I want to turn now to the J20 protests (named in reference to the January 20, 2017, date of Trump’s inauguration), because these are also extremely interesting and troubling indicators of how elites are responding to legitimate resistance through tactics of criminalization and intimidation… This is what becomes particularly troubling about this case. Rather, merely being at the protest itself was a crime, that is they didn’t find specific evidence of anybody particularly doing anything, but just being there now has turned into a crime… The grand jury, secret grand jury, returned a superseding indictment that added inciting or urging to riot and conspiracy to riot to the list of crimes, turning what would, in many cases, have been misdemeanors into potential felonies. The new charges brought the number of felony counts up from one to eight for each person, and the amount of time defendants faced from ten years to more than seventy years in prison.

The DOJ prosecutors also learned a few lessons from this case. One of the most recent manifestations of those lessons is a bill, H.R. 6054, “The Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018” that was introduced in the last Congress. You can tell by the title it has a fairly specific intent, quite literally unmasking Antifa (that is, the antifascist group). The act now makes it a crime, and includes a prison sentence of up to fifteen years, for anyone who injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person while wearing a mask or disguise, a bill that telegraphs the government’s future attempts to prosecute the masked protesters they failed to criminalize in the J20 trial.

As of January 19, 2017, Republican lawmakers in five states had proposed bills to criminalize peaceful protest. Just four days later, that number increased to ten states. Our old friend ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) is behind many of these bills. They have model legislation on how to criminalize protests, including many laws that involve so-called critical infrastructure, by which they typically mean oil and gas pipelines.

In some states, nonviolent demonstrating may soon carry increased legal risks, including punishing fines and significant prison terms. Sometimes these are simply put on the books as chilling measures. If people know they’re facing horrific kinds of penalties, the likelihood that they may come out for a protest, even a very peaceful and legal protest, is enormously discouraged, so the new legislation often includes punishing fines, significant prison terms for people who participate in protests involving civil disobedience.

It will now be an offense to conceal (and this is back to the Antifa unmasking law) voluntarily, totally or partially, one’s face in order not to be identified in such circumstances as would provide fears of a threat to public order. Wearing a mask at a protest was already punishable with a €1,500 fine, but its upper limit will now be increased to a €15,000 fine and a year in prison. Again, you can see the chilling effect this might produce.

• Chapter 6 of Consequences of Capitalism by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone