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Blockspace: AI & Bitcoin
How CCP-Linked Entities Derailed $23.6B in Data Center Projects Across the US
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Host 1
Welcome back to the Blockspace podcast brought
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Host 2
to you by CleanSpark.
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Host 1
In recent years, over 100 data center moratoria or outright bans have been levied in local jurisdictions around the U.S. now, no doubt some of these bans in moratoria have been the results of grassroots efforts, but some still can be traced back to CCP linked astroturfing campaigns. At least that's the view of research from Bitcoin Policy institute that links $23.6 billion worth of forestalled projects. For today's bonus episode, we welcome Sam Lyman, the head of research at Bitcoin Policy Institute, to discuss their latest findings. Specifically, how Neville Roy Singham and his orbit of nonprofits and the Party for socialism and liberation is behind some of the most vociferous attempts to ban or forestall data centers all across the United States.
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Host 2
Hope you all enjoy sartorial excellence with the suit and tie. Sam, welcome back to the show.
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Sam Lyman
Thanks, guys. Great to be back. I had a Rock the Suit coiner look today because we had some meetings on Capitol Hill.
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Charlie
You got, you gotta look, you gotta look presentable. I put on a button down shirt. That's the closest I'll ever get.
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Sam Lyman
I was gonna say, I heard I was gonna be on Blockspace today, so. I should have worn a tuxedo.
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Host 2
Yeah, we're, we're more business casual here. You know, it's always Hawaiian shirt Fridays and at Block Space. So, Sam, y' all put out this really meaty piece on part two on the foreign influence in the campaign against American AI. I'm gonna pop it up here on the screen in a second. A few headline numbers and the dollar figure here, which we'll get into, I'm sure is conservative, but 23.6 billion in delayed or blocked data centers and funding 10 local moratoria, four scrapped or rejected data center projects, one permanent ban. And I would also add there, maybe this is in that figure, a downsizing of Kevin o' Leary's box Elder County Data center and a partridge in a pear tree. So, Sam, could you give us a quick TLDR of your research here before we dive into some of the details?
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Sam Lyman
For sure. Great to be back with you guys. And I'm excited to talk about the sequel to our first report. So for your viewers who may not know about our first report, we were able to uncover a foreign influence operation from China, where China state media was broadcasting for years to American audiences about the dangers of data centers, how they would raise electricity prices and water prices. And we recognized in our Research that working in tandem with China state media, was a nonprofit network which we call the Singham Network. The Singham Network is led by a man named Neville Singham based in Shanghai. He's a self identified Marxist and for years he's been pushing CCP propaganda to American audiences. And most recently he's been doing that with data centers. So in our SQL report part two here, we were able to find 21 different case studies across the country where Singham's group has been boots on the ground in data center fights that have stalled or blocked $23.6 billion in AI build out here in the United States. So they're doing real material damage on the ground beyond just the propaganda that they've been pushing for years.
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Host 2
So a lot of this report hinges on specifically Singham. And you mentioned, like you said, he shares an office in Shanghai with one of the Chinese state medias. In fact, his nonprofit organizations have actually echoed their own those CCP linked media's language in some of these data center pushes. But it also hinges on the psl, which is Party for Socialism and Liberation, quote as you describe it here, a Marxist Leninist group with documented foreign ties who stated mission is to dismantle American capitalism and whose leadership is drawn directly from executives of Singham's nonprofits. Can you give us an outline of these connections? Because it seems to me that a lot of the report hinges on this idea or the documented evidence that a lot of the leaders of ESL are actually drawn from Singham's nonprofit network.
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Sam Lyman
Yeah, this was one of the biggest findings of our report. That finding is that the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the SIGM network are one in the same. If you were to draw a Venn diagram between the two Singham network here, PSL here, it'd be a complete circle, just direct overlap between the leadership and the PSL itself. So we were able to find five different nonprofit executive leaders that work for Cingham that are paid by Cingham, who coincidentally or not, are also the leadership of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We realized that there's really no daylight between these two organizations. And we built out a graphic to make it clear as day for anyone wondering who runs the PSL to answer is very clearly Neville Singham. But that's not just our telling. Neville Singham also has a lot of enemies who are on the far left of American politics. And they themselves have identified Singham as being the mind behind PSL and the person who calls the shots for PSL all the way over in Beijing.
