President Donald Trump is casting Americans who oppose AI and data centers as agents of China, and a new Justice Department warning has raised alarm that the administration could try to prosecute them, according to a new report.
Trump has spent recent weeks recasting opposition to AI as a foreign plot.
"There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China," he posted on Sept. 14, adding: "Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!"
In another post, he called AI skeptics "Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause," and he has warned he could go after "BAD" actors using "our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System."
Those alarms escalated when the Justice Department issued an unusual public warning on Sept. 16, reminding "both citizens and noncitizens" that anyone acting "as an agent of any foreign power to carry out any public activity, including (but not limited to) public demonstrations designed to further the propaganda or other goals of the foreign power," must register with the government or face civil and criminal penalties, "up to and including a maximum of five years in prison."
The warning named no one and didn't mention AI, data centers, or any specific protest. It also stated the department "recognizes and protects the First Amendment rights of those who seek to express their opinions publicly."
Writing in his newsletter, journalist Ken Klippenstein tied it to Trump's posts and argued the real targets are actually ordinary Americans, "normal people who have no idea they are part of the government's latest national security mirage."
And Congress pushed the same theory, he noted.
In June, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton asked the Justice Department to investigate "foreign influence efforts" behind opposition to data centers, alleging a network "led by the Chinese Communist Party."
The threats come after a Gallup survey this year found 71% of Americans oppose a data center in their area, including 63% of Republicans, a rare cross-party consensus.
And the marquee "China is paying protesters" claim has already collapsed. MAGA "Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary, who pushed it about opponents of his own planned Utah data center, later conceded he had "no evidence," and two groups he named sued him and Fox for defamation.
"When people who distrust the government’s handling of AI are told their distrust is traitorous foreign propaganda punishable by jail time, it’s hard to imagine them trusting the government more," Klippenstein concluded, warning the gambit could backgire on the Trup administration. "It’s easy to imagine them trusting it less, and wondering what the government is so eager to keep them from asking. That’s the downside of playing national security card, and it’s one that Washington never seems to think about."