extremism on migration. Extremism on race. Extremism on gender.

Hostility toward “traditional American views” on family, religion, and morality.

That’s not a terrorism profile. That’s a description of roughly half the country’s political opinions.

The directive says law enforcement should “intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” Pre-crime. They’re literally targeting people for things they haven’t done yet – based solely on what they believe and what they say.

Joint Terrorism Task Forces aren’t new. The first was established in New York in 1980. After 9/11, they exploded from 35 task forces to over 200, with more than 4,400 members drawn from federal, state, and local agencies. They were supposed to prevent another terrorist attack.

But we already know what JTTFs do when they’re told to monitor domestic political activity. Documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests in 2004, 2005, and 2006 showed that JTTFs were investigating peaceful advocacy groups – Greenpeace, Catholic Workers Group, antiwar protesters. In 2010, the Justice Department Inspector General confirmed that JTTFs had improperly spied on domestic organizations based on speculation rather than actual evidence of criminal activity.

The Inspector General found that most of these investigations didn’t violate regulations – because the regulations themselves set the bar so low that opening an investigation required almost no factual basis at all.

Now Trump has directed this entire apparatus to focus on “leftist” political violence. Stephen Miller – Trump’s homeland security advisor – said this is “the first time in American history that there is an all-of-government effort to dismantle left wing terrorism.”

Notice what’s missing from this directive. Any mention of right-wing violence. Not a word about January 6. Nothing about the Proud Boys or any of the fascist militias that Trump has consistently refused to condemn. The memorandum strings together completely unrelated incidents – protests against police, the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, attempts on Trump’s life – and presents them as evidence of a coordinated left-wing conspiracy.

There’s no evidence connecting these events. None. But that doesn’t matter when you’re building a narrative.

The memorandum focuses heavily on speech. It says political violence emerges from “organized campaigns” that begin in “anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions.” In other words – if you’re talking about politics anywhere, you’re potentially under investigation.

NSPM-7 doesn’t even mention the First Amendment. Think about that. A national security directive that targets political beliefs and speech doesn’t bother to acknowledge Americans’ fundamental right to organize and protest.

The practical implications are staggering. The directive instructs the Treasury Department to trace funding networks. It tells the IRS to investigate tax-exempt organizations that might “directly or indirectly” finance political violence – a standard so vague it could apply to any nonprofit that organizes protests. It authorizes investigations into “institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations” that aid and abet domestic terrorism.

Who decides what counts as aiding and abetting? The administration does.

The directive also prioritizes Foreign Agents Registration Act investigations – targeting NGOs and American citizens with “close ties to foreign governments.” This directly contradicts Attorney General Pam Bondi’s earlier memo that FARA prosecutions should focus on traditional espionage. But consistency isn’t the point. Control is.

Sebastian Gorka – Trump’s counterterrorism czar – made the administration’s position crystal clear after signing the directive. He told Newsmax that “the left refuses to rid themselves of the justification for violence” and that Trump is “taking measures to protect us from the violent rhetoric that becomes snipers and bullets.”

Violent rhetoric. That’s the standard now. Not violent acts.

Rhetoric.

The beauty of using JTTFs from Trump’s perspective is that it bypasses Congressional oversight. States and cities have already signed agreements with the feds to fight terrorism. Officers are already assigned. The infrastructure exists – Trump is just redirecting it toward his political opponents.

Three cities have actually voted to terminate their participation in JTTFs. Portland, San Francisco, and Oakland all ended their memoranda of understanding with the FBI after recognizing that JTTFs were overriding standard operating procedures and turning local cops into federal agents who target their own communities.

Maybe more cities should be considering the same.

This isn’t hyperbole. NSPM-7 is a declaration of war on anyone who disagrees with the Trump administration’s agenda. It takes the entire post-9/11 counterterrorism apparatus – built to stop foreign terrorists – and aims it at American citizens exercising their constitutional rights.

History is full of examples of governments using national security as a pretext to crush political opposition. The Reichstag Fire Decree in 1933. COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 70s. Every authoritarian regime starts by labeling dissent as a security threat.

The question isn’t whether this will be abused. The question is how long it takes.

When the president can designate political beliefs as indicators of terrorism, when law enforcement can investigate people for pre-crime based on their speech, when the entire intelligence and law enforcement apparatus is directed to monitor and disrupt political organizing – you don’t live in a democracy anymore.

Americans now live in a country where the wrong opinion can make you a terrorist.