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Host 2
So go ahead, Charlie.
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Charlie
Yeah, so when we talk about like astroturfing or propaganda or these efforts, like what do they actually look like on the ground? Because I go to Facebook and I see what appear to be a pretty organic post, which like everybody, there's a big meeting at the city council tonight. Data center, gotta oppose it. Is it just getting people to these, Is it circulating? What does it actually look like? What are they actually doing?
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Sam Lyman
That's a great question. And we want to be clear that in our research we're no way saying that the entire anti data center movement is Astroturf, because very clearly there's a grassroots element of this. There's a lot of people who have organic, authentic and genuine concerns about the impact data centers might have on their communities. What we have noticed though, that running alongside that organic movement is an inorganic movement. And we want to be able to provide transparency for the impact that inorganic movement is having and exactly who is funding it and who's driving that messaging. And so this is what it looks like. I'll offer up a very tangible example that took place just yesterday. So based here in Washington D.C. here at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, 10 miles up the road in Prince George's County, Maryland, the city council yesterday was able to enact a two year data center moratorium. Who was leading that fight? It was the party for socialism and liberation. And that's not according to BPI's own reporting. That's according to an NPR affiliate based here in Washington D.C. that did a whole cover story on the PSL a few months ago talking about how the PSL went door to door. It's called canvassing in activism. You go door to door and you raise awareness for whatever issue you're concerned about and you gather signatures. The PSL in Prince George's County, Maryland, in this specific case study, was able to get over 20,000 signatures protesting this data center. And then they were able to rally hundreds of people to city council hearings where the city council members said they'd never seen this many people before. They were able to do that through viral posts on social media, and again by going door to door through their neighborhood canvassing. And by so doing, they were able to create such an illusion of this mass opposition to data centers in Prince George's county that the council members really had no choice but to listen to what looked like a huge congregation of people protesting this construction. What was interesting though was last week there was a counter protest to the Singham Network led protest in Prince George's County. So I think a lot of people who are pro data center are starting to catch on to the importance of activity activism in these particular fights. But that's just one example of what it looks like in real time because of that two year data center pause. That's $5 billion in AI investment that will either be stalled or blocked indefinitely in Prince George's County.
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Host 2
Sam, I want to return really quickly to two points. One, the pushback on the left against the left on this and then also the PSL leaders in Singham's orbit and their ties to adversaries of the us we'll start with the first one you mentioned specifically in this piece. 1 Jeremy Fergie Chambers, who if I believe am I correct about this, is actually the heir of the Cox Communications fortune.
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Charlie
That's right.
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Host 2
And so you know, I mean net worth estimated according to Wikipedia, $250 million. You know, communism for thee but not for me, some might say.
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Host 1
What is your feeling as to why
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Host 2
he had a falling out with Singham? You probably can't speak to that very much, but I'm just curious as to what hunches you have for the motivation to push back against the psl. Reminds me and you actually even mentioned Trotskyists in this article or kind of neo Trotsky views on what the PSL is doing. It reminds me of some of the power struggles between Stalin and Trotsky in the early days of the Soviet Union. What is your sense as to why there's fracturing in some of these communist communities over the PSL and this issue specifically?
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Sam Lyman
It's a great question. I went down the rabbit hole of modern day communism. A lot of people think that communism is dead and gone. What I learned over the past month or so is that it's very much alive and well and the internal spats between communists are just as intense to today as they were over 100 years ago. You mentioned between Stalin and Lenin for example. I think Jeremy Chambers specific critique is that Neville Singham is not a true blue or I guess true red believer in communism. That he is more in the tank for China and the CCP than he is to spreading communism worldwide. That seems to be his critique. It could also be just sharp elbows within the communist movement. You have two multimillionaires who are the primary financiers of socialist movements across the world. So naturally they're not going to get along 100% of the time. It sounds like the impetus of their falling out was over the Israel issue. It sounds like Jeremy Chambers says that Neville Singham doesn't believe in advocating against Israel to the same extent that he does because all communists seem to hate Israel and the United States. And so it seems to be inside baseball within the communist movement. But look, looks like it boils down to personal differences, political differences, and probably just some ego clashing. At the end of the day, it
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Host 2
seems like, you know, Trotsky isn't probably a good word for it here in regards to the view whether or not communism should be contained within a single state versus projected onto the entire world as a global workers movement. That was the clear delineation between Stalin, who, and Trotsky, who preferred specifically just to focus on the ussr. And so going back to that, you mentioned the Trotskyist angle here specifically when looking at some of Singham's deputies, if we can call them that, the PSL leadership and some of their ties to US adversaries, some of whom are actually still communist countries. You break down some of those ties. I believe it spans all the way from Singham's wife, who is the founder of Code Pink, as well as the PSL Party presidential candidate for 2024, and also the editor in chief for one of their magazines. Can you explain what some of these ties are and how concrete they are?
