The bureau already buys Americans' location data from brokers, its own director has told Congress #
The FBI is seeking an artificial intelligence system that could flag Americans as threats before they break any law, according to a federal procurement request that ties the tool to President Donald Trump's expanded hunt for domestic 'threats'.
The request was posted quietly in March by the procurement arm of the bureau's Threat Screening Center (TSC), the office that runs the US terrorist watch list. The full document was obtained and first reported by Reason, which found the bureau asking vendors for predictive capabilities built on the government's own data.
What the FBI Is Asking For #
The solicitation, filed under the reference Threat Screening Center AI Enhancement, lists 'Predictive Modeling Using Enhanced Data with Traceable Lineage' as one of six core requirements. In plain terms, the system would study patterns across federal databases and predict which people warrant a closer look, automating work that analysts now do by hand.
The TSC has always been a pre-crime operation. It exists to stop attacks before they happen, feeding names to airports, police, and the Transportation Security Administration. What is new is the scale. The watch list has grown to nearly 2 million names, and the FBI wants software fast enough to sift them.
A Watch List That Now Targets Dissent #
At the start of Trump's second term, fewer than 10,000 of those names were Americans. That may change. The administration has reoriented the centre toward broadly defined 'threats', and its own procurement document points to the reason.
The document cites National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, which Trump signed on 25 September 2025. Titled 'Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence', the memo tells federal agencies to target conduct animated by 'anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity', along with views on migration, race, and gender. Critics argue that language sweeps in ordinary political speech.
This month, the State Department went further, publishing a report that named dozens of US politicians, journalists, and left-wing groups as part of an alleged foreign campaign, a move critics called an attempt to justify watching Americans at home.
Your Data Is Already in the System #
For most people, the risk is not being a suspect. It is being scored. And the raw material for that scoring is already being bought. On 18 March, FBI Director Kash Patel told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the bureau purchases Americans' location histories and other personal information from commercial data brokers to track citizens. At a separate March hearing, Patel said the TSC had recorded double-digit growth in its biometric capabilities.
Patel has said openly where this is heading. 'I've got every major tech company in the world embedded in the FBI,' he told Fox News, describing an effort to bring artificial intelligence into counter-terrorism work for 'instantaneous results'.
Warnings Over Bias and Wrongful Flags #
The tools worry researchers. The Brennan Center for Justice has found that guidance under both the Biden and Trump administrations rated predictive, data-fusion systems as high-risk for bias and indiscriminate surveillance. Trump has since removed bias-testing requirements from federal AI purchases.
Accuracy is the harder problem. Audits by the Government Accountability Office have repeatedly found errors in the watch list data used to flag travellers, and the Supreme Court has twice ruled against the bureau over wrongful watch-listing. Adding prediction to a flawed database, critics warn, risks turning a bad guess into a permanent label.
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