• Stadtwerkstatt (map)
  • 11 Karl-Liebknecht-Straße
  • 10178 Berlin
  • Germany

Sovereignty Shutdown - No Infrastructure is Safe: The US sanctions of Autistici / Inventati

31 October 2026 · 5pm–7.30pm
Doors open at 4.30pm

Free – Register now

Where: Stadtwerkstatt - how to find
Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11
10178 Berlin

Max 80 Participants.

On August 26, 2026, the United States Department of State under the leadership of Secretary Rubio designated the Italian hacktivist collective Autistici/Inventati as a “global terrorist group”, alleging that it provided support to radical violent actions. This act was conducted without any actual legal process neither in the EU or in the US and, following the freezing of A/I bank accounts and users’ donations by Banca Etica, the collective was forced to shut down after 25 years of activity.

Autistici/Inventati was a non-profit association born in Italy in April 2001, with the aim to provide free, independent platforms for digital self-defense and safe channels of communication to activists and creatives. They provided 20,000 email accounts, 10,000 blogs on the NoBlogs platform, 5,000 mailing lists, and 1,500 websites. Their work was based on principles of anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, anti-militarism, and non-commercialism.

The A/I project originated from the encounters of individuals and collectives of the Italian autonomous grassroots movement interested in technology and active in the digital rights struggle (such as Indymedia Italia and others around the G8 summit in Genoa). For more than two decades A/I has been hosting a platform which was more than a technical tool, but also a vision for collective empowerment, addressing the need of free communication for activists and other individuals all over the world. The blogs, websites and mailing lists hosted by the collective contained an important piece of history spanning 25 years of independent Internet culture, technological self-determination and community exchange.

This case is far from being just an isolated Italian hacktivist case, and it can be considered a direct threat to European digital sovereignty, fundamental civil rights, and everyday infrastructure.

What happened to A/I is a consequence of a global political repression that is currently taking place, and it is not surprising, considering that last July the United States Department brought together governments from across the globe at the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism to address "the rise of far-left political terrorism as a transnational threat" - as they put it. With this case, we are witnessing some of the consequences. In this case the shocking aspect is that the people that are hit by this have been providing free technological infrastructure, offering the service, not the contents.

What do these sanctions mean for German independent tech infrastructures and open-source networks? Why is the case of Autistici/Inventati so relevant both in Germany, Europe and worldwide? Are there measures to counter these threats? And if yes, what could they be?

These questions will be the focus of our event “Sovereignty Shutdown - No Infrastructure is Safe: The US sanctions of Autistici/Inventati”, where speakers with different expertise, members of our community and all those concerned by this global threat to digital rights are invited to share ideas, exchange strategies of resistance and stand in solidarity with Autistici/Inventati.

Letters of solidarity signed by Disruption Network Lab:

Read more at keepitfree.ai



Speakers

Sunna Ævarsdóttir

Global Director of Courage International, IS

Sunna Ævarsdóttir is an international lawyer and former member of the Icelandic Parliament for the Pirate Party, serving from 2016-2024. She was the chair of the Parliamentary group of the Pirate Party from 2017-2019 and 2023-2024. Sunna Ævarsdóttir represented the Icelandic Parliament at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from 2017 to 2024 where she built a distinguished record of advocacy for freedom of expression, the protection of whistleblowers and the release of political prisoners in Europe. During her tenure at PACE, Sunna Ævarsdóttir served as rapporteur for the 2024 report “The detention and conviction of Julian Assange and their chilling effects on human rights” (PACE Doc. 16040). The report led to a PACE resolution that formally recognised Julian Assange as a political prisoner during his incarceration in Belmarsh Prison. In addition, Ævarsdóttir chaired the PACE Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee (AS/JUR) and has been widely recognised for her leadership on anti-corruption, transparency, and privacy rights. www.courageinternational.org

Matthias Monroy
Editor of the German civil rights journal Bürgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP and nd.Der Tag, DE.

Matthias Monroy is a journalist, activist, and expert on civil rights, policing, and security technologies in Europe. He works as editor for the civil rights journal Bürgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP and for nd.DerTag. After witnessing and experiencing military and police repression in the 1990’s, Monroy focuses on policing in the European Union, migration control, internet monitoring, surveillance and interception technologies, police gadgets, satellite intelligence and drones. He has written for several newspapers and online-media like netzpolitik.org.

Fiore Pagano
Founder, Cypher Sex, IT/DE

Fiore Pagano (they/them) is a feminist hacktivist and has been contributing to autonomous servers and digital security training for activists and human rights defenders for a couple of decades. Fiore founded Cypher Sex, a Berlin-based feminist intersectional collective offering digital self-defence resources and workshops to women, LGBTQIA* people, sex workers, anti-violence shelters and the radical queer community. Using a transfeminist approach, Fiore collaborates with autonomous infrastructures and NGOs, writes and curates digital security manuals and websites, and provides digital self-defence trainings to sex workers, activists, human rights defenders and other at-risk groups.

Tatiana Bazzichelli
Director and Founder, Disruption Network Lab, Berlin, IT/DE

Tatiana Bazzichelli is the founder and director of the Disruption Network Lab. Her work focuses on whistleblowing, network culture, art and activism. Since September 2023, she is the director of the Disruption Network Institute, a centre for investigation and empirical research into the impact of artificial intelligence on new technologies of war, automated weapons and networked warfare. She received a Ph.D. in Information and Media Studies from the Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University, in 2011 and is the author of Whistleblowing for Change (2021), Networked Disruption (2013), Disrupting Business (2013) and Networking (2006). For three years until 2014, she was a curator at the transmediale art & digital culture festival in Berlin, where she developed the year-round programme “reSource transmedial culture Berlin” and curated several conference events.

Disruption Network Lab is part of New Perspectives for Action (2023-2027). A project by Re-Imagine Europe, a collaboration between Paradiso and Sonic Acts (NL), Elevate Festival (Austria), A4 (SK), INA GRM (FR), Borealis (NO), KONTEJNER (HR), RUPERT (LT), Semibreve (PT), Parco d’Arte Vivente (IT), Disruption Network Lab (DE), BEK (NO), Kontrapunkt (MK) and Radio Web MACBA (ES). Co-funded by the European Union.