Federal intelligence agencies and fusion centers across the United States are circulating reports that designate critics of artificial intelligence and data center construction as potential domestic extremists, according to more than 1,000 pages of unpublished documents obtained by WIRED. The surveillance push follows President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which instructs the Department of Justice to target individuals holding what the directive calls 'anti-American' and 'anti-capitalism' beliefs. Spencer Reynolds, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, told WIRED the new category could ensnare peaceful protesters alongside actual threats.
A New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau report introduces a term that does not appear in any publicly available DHS or FBI domestic extremism guide: 'anti-tech violent extremism.' The phrase groups a wide range of ideologies under a single extremist category, the documents show. '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 NYPD intelligence bureau report states, according to WIRED. The timing is deliberate. Trump's counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka released a public strategy earlier this month naming left-wing extremists as one of three top counterterrorism priorities.
The presidential memo provides the legal scaffolding. The fusion center reports supply the operational machinery. Eighty fusion centers, created after 9/11, now function as conduits between federal intelligence agencies and state and local law enforcement.
The documents obtained by WIRED reveal these centers are gathering and circulating intelligence about alleged threats to data centers across the country. A Western Pennsylvania fusion center claimed that 'adversarial actors, including state-sponsored entities, criminal groups, and extremists, such as homegrown violent extremists or environmental extremists, may target US data centers.' The same report warned these actors could exploit data centers for cryptocurrency mining or use front companies to access US infrastructure. The Northern Virginia Regional Intelligence Center went further.
Its report flagged anti-government, anti-authority violent extremists influenced by conspiracy theories who have engaged in pre-operational planning against data centers. But the suspicious activity indicators listed include activities legal experts say peaceful protesters routinely conduct: photography, observation, and what the report calls 'expressed/implied threat.'
'Suspicious activity reports are incredibly unreliable, often about vague or innocent behavior, issued under permissive standards,' Reynolds told WIRED. 'These reports, often received in large volumes, allow officers to inject their own biases and see what they want to see in the facts.'
The FBI offered a brief statement to WIRED: 'The FBI investigates individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security.' The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. Here is what they are not telling you. The same Northern Virginia intelligence center circulated a report in March monitoring constitutionally protected events.
These included multiple 'Tesla Takedown' protests against Elon Musk's government downsizing efforts and a 'Break Up With Tech Rager' sponsored by Eject Elbit, an activist group opposing investment in the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit. The surveillance net extends beyond government analysts. SITE Intelligence, a for-profit firm that contracts with federal law enforcement, circulated bulletins to fusion centers in January 2025 alleging that conversations in a 'neo-Luddite' Discord server had turned violent.
One user allegedly called for violence against tech CEOs and power plants. Rita Katz, founder of SITE, defended the monitoring in an email to WIRED. 'By narrowing our OSINT focus exclusively to communities with a proven link to real-world harm, even trolling remarks have an informative value, demonstrating sentiment within a community toward a target, and our reports have shown a notable spike in online threats advocating for sabotage against data centers, which is a true cause for concern.'
Reynolds offered a different assessment. 'SITE is a for-profit private intelligence firm that monitors social media for its law enforcement customers. It promises to do an incredibly difficult if not impossible job, consistently mining social media written by anonymous posters, full of in-jokes, slang, different languages, vagueness, and so on, to deliver credible information that can predict threats. Instead, this type of activity tends to focus on people's views about things like policing, abortion, economic inequality, vaccines, or any other hot-button topic of the day.'
The documents also show fusion centers tracking in-person assemblies. The Northern Virginia center generated reports about demonstrations at the Arlington County budget meeting and the Fairfax County School Board meeting. Across the country, town halls and budget committee meetings have become the primary forums for residents opposing data center construction in their neighborhoods.
Data Center Watch, a project by AI security firm 10a Labs, tracks opposition to data centers. The project has identified hundreds of organizations across 42 states organizing to block data center construction. The confrontations are escalating.
In California, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, state and local police have removed or arrested speakers at town halls who criticized data centers. In one case, the removal occurred before the speaker was permitted to talk. The math does not add up.
Under US law, domestic terrorism is not a stand-alone crime. Instead, domestic terrorism laws enable targeting and surveillance of extremists, with charges sometimes carrying terrorism enhancements and sometimes not. This legal architecture means protesters and activists can be surveilled under domestic extremism provisions while facing charges like criminal trespass and vandalism.
