"“Terrorist” is the word that the Trump administration employs to describe the victims of its most egregious acts of state violence.
President Donald Trump has used the word “terrorist” to justify the extrajudicial killings of civilians in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. And his deputies used it to explain away the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis by federal agents.
“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narco terrorists,” Trump wrote following the initial boat strike on September 2, 2025. He said the attack “occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that Good and Pretti were guilty of “domestic terrorism.” And top White House adviser Stephen Miller used similar language to describe both.
These killings were conducted thousands of miles apart by different agencies in very different contexts. But the connection between them could be more than semantic.
Under National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7, Trump’s Justice Department is now assembling a secret “domestic terrorist organization” database. It also maintains a secret list of “designated terrorist organizations” with whom the U.S. claims to be at war.
For months, the White House and Justice Department have failed to answer a question that becomes more relevant with every person branded a domestic terrorist, shot by federal agents, or both: Are Americans who the federal government deems to be domestic terrorists under NSPM-7 subject to extrajudicial killings like those it claims are members of designated terrorist organizations on boats at sea?"
https://theintercept.com/2026/02/02/trump-nspm-7-domestic-terrorist-minneapolis-alex-pretti/
#USA #Trump #StateTerrorism #CivilLiberties #Activism #NSPM7