WASHINGTON — Last year, Ravi Chaudhary called on the military to use artificial intelligence to track the online activity of service members in an effort to root out extremists. On Thursday, it came back to haunt the nominee for a top Air Force post.
Chaudhary is President Joe Biden’s pick to serve as the assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations and environment, having previously served at the Federal Aviation Administration during the Trump administration. But he faced a hostile crowd of Republicans at his Senate Armed Services Committee nomination hearing.
The GOP senators focused their questioning on the Air Force veteran’s July 2021 op-ed in Foreign Policy News reflecting on how the military should respond to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, arguing that Chaudhary’s proposal to surveil service members would violate due process and invade their privacy.
