Police in Amsterdam seized a server belonging to the Italian internet service provider and anti-fascist group Autistici/Inventati (A/I) last week, following a request from U.S. authorities. Dutch authorities are now handing the server’s data to the United States, according to NL Times.

The seizure came after the Trump administration designated A/I as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” in August. The U.S. government said the group operated “digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells and other far-left militants.” The designation prevents U.S.-based individuals and organizations from doing business with A/I.

A/I, an anti-capitalist and anti-fascist group, provided free email and web-hosting services to organizations and activists. Police took the server from a data center in Amsterdam’s eastern district. Following the U.S. designation, A/I disbanded because its users and donors faced potential repercussions.

Privacy advocate Harry Halpin, CEO of privacy infrastructure firm Nym, told Decrypt that the targeting of A/I’s servers was “due to their political beliefs.” He described “politically motivated server seizures” as a “terrifying precedent.”

“The fact that the Dutch authorities co-operated with them to shut down a server means that the Netherlands is nothing more than a colony of the United States,” Halpin said.

The U.S. designation itself has no legal standing in the Netherlands, according to Yuriy Brisov, a lawyer and partner at Digital & Analogue Partners. He said the seizure instead relied on another legal mechanism.

“An FBI agent in Amsterdam has roughly the powers of a tourist,” Brisov told Decrypt. “So states ask each other permission. For the United States and the EU states, the rulebook for asking is a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, or MLAT, signed in The Hague in 1981.”

Brisov said the operation was conducted “under Dutch law, by Dutch officers, with Dutch powers,” but at the request of the United States. That is why, he said, Dutch authorities—not U.S. authorities—seized the server. The case shows how that mechanism works in practice: data physically hosted in one country can end up in another’s hands, even when the designation underpinning the request carries no legal weight there.

Prosecutors operate on a “trust principle,” Brisov said, meaning they do not assess whether a seizure is proportionate or whether the U.S. investigation actually requires the material. However, he said Dutch authorities could refuse a request if it “harms its essential interests, concerns a political offence, or amounts to double jeopardy.”

A seizure is also permitted only when the alleged conduct constitutes a crime in both countries and carries a potential prison sentence of more than one year.

Brisov added that designating an organization as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist does not require a conviction or a court hearing. Neither the Dutch government nor the European Union followed the U.S. designation. The U.S. announcement is available from the U.S. Department of State.

“Here is the Dutch problem: Washington’s label underpins the request, and the Netherlands does not share it,” Brisov told Decrypt. He questioned whether “anyone in The Hague asked the political-offence question,” which Dutch law reserves for Minister of Justice and Security David van Weel personally. Whether that question was ever put to Van Weel before the seizure is among the points the case leaves unresolved.

“Internet hosts are not normally liable for what their users do,” Brisov said, adding that the principle is established in both U.S. law and European Union law through the Digital Services Act.

Halpin said the request should have received greater scrutiny because of its political nature.

“Any country that believes sovereignty should push back against politically motivated server seizures,” he said. “This shows that only a multi-jurisdictional setup with true decentralization, as attempted by many blockchain projects, is the only way to resist nation-state-level attacks on digital infrastructure.”

Original report by Decrypt.