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Tech Giants Hiding Data Centers With NDAs - The Wednesday AM Quickie 10/29/25

By Whitney Curry Wimbish —


Alright, that’s it from me. See you next week! Corey’s back tomorrow. - Whitney

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THE BIG NEWS

Tech Giants Using NDAs to Hide Data Center Info from the Communities They Destroy

Tech company scouts are going into communities to buy up land for their rapacious data centers but won’t say who they represent or what the land will be used for, according to an investigation by NBC News. A property owner in Kentucky recounted an instance in which three men from a “Fortune 100 company” offered him $10 million for his 250-acre farm. The trio refused to say what they wanted the land for, which company they represented, or even their names, NBC reported. Instead, they pulled out a non-disclosure agreement that would have forbidden any discussion about the deal. “We refused to sign it,” Dr. Timothy Grosser, the landowner, told NBC. “I’m not selling my farm for any amount of money.” The outlet detailed instances where tech companies keep elected officials in the dark, too. A $3.6 billion proposal by Amazon Web Services in Arizona, for example, included an NDA that forbade Pima County officials from speaking about the project, which a member of the board of supervisors only learned when he spoke to a local newspaper and then got a call from the company accusing him of violating the contract.

This is pernicious, contemptible behavior, and it reveals that tech giants know their data centers are universally despised. Data centers suck up resources, jack up prices, and, as many publications have reported, make life absolutely unbearable with noise and pollution. And for what? Artificial intelligence slop that everyone hates, tools that don’t work, and chatbots that make people very literally kill themselves, as lawsuits allege. Oh, and one that claims it will “hasten the coming of Christ’s return.” Trump is supporting all of this with his AI action plan and executive orders that speed up centers’ approval, including by destroying environmental regulations. Developers announced hundreds of projects last year. They will make life worse. Per NBC:

“Data centers often draw enormous amounts of water and electricity, causing residents to complain about rising power bills and water shortages. In Virginia’s Loudoun County, the world’s densest hub of data centers, locals have complained of a ‘constant whir’ from cooling fans and backup generators. And in Tennessee’s South Memphis, the methane gas turbines that power an xAI data center give off air pollutants contributing to smog and formaldehyde. xAI has vowed to stay below pollutant limits in the area.”

UN Leader: Humanity Must Change Course Immediately to Avoid Climate Catastrophe 

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said it is “inevitable” that humanity will fail to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the target set in the Paris climate agreement, and must brace for the “devastating consequences,” The Guardian and Sumaúna reported. The longer global leaders wait to cut emissions, the likelier it is we will surpass deadly “tipping points” throughout the world. Ahead of next month’s COP30 meeting in Brazil, Guterres said humankind must “recognize our failure” and immediately adjust. “It is absolutely indispensable to change course in order to make sure that the overshoot is as short as possible and as low in intensity as possible to avoid tipping points like the Amazon,” he said. “We don’t want to see the Amazon as a savannah. But that is a real risk if we don’t change course and if we don’t make a dramatic decrease of emissions as soon as possible.” The last 10 years have been the hottest in recorded history. For more on climate disasters, please see below.

Jamaicans Survey Damage After Hurricane Melissa, Cuba Braces for Impact 

The massive storm made landfall midday on Monday, tearing off roofs, ripping down light poles with winds of 185 mph, and putting at least one parish, St. Elizabeth, “under water,” according to the NYT. Officials did not have a death count as of Tuesday night. Melissa was the strongest Category 5 storm on record; it dropped to Category 4 as it moved off the island’s north coast. Next it’s expected to hit Cuba, where officials have ordered nearly 900,000 people to evacuate the eastern provinces. In Jamaica, officials said 15,000 people were in shelters and more than half a million people were without power as of Tuesday evening. 

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • US Continues Illegal War, Bombs 4 More Boats in Pacific Ocean Defense Secretary Peter Brian Hegseth said 14 more people are dead, bringing the number of people killed to at least 57. Meanwhile, the former Fox News employee said service members with beards aren’t allowed in the same room as him when he visits Camp Humphreys this week. via NBC News, The NYT and Task & Purpose.
  • Texas AG Sues Tylenol Maker Because Health Secretary Falsely Claims it Causes Autism The lawsuit is the first of its kind from a state government and comes after the anti-medicine health secretary RFK Jr. and Trump said pregnant people shouldn’t take it because it might cause their kid to have autism. Doctors and medical groups say Tylenol is the only painkiller safe to use during pregnancy. via The NYT and The Texas Tribune. 
  • ICE Using Milwaukee School of Engineering Building for Immigrant Terror Campaign University officials say they can’t do anything about it, even though ICE is their tenant. Students are pissed: “Can you see how it might look like MSOE is helping facilitate their mass deportation effort?” one student asked administrators last week. via 404 Media.  
  • Federal Agent Tried to Flip Maduro’s Chief Pilot Agent Edwin Lopez tried for 16 months to get Nicolás Maduro’s main pilot to “surreptitiously divert the Venezuelan president’s plane to a place where US authorities could nab the strongman,” saying the pilot “would be made a very rich man.” The pilot declined. via the AP. 

SOME NUMBER

17

That’s how many people the Alberta Health Services Agency in Canada told to get tested for bird flu after animals at a petting zoo fell sick with the extremely contagious disease. Bird flu is on the rise across the continent, with cases detected in Canada, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New York, and North Dakota. “A late-fall surge in avian flu activity has become seasonal in North America, as migratory waterfowl fly south for the winter,” according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. “But several scientists are worried that the current government shutdown will only make surveillance that much more difficult in the coming weeks.”

ON THE SHOW TODAY

10/29: Sam is hosting solo today, and the guest is Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, who will talk about the 25 states suing the Trump administration for refusing to fund SNAP benefits.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

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This lady always looks like she’s stomping her foot.

PARTING WORDS

“I am a young Xipai Indigenous man, and have lived my entire life in a village in the middle of the largest tropical forest on the planet, the Amazon. As an Indigenous man, I know very well the pain of the forest, because its body is an extension of ours. When I speak of the body of the forest, it is neither this nor that; it is everything. It is the other humans who live within it: it is a tree, it is the ground, it is the river, and those who live within it. So I knew my questions would be intertwined with everything that constitutes me as an Indigenous being.”

-- Wajã Xipai, the first Indigenous journalist to interview UN Secretary General António Guterres, in an essay reflecting on the conversation and wondering whether anyone will take heed of Indigenous knowledge. “There needs to be more than this 30-minute interview,” he wrote. “There should be the same amount of time they spend without listening to us.” In August, he wrote a moving essay about leaving his village to work in a city newsroom and I hope everybody reads it.

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