It's probably not retro-active, just highly selective enforcement of the plethora of bad laws we have on the books in America. Most people do not care about them until it hits them. We have many very bad laws on the books but usually they do not get enforced. Everyone commits many crimes, several of them felonies, every day. Prosecutors just don't choose to throw the book at people. But they always can, such as in the case of Roger Stone. Julian Assange, there are many examples. I also have to keep thinking back to Bobby Fischer. When people in power want to, they can ruin any person's life because people just don't care about legalese. We care about all those petty social issues, usually, towards which the media direct our attention, but if Americans had any idea how bad legal activism is, how little "beyond a reasonable doubt" means many times, I think there would be riots bigger than those for George Floyd.