THE FEDS WANT TO
MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO
EVEN POSSESS AN
ANARCHIST ZINE

WAR

Another Crtique of 74
Insurrectionalism

AN ARTICLE STOLEN FROM THE
INTERCEPT WRITTEN BY SETH STERN
This is a text that is not written by (as far as we can tell) an
anarchist, and comes from an online media outlet called The
Intercept.

We are publishing it not because we think the politics are
perfect (for example, we choose to omit the last section of the
article where the author states that the framers of the
constitution liked zines in a way. Fuck the framers and the
racist slave state they created.) Rather, we think that it is
important to stay up to date on the ongoing cases against
anarchists and other radicals today so we can know what we
might expect in cases against us, and how that might impact
our own activities and practices.

To learn more about Des Revol's case (the main subject of this
article) go to freedes.net.

To learn more about the Prairieland case, where Anti-ICE
protestors are being charged as "antifa terrorists," which Des's
case is connected to and being charged as part of, go to
dfwdefendants.wordpress.com

FREE THEM ALL!

Text stolen from:
https://theintercept.com/2025/11/23/prairieland-ice-antifa-
zines-criminalize-protest-journalism/

Cover set in ARCHIVE and Helvetica Now
Text set in Atkinson Hyperlegible
Cover design and zine format by MBTA Distro

Federal prosecutors have filed a new indictment in response
10 a July 4 noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE
detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, during which a police
officer was shot.

There are numerous problems with the indictment, but
perhaps the most glaring is its inclusion of charges against a
Dallas artist who wasn't even at the protest. Daniel “Des”
Sanchez is accused of transporting a box that contained
“Antifa materials” after the incident, supposedly to conceal
evidence against his wife, Maricela Rueda, who was there.

But the boxed materials aren't Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs,
or whatever MAGA officials claim “Antifa” uses to wage its
imaginary war on America. As prosecutors laid out in the July
criminal complaint that led to the indictment, they were zines
and pamphlets. Some contain controversial ideas — one was
titled “Insurrectionary Anarchy” — but they're fully
constitutionally protected free speech. The case demonstrates
the administration’s intensifying efforts to criminalize left-
wing activists after Donald Trump announced in September
that he was designating “Antifa” as a “major terrorist
organization” — a legal designation that doesn't exist for
domestic groups — following the killing of Chariie Kirk.

Sanchez was first indicted in October on charges of “corruptly
concealing a document or record” as a standalone case, but
the new indictment merges his charges with those against the
other defendants, likely in hopes of burying the First
Amendment problems with the case against him under
prosecutors’ claims about the alleged shooting.

It's an escalation of a familiar tactic. In 2023, Georgia
prosecutors listed “zine” distribution s part of the conspiracy
charges against 61 Stop Cop City protesters in a sprawling
RICO indictment that didn’t bother to explain how each
individual defendant was involved in any actual crime. I wrote
back then about my concern that this wasn't just sloppy
overreach, but also a blueprint for censorship. Those fears
have now been validated by Sanchez's prosecution solely for
possessing similar literature.

There have been other warnings that cops and prosecutors
think they've found a constitutional loophole — if you can't
punish reporting it, punish transporting it. Los Angeles.
journalist Maya Lau is suing the LA County Sheriff's
Department for secretly investigating her for conspiracy, theft
of government property, unlawful access of a computer,
burglary, and receiving stolen property. According to her
attorneys, her only offense was reporting on a list of deputies
with histories of misconduct for the Los Angeles Times.

It's also reminiscent of the Biden administration's case
against right-wing outlet Project Veritas for possessing and
transporting Ashley Biden's diary, which the organization
bought from a Florida woman later convicted of stealing and
selling it. The Constitution protects the right to publish
materials stolen by others — a right that would be
meaningless if they couldn't possess the materials in the first
place.

Despite the collapses of the Cop City prosecution and the Lau
investigation — and its own dismissal of the Project Veritas
case — the Trump administration has followed those
dangerous examples, characterizing lawful activism and
ideologies as terrorist conspiracies (a strategy Trump allies
also floated during this first term) to seize the power to
prosecute pamphlet possession anytime they use the magic
word “Antifa.”
That's a chilling combination for any journalist, activist, or
individual who criticizes Trump. National security reporters
have long dealt with the specter of prosecution under the
archaic Espionage Act for merely obtaining government
secrets from sources, particularly after the Biden
administration extracted a guilty plea from WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange. But the rest of the press — and everyone else,
for that matter — understood that merely possessing written
materials, no matter what they said, is not a crime.

