Block a Road, Go to Prison

It has a nice ring to it. In fact they could print buttons, tee shirts and baseball caps with the slogan!

Block a Road, Go to Prison

Trump and Congress can put an end to ‘civil terrorism.’

By Tal Fortgang, WSJ

Feb. 19, 2025 5:01 pm ET

Left-wing radicals have made a habit of chanting “death to America” and “glory to the resistance” led by Iran and its terrorist proxies. The First Amendment protects their right to do so, and it should.

But it doesn’t protect them from punishment for crimes: blocking roads, occupying campus spaces, vandalizing property, stealing and burning government-owned American flags, and even assaulting law enforcement. Hundreds of these incidents have been documented and publicized, often by the activists themselves. In response, many Americans have called on elected officials to capitulate to the radicals rather than crack down. I call this pattern “civil terrorism.”

The reason authorities’ responses to this civil terrorism have been so inadequate is that some officials fear they’ll be pegged as anti-free-speech. Others assume the radicals will stop once they realize they’re alienating rather than persuading their fellow citizens. Civil terrorists’ go-to crimes are also usually misdemeanors, which are rarely a priority for prosecution.

But civil terrorists won’t stop until they’re forced to. They aren’t trying to persuade; they’re trying to circumvent the political process by making life miserable until Americans cry uncle. And they know that misdemeanors committed en masse are no small matter. They can be costly and, as in the case of blocked highways, dangerous.

The Trump administration must put an end to civil terrorism. We know who the groups are because they advertise their own names—often while they march with signs praising foreign terrorist organizations. In October the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on one international advocacy group that has been active in disruptive protests, Samidoun, designating it “a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization.” Samidoun denies that it has material or organizational ties to designated terror organizations.

Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury adviser on terror financing, has testified that Students for Justice in Palestine, which has engaged in campus and road blocking and occupation of buildings, is sponsored by American Muslims for Palestine. The Virginia attorney general is investigating AMP for potential financial ties to Hamas. AMP denies both allegations.

Federal law enforcement has the tools it needs to clamp down. The 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, allows the government to prosecute individuals who have engaged in a pattern of organized crime. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 sets harsh penalties for those who have provided or attempted to provide “material support” to terrorist organizations. The courts have broadly interpreted “material support” to include various forms of financial and military aid, as well as certain types of speech if coordinated with or ordered by a terrorist organization.

Other federal laws prohibit conspiracies to deprive Americans of their civil rights, a category that should include blocking roads and staging campus encampments that prohibit Jews or other students from entering. President Trump should instruct the Justice Department to launch investigations into people and organizations suspected of engaging in such activities.

Organizations that have been fundraising for illicit purposes should be prosecuted. In the interim, the federal government should seize the assets of organizations suspected of holding dirty money. Asset forfeiture, while controversial, is an established Federal Bureau of Investigation tactic to stop ongoing terror enterprises. The president can direct the FBI to, with court approval, seize the assets of organizations when there is probable cause to suspect RICO violations or financial coordination with terrorist organizations.

Congress can also raise the costs of engaging in civil terrorism by upgrading civil terrorists’ favored misdemeanors to felonies when done in groups or with the intent to support criminal enterprises. But this won’t be necessary if Mr. Trump has the will to do what civil terrorists count on Americans not doing: treat them as threats to the rule of law and the West itself.

Mr. Fortgang is a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

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