Daily Briefing: The FBI Has a New Name for Data Center Protesters

The FBI and DHS have introduced 'anti-tech violent extremism' as a new domestic threat category, targeting groups protesting data centers and AI development. This marks the first time opposition to a specific technology sector has been classified as potential extremism by US law enforcement. The designation raises civil liberties concerns about the boundary between legitimate protest and surveilled threat, and may reshape the political dynamics around AI infrastructure buildouts by recasting local opposition as a security matter. The episode also covers enterprise AI cost overruns, Cognition's $1B raise, Google's Gemini 3.5 Flash launch, OpenRouter's Series B, and OpenAI's claimed math breakthrough.

STORIES COVERED

FBI and DHS warn of 'anti-tech e ...