According to the US-based tech magazine WIRED, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are quietly pivoting to combat an anticipated wave of “anti-tech extremism.” While the term does not yet appear in any public materials, it is a recurring theme in over 1,000 pages of internal reports obtained by the magazine.
“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,” one report anticipates.
Data center protests have rapidly become one of the most bipartisan movements in the US. In Virginia, the industry’s epicenter, 92% of voters say politicians are failing to manage the sector’s rapid growth and environmental burden. The Data Center Watch tracking project assesses that data center protests “consolidated into a national political force” last year, with $156 billion worth of construction projects stalled by increasingly coordinated, nationwide opposition.
