‘Just start shooting’: How data center backlash is rattling American towns

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Rage against data centers is boiling over beyond community protests like this into criminal cases that law enforcement has labeled terrorism. CNN obtained more than 100 police reports from across the country on data center backlash in the past year. They include more than a dozen bomb threats, calls for assassinations, and violent threats on social media. Unalive them, Luigis unite. Anthony Hinojosa told police he wrote, just start shooting the people involved and it'll never be built, about a planned data center in Illinois. He's pleaded not guilty to felony charges. [00:00:59] Speaker 2: A terroristic threat has nuts. [00:01:04] Speaker 1: Government agencies are warning of a broad range of threat actors and an increased threat environment targeting data centers. And police are cracking down, investigating all sorts of comments on social media, even some that lack any imminent threat. Police in El Paso, Texas, investigated this woman after she told a local official, I hope you rot in hell and die over a data center project. [00:01:27] Kramer: That's my first amendment right, just because I said, I hope, that's insane. You just said it's a terroristic threat. It's not a terroristic threat. It could be. That is not a terroristic threat. [00:01:34] Speaker 1: Borderline, you're kind of borderline. She didn't face charges. Afternoon, sir. But this man, Harley D. Lander, did. This is him talking to police. [00:01:43] Speaker 4: These punks right here came by because I'm trying to organize a community protest against a representative who is trying to push in a data center. [00:01:51] Speaker 2: The issue is some of the communication, the Facebook posts, some of the comments. I've never made a threat. OK. Well, we disagree, and our state's attorney disagrees. [00:02:00] Speaker 1: D. Lander was angry about a data center possibly coming to this field near Dixon, Illinois. [00:02:06] Speaker 4: Once a data center is built here, this land is gone. Concrete is, it outlives people. [00:02:12] Speaker 1: D. Lander called for a protest at the home of the man he believed supported the data center, writing, someone put the fear of God in him and his family, make him scared to close his eyes at night. [00:02:22] Speaker 4: It was surprising when they told me that they were going to arrest me. I was kind of in disbelief. [00:02:27] Speaker 1: You did post his home address. [00:02:29] Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do you regret it? [00:02:31] Speaker 1: I regret how strongly I worded it. D. Lander was charged with multiple felonies, but he ended up pleading guilty to a petty charge that's less than a misdemeanor. He is still stuck with this. [00:02:44] Speaker 4: So this is a GPS ankle monitor. I still believe that I didn't do anything wrong. I don't think people should be arrested over strong words, strong language. [00:02:53] Speaker 1: And that's the dilemma for law enforcement, how far to take these cases. While 13 shots were fired into the home of an Indianapolis council member, the majority of cases CNN found do not involve violence. Still, records show law enforcement is carefully monitoring the angry backlash, including the groups organizing the protests, like the one aboard this bus. Amy Kramer's anti-AI group Humans First is on a nationwide tour. They call it a data center revolt, hosting protests in more than 30 cities. [00:03:25] Kramer: Big tech, by design, is shoving this infrastructure down our throats. People feel like they are not being represented. Decisions are being made without input from the citizens in the community, and it's not right. [00:03:38] Speaker 1: Why would police care about Kramer? She's long tapped into grassroots rage, planning bus tours as a conservative activist. [00:03:45] Kramer: We're going across the country on the Tea Party Express. [00:03:51] Speaker 1: In 2020, she helped lead the Stop the Steal movement. [00:03:54] Kramer: We're not going to let them steal an election. [00:03:57] Speaker 1: Organizing the rally before the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Her target this time, data centers. The United States Capitol Police. We showed Kramer this email. U.S. Capitol Police Intelligence Services sent an alert to other law enforcement about data center protests organized by her group. So the Capitol Police are watching you. What do you think about that? [00:04:23] Kramer: I assume that they're watching me everything I do. Watch me. I don't care. I'm not violating any laws. I didn't do anything wrong on January 6th. [00:04:31] Speaker 1: Kramer calls herself a loyal Trumper. But on this issue, she objects. He just posted, let data reign. [00:04:39] Kramer: I disagree with the president on this. You know, when he says, let data reign, I say, let Americans reign. Big tech is coming in and totally disrupting their lives and impacting their lives in ways they could have never imagined. [00:04:53] Speaker 1: With the clock ticking to the midterms, AI and data centers are scrambling politics. Is this a Republican issue or a Democrat? [00:05:01] Kramer: I think it's an issue that affects all Americans. And so they all need to govern on it. [00:05:09] Speaker 1: We just met Amy Kramer, who is leading the data center revolve bus tour. You don't strike me as somebody who would agree with her on anything. [00:05:19] Speaker 4: I think a lot of Americans are starting to feel like an animal trapped in a cage. There's really just two different Americas that exist. There's the Americas for the billionaires and multi-millionaires, and there's the America for everyone else. [00:05:33] Speaker 1: There are instances of people taking it too far because of this rage. Do you excuse that violence? [00:05:40] Speaker 4: I don't excuse violence at all. But at a certain point, when voting only gets you so far, you know, you got to start asking yourself, what else is there?