Politicians and public officials

Eric Burlison

U.S. representative from Missouri; chairs House Oversight's regulatory affairs subcommittee

2 records

Portrait source: U.S. House of Representatives, Public domain

Records

I think that the vulnerability for each one of us is that we are entering into an era where an AI can devour as much information about you as possible and weaponize that against you, and so that is something I think is a concern, and the question is how do we protect people's rights?

Eric Burlison

U.S. representative from Missouri; chairs House Oversight's regulatory affairs subcommittee

At a September 2025 House Oversight subcommittee hearing on AI, Burlison said the vulnerability for each of us is that we are entering an era where an AI can devour as much information about you as possible and weaponize that against you, and that the question is how to protect people's rights.

U.S. Representative from MissouriSeptember 17, 2025U.S. House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation hearing, Shaping Tomorrow: The Future of Artificial Intelligence

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Surrounding words

I think that is an area still needed for further research. Mr. Burlison. Thank you. Because I am touching back on the question I asked Ms. Fabrizio, which is that I think that the vulnerability for each one of us is that we are entering into an era where an AI can devour as much information about you as possible and weaponize that against you, and so that is something I think is a concern, and the question is how do we protect people's rights? For example, every day I get annoying phone calls for people from, like, people that want to know if I want to sell my rental homes. Every day. I never signed up for anything.

What this quote does not say

The passage names no likelihood, timeframe, actor, or specific AI system, and concerns personal-data misuse and rights rather than loss of control or catastrophic risk.
Elsewhere in the same hearing Burlison takes an expressly pro-development line: he tells a witness that EU regulation has 'created a chilling effect', that 'AI will be a magnifier for productivity for any individual', and that the United States has to be 'the location for these data centers'. The privacy concern sits inside that posture, not against it.

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Government-mandated red tape and free-speech constraints do not make AI safer, they just make American companies slower while our adversaries sprint ahead unchecked.

Eric Burlison

U.S. representative from Missouri; chairs House Oversight's regulatory affairs subcommittee

In prepared opening remarks at an April 2026 House Oversight roundtable on AI and American power, Burlison said that government-mandated red tape and free-speech constraints do not make AI safer and just make American companies slower while adversaries sprint ahead unchecked.

U.S. Representative from Missouri and Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory AffairsApril 16, 2026Joint subcommittee roundtable, Artificial Intelligence and American Power: Leadership, Security, and Prosperity

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Context and checks

Surrounding words

On his very first day back in office, President Trump issued an executive order revoking excessive regulatory constraints on AI development set by President Biden. That was the right call. Government-mandated red tape and free-speech constraints do not make AI safer, they just make American companies slower while our adversaries sprint ahead unchecked. The Trump Administration followed that initial action by launching the Stargate Initiative, a joint public-private effort to accelerate the construction of AI infrastructure in the United States.

What this quote does not say

'Red tape' and 'free-speech constraints' are not defined anywhere in the remarks; the only concrete referent is President Trump's day-one executive order revoking the Biden administration's AI regulatory constraints, which the immediately preceding sentence calls 'the right call'.
The same remarks endorse federal action on other fronts — the Stargate Initiative, data-center and power build-out, and export of an American AI stack — so this is opposition to particular regulation, not to all government involvement in AI.

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