Federal intelligence agencies and domestic law enforcement have drastically revamped their surveillance apparatus to address a new designated domestic threat: “anti-technology extremists.”
According to more than 1,000 pages of unpublished reports obtained by news organization Wired via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FBI, and localized fusion centers are actively tracking a broad and highly ambiguous category of citizens, raising intense civil liberties concerns.
The domestic intelligence shift stems from the White House’s current security directives. President Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memo 7 instructs the Department of Justice to target individuals harboring “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” and “anti-capitalism” ideologies. Furthermore, Sebastian Gorka, the administration’s counterterrorism czar, explicitly designated left-wing extremists as a top counterterrorism priority.
Legal experts warn that these combined directives effectively weaponize federal surveillance to criminalize speech and assembly critical of the administration. The new crackdown on anti-tech dissent unfolds under a presidency heavily invested in artificial intelligence (AI) expansion and rapid data center infrastructure growth.
Among the uncovered cache of documents is an assessment from the New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau warning of widespread social upheaval tied to the rapid adoption of AI.
“The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent AI technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City,” the report said.
The phrase “anti-tech violent extremist activity” represents a sweeping, novel classification that does not appear in any publicly available federal extremism guides.
The New York report explicitly highlights fears surrounding the trial of Ziz LaSota, an extreme rationalist whose cultlike followers face murder charges tied to an obsessive ideology regarding the existential risks of AI. While the bureau warns against the proliferation of “paranoid views regarding AI,” mainstream machine learning engineers and tech companies regularly echo milder versions of these exact alignment concerns.
The post-9/11 network of 80 regional fusion centers — acting as intermediaries between federal agencies and local police — has increasingly turned its focus toward neighborhood opposition.
According to Data Center Watch, hundreds of groups across 42 states are actively organizing to block data center construction because of environmental and economic concerns. Fusion center documents reveal that intelligence analysts are monitoring highly localized civic events, including school board and town budget meetings, where residents gather to vent frustrations over tech infrastructure. In several states, local police have already arrested or removed citizens criticizing data centers at these public forums.
Furthermore, a Northern Virginia Regional Intelligence Center report listed everyday activities as Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) indicators, including expressed or implied threats, observation and surveillance, photography, and testing or probing of security.
Civil rights advocates argue these permissive standards allow law enforcement to inject immense bias. Spencer Reynolds, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, warned that a category as vast as “anti-tech extremism” will inevitably ensnare peaceful activists.
“We’re likely to see more surveillance and criminalization of this opposition, just as we have of Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and environmental movements,” Reynolds told Wired.
The documents also reveal that private, for-profit open-source intelligence (OSINT) firms, such as SITE Intelligence, are under contract with law enforcement to scour the web for anti-technology sentiment.
In one instance, a SITE report flagged a video produced by the progressive nonprofit More Perfect Union. The video objectively detailed the negative impacts of a Georgia data center on residents. Though it contained absolutely no calls for violence or property damage, the video was circulated across U.S. intelligence and law enforcement networks as a potential threat vector.
When reached for comment, the FBI said it only investigates individuals intending to commit violence or federal crimes, declining further comment. The DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
