US law enforcement warns of "anti-tech extremism" as AI hatred grows
As hatred of AI grows, US law enforcement is warning of "anti-tech extremism." However, experts worry that this concept could be misused to label peaceful protesters and technology critics as threats. An example of a nonprofit's video being falsely flagged as a potential threat raises concerns about free speech.
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Key points
- Lubrano cautions that the anti-tech extremism framework must be used carefully, not to silence AI criticism.
- Reynolds warns the category could be drawn too broad, ensnaring peaceful protesters and AI skeptics.
- A DHS report attempts to link UnitedHealth CEO assassination suspect Mangione to Kaczynski without evidence.
- SITE Intelligence flagged a nonprofit's video critical of data centers as a threat, despite no advocacy for violence.
Why it matters
This matters because lubrano cautions that the anti-tech extremism framework must be used carefully, not to silence AI criticism.
Technical impact
May affect compliance requirements, model release timing, data governance, and enterprise procurement.
Lubrano said he was not surprised that his lecture turned up in a fusion center but cautioned that any anti-tech extremism framework must be exercised carefully. “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,” Lubrao tells WIRED.
But Spencer Reynolds says that, despite the real, if limited, threat posed by these groups, a category like “anti-tech extremism” could be drawn so broad as to ensnare peaceful data center protesters, AI skeptics, and anyone with a bone to pick with technology that permeates modern life.
“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,” Reynolds says.
A January 2025 DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis report furthers this perspective by attempting to connect Luigi Mangione—the alleged assassin of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson—with Kaczynski. “Law enforcement reports that the individual may have drawn inspiration from Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and his anti-technology beliefs,” the report reads, without offering further evidence. It concludes with a warning alleging that executives “are at a heightened risk for targeted acts of violence or threats of violence” when they are “perceived as taking advantage of individuals of lesser means.”
But perhaps the clearest-cut example of how nonviolent critiques of technology can be swept up and flagged as a threat is found in an open-source report circulated by SITE Intelligence in April 2025. The report flags a video from the progressive nonprofit More Perfect Union on the destructive effects of a data center to nearby residents in Georgia. Nothing in the video advocated for violence against property or people. But thanks to fusion center targeting, the advocacy group is now circulating among US intelligence and law enforcement across the country as a potential threat vector.
This story originally appeared at WIRED.com.