The Constitution and centuries of case law have done an adequate job of enshrining the right to protest in America. But according to the Trump administration, those rights are all but forfeit if the target of a protester’s ire is an AI data center. By their logic, publicly expressing a desire to have a water-hogging, environment-polluting, perpetually buzzing superstructure built in the middle of one’s community is tantamount to strapping on a suicide vest.
As such, the administration—which has gone all-in on America’s AI future and has seen the President personally enriched for it—is trying to brand opponents to that future as terrorists. Nearly half of Americans have negative views of AI, and 7 in 10 don’t want data centers built in their communities. Nonetheless, a trench of reports by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and fusion centers recently obtained by WIRED indicate the administration is actively targeting such individuals, whom they’ve labeled “anti-tech extremists.” The chilling news comes in the wake of the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, released last September, which attempted to paint other fuzzy yet Constitutionally protected charges—like being anti-American and anti-capitalist—as designators of domestic terrorism.
A confidential law enforcement bulletin recently obtained by The Intercept reveals that, at least in Philadelphia, cops are taking note of those speaking out against AI. In a December report from the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center, marked “for official use only,” its authors warned that “domestic violent extremists (DVEs) are likely interested in targeting artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.”
The report, offering little evidence of tangible threats to data center property or the smattering of humans behind and within them, even acknowledges “a lack of specific information on plans to target AI data centers in the Philadelphia area.” Instead, the report points to vibes to monger its fear. Highlighting Facebook memes saying things like “I bring a sort of ‘tannerite and gasoline’ vibe to ai data centers,” and a reference to the “Butlerian jihad” that has transcended the pages of Dune and become a real-world anti-AI meme, the report accurately clocks mounting frustrations with our AI overlords.
While most of these toothless posts appear to be from netizens blowing off steam with an in-group, the report also highlighted a more detailed thread on an anonymous image board that started with OP asking, “How can an entire data center be neutralized? EMP? Fire? Magnets? Explosives?” The report says this user then received a bunch of recommendations in the replies, including “explosives and incendiary devices” and “dust from flour to render fine machinery inoperable or targeting ventilation by funneling chlorine gas into air intakes to oxidize metal,” before discussing strategies for carrying out such an operation without getting caught. That one might be a bit harder to defend in court.
But for those who haven’t read How to Blow Up a Pipeline and are simply exercising their First Amendment rights in protest of one of the most deeply unpopular entities of our era, it never hurts to take a beat and ask yourself before posting, “Would I want this read back to me in a courtroom?” Because, in the City of Brotherly Love at least, Big Brother is taking notes.