The NYPD intelligence assessment also identifies a novel threat emerging from the arrest and trial of Ziz Laota, an extreme rationalist who allegedly led a small cultlike group. Three members face murder charges tied to an obsessive ideology focused on existential AI risk. The Intelligence Bureau warns that 'paranoid views regarding AI' may proliferate after the Zizians' trial, citing their belief that 'a godlike incarnation of AI is imminent.'
Yet the same fears surrounding AI's cataclysmic potential are common among AI alignment experts, machine learning engineers, and frontier AI companies. The line between expert concern and extremist ideology blurs in the intelligence reports. Mauro Lubrano has emerged as a central figure in defining this threat landscape.
His book Stop the Machines: The Rise of Anti-Technology identifies three strains of a newly minted threat matrix: insurrectionary anarchists, eco-extremists, and ecofascists. His lecture on the topic is circulating in fusion centers nationwide. Lubrano told WIRED he was not surprised his work appeared in fusion centers but urged caution. 'I hope the warning I, along with other colleagues, raised is being acknowledged.
While anti-technology violence is unacceptable, it should not be used as an excuse to securitize AI and emerging technologies, thereby silencing those who are critical of the current trajectory.'
A January 2025 DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis report attempts to connect Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, with Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. 'Law enforcement reports that the individual may have drawn inspiration from Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and his anti-technology beliefs,' the report states, without offering further evidence. It concludes by warning that executives 'are at a heightened risk for targeted acts of violence' when perceived as exploiting those with fewer resources. The clearest example of how nonviolent critique gets swept into the threat matrix comes from SITE Intelligence.
In April 2025, the firm flagged a video from the progressive nonprofit More Perfect Union about the destructive effects of a data center on nearby residents in Georgia. The video advocated no violence. It is now circulating among US intelligence and law enforcement as a potential threat vector.
Follow the leverage, not the rhetoric. The documents obtained by WIRED follow a pattern Reynolds identified from previous movements. 'As people continue to organize for a better future, 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 in recent decades.'
The FBI surveilled activists monitoring immigration court hearings in New York last year, according to documents obtained by The Guardian. That surveillance fell under an investigation into 'anarchist violent extremist actors,' one of the threat categories named in the new counterterrorism strategy. Why It Matters: The creation of an 'anti-tech extremism' category under a presidential directive that targets 'anti-capitalism' beliefs gives federal agencies broad latitude to monitor Americans who oppose data center construction, AI adoption, or technology company practices.
Key takeaways: - Over 1,000 pages of unpublished DHS, FBI, and fusion center reports obtained by WIRED reveal a new domestic surveillance focus on 'anti-tech violent extremism,' a term absent from any public extremism guide. - The surveillance follows Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which targets 'anti-American' and 'anti-capitalism' beliefs, and a counterterrorism strategy naming left-wing extremists as a top priority. - Fusion centers are monitoring data center protests, Tesla Takedown demonstrations, and town hall meetings, with suspicious activity indicators that legal experts say cover peaceful protest behavior. - A DHS report attempted to link the alleged UnitedHealth CEO assassin to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski without offering evidence, while a nonprofit's nonviolent video about data center impacts was flagged as a potential threat. What comes next is a legal and political collision. The fusion center reports are already operational, circulating among state and local law enforcement.
Town hall arrests are increasing. The Zizian trial will likely amplify the intelligence community's focus on AI-related extremism. Civil liberties organizations will almost certainly challenge the surveillance framework in court, arguing the 'anti-tech extremism' category is unconstitutionally broad.
The tension between legitimate law enforcement interest in genuine threats and the administration's explicit targeting of 'anti-capitalism' beliefs will define the next phase of this surveillance expansion. Watch for the first legal challenge to fusion center monitoring of data center protesters — it will test whether courts treat opposition to technology infrastructure as protected speech or potential extremism.
Key Takeaways
— Over 1,000 pages of unpublished DHS, FBI, and fusion center reports obtained by WIRED reveal a new domestic surveillance focus on 'anti-tech violent extremism,' a term absent from any public extremism guide.
— The surveillance follows Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which targets 'anti-American' and 'anti-capitalism' beliefs, and a counterterrorism strategy naming left-wing extremists as a top priority.
— Fusion centers are monitoring data center protests, Tesla Takedown demonstrations, and town hall meetings, with suspicious activity indicators that legal experts say cover peaceful protest behavior.
— A DHS report attempted to link the alleged UnitedHealth CEO assassin to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski without offering evidence, while a nonprofit's nonviolent video about data center impacts was flagged as a potential threat.
Source: WIRED
