The Department of Homeland Security showed members of Congress something they weren’t prepared for: AI models, once stripped of their safety guardrails, generating detailed plans for bomb-building and terror attacks with alarming speed.
The closed-door demonstration, organized by DHS’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE), took place over three days from April 22-24, 2026. It was designed to give lawmakers a visceral understanding of what “jailbroken” AI actually looks like in practice.
What lawmakers saw behind closed doors
NCITE showcased both US and foreign AI models that had been modified to bypass built-in safety measures. The models demonstrated could rapidly generate harmful plans once their guardrails were disabled.
House Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman Andy Ogles described what he saw as “frightening.”
