American law enforcement agencies have been monitoring data center protests and meetings as part of a push to stamp out “anti-tech violent extremist activity,” according to unpublished reports and files seen by Wired.
These belong to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FBI, and fusion centers, which are information sharing centers that coordinate between federal and state authorities.
– Department of Homeland Security
For instance, a report from a Western Pennsylvania fusion center claimed that “adversarial actors, including state-sponsored entities, criminal groups, and extremists, such as homegrown violent extremists or environmental extremists, may target US data centers" and that "these actors could also exploit the strategic importance of data centers to the US economy, using them for activities like cryptocurrency mining or leveraging third-party entities, such as front companies, to gain access to US data and infrastructure."
A separate report from the Northern Virginia Regional Intelligence Center warned that so-called ‘AGAAVEs’ – meaning anti-government, anti-authority violent extremists – have engaged in pre-operational planning targeting data centers and other critical infrastructure facilities.