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Charlie
For sure.
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Sam Lyman
And you mentioned a good point about the Trotskyists. The Trotsky critique of Singham and his network right now is that the work they do is indistinguishable from a PR agency for the ccp. And so I think that tells you all you need to know about how other people on the left view the same network. Now, the same network's particular ties to other countries is what is truly damning to begin with. The PSL is not an America first organization by any stretch of the imagination. This is a internationalist first organization. By that I mean their allegiance is to what they call the global working class, as opposed to the American working class or everybody else in America. America. Because of that, they've partnered heavily with Cuba over the years. In fact, making trips to Cuba has been a key part of their agenda. In addition to that, they've been able to build really close ties with the Cuban president. They've been able to build close ties with Venezuela, and they've partnered with an international Communist organization called the International People's Assembly. In doing so, who hosted the International People's assembly was the. Was Nicholas Maduro, the now removed president of Venezuela. But these are the kind of dictators and communists that PSL and other organizations have been working with over the past several years to make it clear to the American people. These are OFAC sanctioned countries that you have leaders of this particular political network working with over the past several years to undermine American interests right here at home.
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Host 2
So, Sam, I would like to move into a few of the muddier aspects of this report with regards to how strong the CCP link is and where the funding comes from for all of this, which is more or less a black box. We'll start with the CCP angle is the strongest connection here. As you have this New York Times report cited in the report that y' all did, that he works in the same office, single desert than the MACU Group, which is Chinese media firm. Is that the strongest angle for us to say CCP affiliation here? Is there anything more outside of that that we can grab on? Is there something, Are there facts that you didn't feel comfortable putting in the report because there wasn't enough of a link? How much can we attribute Singham's, you know, alleged affiliation with the ccp?
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Sam Lyman
In my view, you can contribute it to a heavy degree. Why is that? It's because beyond just sharing office space with the Maku Group, for those who don't know, the MACA Group is a company based in China, that its primary duty is to spread China's message abroad, to be a propagandist for the regime. So Singham's network, not only do they share office space, they've also worked very closely with that particular network. They've paid them about $9 million to help the Singham network do their own propaganda abroad. So there's that. But in addition, we know that Neville Singham has been documented at multiple CCP conferences that talk about telling China's message. Well, that's the CCP phrasing for how to share China's particular story with people outside of its borders. And so there's those connections, but again, there's the critiques that come from the left. This isn't just a critique coming from people in the center of American politics in the right, but Trotsky. It's people who support Trotsky themselves have said that they see everything that Singham and his network do as supporting the Chinese Communist Party. And it's very clear in all their messaging, in the. In the open collaboration that his network has done with China state media. You know, you have the head of Code Pink, for example, Jody Evans, and the head of Tri Continental, another Singham network nonprofit, Vijay Prashad. They've done exclusive interviews with China state media over the years. So for all intents and purposes, they are CCP surrogates who their primary role, whether it's deliberate or coincidental, is to spread Chinese propaganda here in the United States. But it's not just our own determination that there's a there there. It's also the determination of federal investigators. And this is key. Right now, Neville Singham is being investigated in the Southern District of New York for his ties to China. You also have multiple federal investigations from the DOJ and an interagency investigation into his ties to China. So what those specific findings are has yet to be released to the public. If there is a there there, we'll know hopefully in the next few months. But it seems to be the conclusion of federal investigators themselves that there's at least enough evidence there to bring federal to bring a federal investigation against Neville Singham himself.
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Charlie
And maybe this is getting into how organizations are funded. Why is there no documentation? Like, I know typically if you have, you know, C3s or C6s or whatever, you've got to file forms and disclose financials, why is there no documentation?