Guilt by Literature

At what point does a literary collection or newspaper
subscription become prosecutorial evidence under the Trump
administration’s logic? Essentially, whenever it's convenient.
The vagueness is a feature, not a bug. When people don't
know which political materials might later be deemed
evidence of criminality, the safest course is to avoid engaging
with controversial ideas altogether.

The slippery slope from anarchist zines to conventional
journalism isn't hypothetical, and we're already sliding fast.
Journalist Mario Guevara can tell you that from El Salvador,
where he was deported in a clear case of retaliation for
livestreaming a No Kings protest. So can Tufts doctoral
student Riimeysa Oztiirk, as she awaits deportation
proceedings for co-writing an opinion piece critical of Israel's
wars that the administration considers evidence of support for
terrorism.

At least two journalists lawfully in the U.S. — Ya'akub Ira
Vijandre and Sami Hamdi — were nabbed by ICE just last
month. The case against Vijandre is partially based on his
criticism of prosecutorial overreach in the Holy Land Five case
and his liking social media posts that quote Quranic verses,
raising the question of how far away we are from someone
being indicted for transporting a Quran or a news article
critical of the war on terror.

Sanchez’s case is prosecutorial overreach stacked on more
prosecutorial overreach. The National Lawyers Guild criticized
prosecutors’ tenuous dot-connecting to justify holding 18
defendants responsible for one gunshot wound. Some
defendants were also charged with supporting terrorism due
to their alleged association with “Antifa.” Anarchist zines were
cited as evidence against them, too.

Sanchez was charged following a search that ICE proclaimed
on social media turned up “literal insurrectionist propaganda”
he had allegedly transported from his home to an apartment,
noting that “insurrectionary anarchism is regarded as the
most serious form of domestic (non-jihadi) terrorist threat.”
The tweet also said that Sanchez is a green card holder
granted legal status through the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program.

The indictment claims Sanchez was transporting those
materials to conceal them because they incriminated his wife.
But how can possession of literature incriminate anyone, let
alone someone who isn't even accused of anything but being
present when someone else allegedly fired a gun? Zines aren't
contraband; it's not illegal to be an anarchist or read about
anarchism. I don't know why Sanchez allegedly moved the box
of documents, but if it was because he (apparently correctly)
feared prosecutors would try to use them against his wife,
that's a commentary on prosecutors’ lawlessness, not
Sanchez’s.

Violent rhetoric is subject to punishment only when it
constitutes a “true threat” of imminent violence. Even then,
the speaker is held responsible, not anyone merely in
possession of their words.

Government prosecutors haven't alleged the “Antifa materials”
contained any “true threats,” or any other category of speech
that falls outside the protection of the First Amendment. Nor
did they allege that the materials were used to plan the
alleged actions of protesters on July 4 (although they did
allege that the materials were “anti-government” and “anti-
Trump”).

We don't need a constitutional right to publish (or possess)
only what the government likes.

Even the aforementioned “Insurrectionary Anarchy
for Attack” zine, despite its hyperbolic title, reads like a think
piece, not a how-to manual. It advocates for tactics like rent
strikes and squatting, not shooting police officers. Critically, it
has nothing to do with whether Sanchez’s wife committed
crimes on July 4.

Being guilty of possessing literature is a concept
fundamentally incompatible with a free society. We don't need
a constitutional right to publish (or possess) only what the
government likes, and the “anti-government” literature in
Sanchez's box of zines is exactly what the First Amendment
protects. With history and leaders like Vladimir Putin and
Viktor Orban as a guide, we also know it's highly unlikely that
Trump’s censorship crusade will stop with a few radical
pamphlets.
“BEING GUILTY OF
POSSESSING
LITERATURE IS A
CONCEPT
FUNDAMENTALLY
INCOMPATIBLE
WITH A FREE
SOCIETY.”

To learn about the Prairieland Defendants go to:
https://dfwdefendants.wordpress.com/
To learn about Des Revol go to:

https://freedes.net/
To find more anarchist zines, & counter-information, go to:
mbtadistro.noblogs.org