Congress has its own CIA and it’s sounding the alarm about anti-AI grievances
As rage about artificial intelligence and the data centers powering it grows, Congress is taking notice — not with any legislation or law, but by spying on public opposition.
A newly created intelligence agency of the Congress (yes, it has its own now) is warning that legislators are in danger from an angry public. The U.S. Capitol Police Intelligence Services Bureau, created after January 6 and in parallel to the 18-member Executive Branch intelligence community, laid out the warning in an internal intelligence report produced in April.
“ISB has prepared this Intelligence Note to provide the US Capitol Police and law enforcement personnel with information related to recent threats and attacks likely linked to grievances concerning data centers,” the report says.
There’s only one problem: the report admits that there is no evidence of any actual threat to Congress.
“The US Capitol Police is not investigating any data center-motivated threats to Members of Congress,” the report says.
Nonetheless, it goes on to warn that artificial intelligence “related policies introduced on the Hill and in local communities are likely to continue drawing opposition, increasing potential concerns for public officials.”
The Congressional intelligence office that authored the report was formed in the aftermath of January 6th and justified to bring the congressional police force “in line” with federal intelligence agencies and thereby gain more access to the massive existing intelligence community. The “intelligence note” was also distributed to police organizations and state-level fusion centers across the country.
“We now have a world class intelligence operation,” then-Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police Thomas Manger said last May. “We are significant players in the intelligence community in the Washington, D.C., region and, frankly, all over the country … Whereas before, we were basically just — we were consumers of information. The FBI would give us intelligence, other agencies would give us intelligence. Now we are gathering our own."
The motivation for the report appears to be an attack on the home of Indianapolis city councilman Ron Gibson. Gibson, a supporter of a local data center project, reported to police that someone had fired 13 gunshots through his door and left a note on his porch that read “No data centers.” No suspect has yet been arrested.
The intelligence report reveals that the Intelligence Services Bureau is monitoring social media content critical of data centers, looking for potential threats.
“You can be damn sure there are thousands more rounds where this comes from, and if you keep voting for data centers, we will all begin returning to the early days of American freedom and express ourselves via violence over words,” one user posted.
“Threatening the politicians who actually make decisions is actually logical,” another social media user posts. “I would rather shooters shoot up the senate than a high school [sic].”
Neither of these comments represents an actionable threat, the Capitol Police notes.
The report also summarizes crimes associated with data centers, including one committed over five years ago.
One example is that of Seth Pendley, who was arrested five years ago in 2021 and charged with attempting to blow up a data center in Northern Virginia. The Capitol Police connect him to Congress by noting that at some point he claimed to have “brought a sawed-off assault rifle into DC but left the weapon in his car, before proceeding to the US Capitol building but not entering it on January 6, 2021.” Pendley is incarcerated 600 miles away from D.C. in Terre Haute, Indiana.
What is clear is that data centers have become an overwhelmingly unpopular issue for American voters. A Gallup poll from this month found that seven in ten Americans oppose the local construction of data centers for AI. Their concerns range from the environmental pollution to the increased utility prices generated by data center water and electricity use.
The Intelligence Services Bureau report briefly touches on these concerns and more, identifying “possible government use of AI to spy on Americans,” “environmental impacts,” “rising energy costs,” and “loss of jobs in certain industries” as reasons why Americans oppose their construction. The report does not examine why activism regarding AI and data centers is anything other than free speech.
Grasping for evidence of increased criminal dangers, the report dedicates a full page to threats made against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who is neither an elected official, nor within the purview of the Capitol Police.
Altman blamed the attack on “incendiary” news media coverage, writing in his blog that “I have underestimated the power of words and narratives.” In other words, AI leaders like Altman see the problem as one of controlling what the public says.
Congress, now in the intelligence business, is responding by focusing on the threat of the American public rather than the threat to the American public.
— Edited by William M. Arkin