Opinion

We could win the AI war and still lose all of our freedoms if we aren’t careful

America risks mirroring China's AI surveillance model in the name of defeating it

By Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, (ret.) Fox News

Published April 9, 2026 5:00am EDT

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Alliance for a Better Future: AI future hinges on guardrails vs. Big Tech control

Alliance for a Better Future launch video presents stark choice between protecting families or allowing unchecked AI to reshape jobs and society. (Credit: Alliance for a Better Future)

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I have spent half a century tracking threats to American security — from Soviet armored columns to jihadist networks to the accelerating military machine of communist China. In all that time, I have never watched a danger develop quite like this one: a threat born not only from our adversaries, but one we are building ourselves, with our own capital and our own engineering genius, moving faster than we have decided what rules should govern it.

That is the unspoken risk inside this technology race. Right now, America is moving too fast to see it clearly.

To understand where this road leads without discipline, look at what Beijing has already built. In a 2025 address to China’s Politburo, President Xi Jinping called machine intelligence a "strategic technology" reshaping the foundations of state power — not merely a tool, but the engine of governance and global dominance. China has deployed more than 200 million surveillance cameras, many equipped with facial recognition and integrated into national police networks.

Human Rights Watch documented that a digital surveillance network in Xinjiang flagged Uyghur Muslims for detention not because they committed crimes, but because an AI-powered predictive surveillance system said they might.

AMERICA’S ‘UNDECLARED EMERGENCY:’ PALANTIR EXEC........

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