National Security or Neighborhood Silencing? How Speaking Up Could Become ‘Domestic Terrorism.’
New York is the city that never sleeps, never shuts up, never backs down. But a recent “national security” directive from President Donald Trump is a warning shot aimed straight at the people and places that keep this city alive.
On paper, National Security Presidential Memo (NSPM)-7, issued in late September, says it’s about stopping “domestic terrorism and organized political violence.” In reality? It opens the door for the government to treat our communities like criminals for doing what New Yorkers do best: Organizing, protecting, and speaking out.
This memo gives federal agencies power to investigate nonprofits, activists, even block associations. And because the language is broad, words like “political violence” and “domestic terrorism” are undefined. Almost any form of resistance could fall under it.
Your Harlem tenant association pushing back against a landlord’s rent hike? That could be flagged.
Your Bronx mutual aid group delivering groceries and diapers to families? Investigated as “funding unrest.”
Your Queens mosque running youth programs with overseas partners? Put “on a list.”
Your Brooklyn protest march against police brutality? Watched and catalogued as “extremist activity.”
Even your Staten Island community board meeting that turns into a heated fight against rezoning could catch unwanted federal attention.
This isn’t hypothetical. This is how the language of NSPM-7 works. It’s vague enough to stretch, powerful enough to punish.
This directive doesn’t separate violent extremists from everyday people demanding change. It gives the government the power to:
Audit, starve, and dismantle community nonprofits through the Internal Revenue Service.
Scare off donors and funders from supporting grassroots groups.
Put protest, mutual aid, and block-by-block organizing under the same label as terrorism.
As the ACLU has warned, this is a law written so broadly that it can be bent to target whoever those in power don’t like. And let’s be real: historically, that’s been us.
We’ve seen this script before.
COINTELPRO (1950s–70s): The FBI infiltrated and destroyed the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, and civil rights leaders by calling them “threats.” Their crimes? Feeding children, running free clinics, teaching self-determination.
Stop-and-frisk (2000s–2010s): Black and Brown New Yorkers were harassed daily in the name of “public safety.”
Post-9/11 surveillance: Entire Muslim neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens were monitored like enemies of the state.
In short, NSPM-7 is just the remix: Same oppression, new packaging.
More than 3,000 nonprofit groups from coast to coast have sounded the alarm about NSPM-7, calling it “part of a wholesale offensive against organizations and individuals that advocate for ideas or serve communities that the president finds objectionable.”
Why should New Yorkers care? Because this is not an abstract policy. This is our daily lives.
If you’ve ever signed a petition in Union Square, marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, or spoken up at a public hearing, you could fall under its shadow.
If you’ve ever donated to a community bail fund or a food pantry, your bank account could be investigated.
If you’ve ever sat in your cousin’s living room helping plan a block clean-up or anti-eviction rally, that could be called “organizing political violence.”
NSPM-7 is not the end of the story. It’s the start of a test – a test of how we fight back: How will we respond? Let’s:
Stay Informed — Read the directive, talk about it at church, in the barbershop, on the train. Break it down so everyone understands what’s at stake.
Strengthen Our Orgs — From bodegas sponsoring youth teams to mosques, churches, and block associations, we need to keep pouring into the institutions that hold us together.
Practice Community Defense — Record, document, and protect each other. Safety is collective.
Stay Visible — In Union Square, at City Hall, on Eastern Parkway, on the Staten Island Ferry. We have to keep showing up.
Demand Representation — Call out your elected officials by name. If they don’t stand up against this, hold them accountable in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.
From subway cyphers to City Hall rallies, New Yorkers have never been shy. We’ve always turned noise into power. NSPM-7 is designed to scare us into silence. But history says the more they try to bury our voices, the louder we become.
So, here’s the call: if you care about bodegas, block parties, mosques, stoops, and schools, you need to care about NSPM-7. Because once the government decides our culture is a “threat,” the fight won’t be in Washington, it’ll be on your block.
Urban Matters will keep pulling the receipts. But remember: Democracy in NYC has never been handed down from above. It’s been fought for, block by block, borough by borough, voice by voice. Don’t let them silence the city that never shuts up.
Larnez Kinsey is a crisis management specialist with the New York State Department of Corrections, a community advocate, and co-founder of BlackGate Consulting Group. She serves as economic development chair for the Yonkers Branch NAACP and chief operating officer of LaunchPad NYC.
Photo by: Paul Lurrie