Script for City Council Meetings on NSPM-7

The proposed budget for 2027 includes substantial funding for the Department of Justice training of city and state law enforcement to implement NSPM-7, the "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence" memo issued in September 2025 that targets broadly left-wing ideologies as signs of potential domestic terrorism. 

Below is a script you can copy and adapt to read to your own city council meetings.

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Template/Script

Hello, my name is [Name], and I’m here to ask this Council to take seriously the civil liberties implications of NSPM-7, a federal national security directive that appears to expand domestic counterterrorism frameworks in ways that could target lawful political dissent by people who hold traditionally left wing views.

I'm bringing it to your attention because I recently learned they are planning to operationalize it locally — through law enforcement partnerships, intelligence-sharing networks, fusion centers, and Joint Terrorism Task Forces, including the training of local and state law enforcement on the directive.

If federal agencies are encouraging local police to view broad political beliefs — including: anti-capitalism, antifascism, anti-war protesting, or criticism of state violence — as indicators of extremism, then we are looking at a serious threat to the First Amendment rights of people in this city.

That should concern everyone, regardless of political affiliation.

Criticizing government policy is not terrorism.

Protesting injustice is not extremism.

Wanting human dignity, economic fairness, or an end to authoritarianism is not a public safety threat.

And yet we are seeing a political climate in which dissent — particularly from the "left"-leaning ideologies — is increasingly framed as dangerous, while actual patterns of political violence in this country have long shown right wing extremism to be the dominant source of fatal domestic violence historically. This was documented in a study by the Department of Justice in 2024, a joint DHS-FBI study in 2023, and a number of other DOJ and FBI testimonies.

Federal threat assessments have long identified racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism as the biggest domestic terrorism threat, and hate-motivated violence has disproportionately impacted Muslim, Jewish, LGBTQ and racial minority communities.

So I am asking this Council to do three things:

• First, publicly affirm that lawful protest, organizing, political speech, and criticism of government are protected activities in this city.
  
• Second, require transparency from local law enforcement about any participation in NSPM-7-related trainings, intelligence-sharing, surveillance programs, fusion center coordination, or FBI/JTTF cooperation connected to political monitoring.
  
• Third, explore policies that prohibit city resources from being used to assist in the surveillance, targeting, or criminalization of constitutionally protected political activity.
  

If this directive is allowed to quietly filter downward into local institutions, the damage will not begin with “terrorists.” It will begin with ordinary people who are speaking out, organizing, dissenting, and often times actually trying to protect the constitution and democracy. 

That is exactly when local government is supposed to draw a line.

Thank you.

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Learn more:

• NSPM-7 Memo text
• ACLU Analysis of NSPM-7