FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force visited former Extinction Rebellion NYC member's upstate New York home under NSPM-7 directive

On February 6, 2026, two special agents from the FBI's New York Joint Terrorism Task Force visited the upstate New York home of a former Extinction Rebellion NYC member to ask him about the group, roughly 200 miles outside New York City. The visit followed a phone call the former member had received the previous month from a special agent he initially suspected was a scam; he confirmed the visiting agent's identity against a business card and, separately, against court records naming her as a current member of the FBI's New York Joint Terrorism Task Force. The former member, who asked to remain anonymous, said he had not taken part in any Extinction Rebellion action in two years. The group's attorney, Ron Kuby, called the visit "a significant escalation of the criminal legal system against XR."

The visit followed President Trump's National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directed federal Joint Terrorism Task Forces to investigate groups and individuals linked to "anti-fascism," "anti-capitalism," and "anti-Christianity," among other characterizations, as part of a "comprehensive national strategy" against "political violence and intimidation." Days before the visit, the Justice Department's civil rights division separately announced it would investigate a second climate group, Climate Defiance, over an earlier protest. Dana Fisher, director of American University's Center for Environment, Community and Equity, said groups like Extinction Rebellion are "the lowest-hanging fruit to be targeted next" by the Trump administration, because their civil disobedience tactics are broadly unpopular.

Asked about the visit, the FBI's New York field office and the Justice Department would neither confirm nor deny that an investigation existed, citing standing department policy. Extinction Rebellion separately said that in March 2025, people identifying themselves as FBI agents had attempted to contact six activists affiliated with its Boston chapter, with no documented follow-up since.