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Sam Lyman
I think that's the most important question of all. Because with Neville Sangham's 501C3s, there is some reporting that they have to do. But with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, it falls just outside of the reporting regime for federal elections in a way that's really convenient for psl. So if you're a political party, you have to report who funds you when you're raising money for a federal election. For example, a presidential election committee, the PSL did that when they ran two different candidates for president, vice president in 2024. So that's disclosed who funded those particular campaigns. But what's not disclosed seems to be the day to day activities of the psl because under US Federal election law, they don't have to disclose that information. So it seems as if they have been able to identify a particular vulnerability in federal election law where they're able to evade certain disclosures for who funds this activity. And that's the most important question of all, is who is financing these protests that the PSL shows up at? Who is giving them money to make all these banners to pay people to canvas for them? Nobody can answer that question. Nobody can say with any degree of certitude that it's not China or that it's not Russia or some other foreign actor, because they don't need to disclose.
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Host 2
I'm glad you mentioned the canvassing part of this. As you know, we don't know where the money is coming from to actually fund these campaigns and I would like to get into that a little bit more. Charlie asked a question about it early on, but I'm curious from Yalls research, what are the typical strategies that they've employed? Is it mostly just canvassing, knocking on doors? Is it just harassing town council meetings for zoning or for approvals for these things? What have you found have been the most successful tactics for the PSL and its protesting apparatus for getting these things stalled?
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Sam Lyman
I would say it's all of the above. Any activism that the PSL can do, they will do and they have done. So what we've seen been most effective are petitions in particular, as I mentioned in Prince George's county they were able to gather over 20,000 signatures that they were then able to deliver to the town council. But you also have a certain case study in Alabama that's an ongoing fight that the PSL is waging right now. They've already been able to raise over 3,000 signatures there. And how do they get those signatures? It's the canvassing. They make hundreds of flyers and they go door to door in a very old fashioned style of politicking and they knock on doors, they talk to people, they hand in the flyer. They then proceed to share a lot of misinformation about data centers. That's one thing we've seen in a lot of their social media posts is they spread a lot of FUD about water usage and electricity consumption data centers, but there's no one there to fact check them in real time when they're canvassing. And because that canvassing they're able to mobilize a lot of community residents to go to these particular town council meetings and create this illusion of massive protest against these data centers. When a lot of this again is ginned up by an organization that has close links to China and is funded by a Marxist based in Shanghai.
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Host 2
So I want to get into the specific areas that they've targeted really quickly. I'm going to rattle them off really quickly for our listeners. You have a number of case studies here. First one Charlotte, North Carolina Second Prince George's County, Maryland Third Tucson, Arizona 4. Chandler, Arizona 5. Franklin Township, Indiana 6. Madison and Dane County, Wisconsin 7. DeForest, Wisconsin 8. Athens Clarke County, Georgia 9. DeKalb County, Georgia 10. Durham, North Carolina and 11 Cumberland county in Fayetteville, North Carolina 12. Denver, Colorado 13. Monterey Park, California and then there's also New Orleans, Louisiana Box Elder County, Utah and Cleveland, Ohio and Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Wisconsin Statewide there are two campaigns going on there. Pritchard, Alabama.
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Charlie
It's just.
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Host 2
It's a laundry list. Why do you think they chose these areas? Did they identify a weakness or a chink in the armor, so to speak? And there was already enough, you know, disquiet about these data centers that they felt that they can move in. There are these places that already had a strong PSL presence, so it was just easier to mobilize. It's really notable to me that North Carolina and Georgia popped up a few times. I'm just curious, why do you think they chose these areas specifically?
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Sam Lyman
Yeah, that's a great question. Because as viewers will notice, a lot of those states are red states. They're states that you wouldn't typically associate with these kinds of causes. What we've seen that PSL did is they identified what was, for the most part, organic opposition, and they recognized that that was a great opportunity for. For them to latch onto a wedge issue and increase that wedge further to foment even greater anger and division among the American people. In fact, that actually is the textbook play of most foreign influence operations, is you can actually camouflage the foreign influence taking place if you're able to embed yourself within a particular movement that looks organic from the outside and maybe even is organic. But we recognize that in every jurisdiction they've been involved, there were a couple commonalities. There was a lot of what looks to be organic opposition, but in addition to that, there was a pronounced PSL presence.