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In June 2024, the Greater Memphis, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce 

 a deal to host a substantial new computing facility. xAI built its "Colossus" data center in an old Electrolux factory. The facility was brought online at record speed, and almost immediately drew questions about transparency, air quality, water use and how a project of this scale had moved through local government so quickly.

Two years on, the story continues to expand alongside the company’s growing footprint, with a second campus, Colossus II, across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi; a contested gray water recycling plant; an ever-rising count of gas turbines; multiple lawsuits; and communities in South Memphis and beyond still pressing for straight answers.

In multiple ways, the story is a harbinger, a case study for communities across the country now reckoning with the arrival of hyperscale data centers.

One of the entities leading the way in Memphis is the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). The SELC has been a partner 

, gathering evidence on the company's unpermitted gas turbines and pushing state regulators to hold the company accountable under the Clean Air Act. To learn more about SELC’s case and what it means for the broader fight for transparency and accountability amid the AI infrastructure boom, I spoke to 

, senior attorney and data center project leader in the Tennessee office of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

A note since we recorded: On June 15, the Department of Justice 

 that shutting down the turbines powering Colossus 2 would threaten national, economic and energy security. The department claimed Grok is one of only four AI models supporting mission-critical operations on classified networks, and a Defense Department declaration tied the model to military operations, including recent strikes against Iran. The DOJ, xAI and the state of Mississippi all asked the court to dismiss the suit. SELC 

 the government’s argument “an unprecedented attack on the public’s ability to defend themselves from illegal pollution.”

This is the second of three episodes on the situation in Memphis and Southhaven, and what it portends about the future of the AI infrastructure boom in the United States and the political debates and power struggles surrounding it. Listen to the first—an interview with Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter Neil Strebig—

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion.

Amanda, I think I have to ask you to do two things for our listeners. One, give them the quick one-two about what SELC is and what you do looking after data centers there.

The Southern Environmental Law Center is a law and policy organization that is rooted in the South and we work across a full range of environmental issues. Our theory of change is that place matters, that people care about the places that they live. And so we have attorney boots on the ground in all six states where we work. We work very closely with communities in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. And our advocacy, even though it is rooted in the South, really pushes issues, elevates issues at the national level as well because we are able to tell the story of how policies affect people on the ground.

In our data center work, I think is a perfect example of that. We have been working alongside communities on local land use issues for four decades. Also, we have been in public utilities commissions at the state level for four decades. So we really have those relationships that allow us to be effective on the ground, but also to drive policy at both the state and the federal level. And in my role as the data center project leader, I help to develop strategies and guide our attorneys on data center matters across the region.

So it's been two years since xAI announced that it would build the world's largest supercomputer in Memphis after closed-door negotiations with the Economic Development Authority there. It is very shortly after that community members spotted gas turbines appearing and raised concerns about a lack of permits. Walk us through the Memphis story. When did SELC get involved? When did this come to your attention?

Justin, I've been involved since day one of the xAI issue in Memphis and really it again highlights the importance of working with communities over the long term because we had been working in Memphis for many years and we have a coalition of local environmental justice and environmental organization that meets weekly about issues that happen or that come up in the community.

And so we had gotten wind of the fact that there was a big announcement coming. And when it happened, our local community partners were ready to go. They issued a statement on day one, the day of the announcement, raising all the important questions that weren't being addressed by the Memphis Chamber and the mayor of Memphis.

Our local partners immediately issued a statement asking, "Where is the water going to come from? Where is the energy coming from? How much water and energy is xAI going to use?" And that initial statement I think really immediately changed the conversation locally from a victory lap for the economic development folks to a conversation about how is this going to affect the communities on the ground in Memphis?

And take us through the claims in your lawsuit. Where is the lawsuit at the moment? What are the kind of key claims that you're pursuing?

I think it's important to take a step back before we get into the current lawsuit because, as you pointed out, this is a situation that's been unfolding over the past two years and there have been multiple phases, and I think it really highlights the lack of transparency around data center development and the way these projects can kind of metastize and grow over time.

So when we initially heard about xAI, it was the Colossus 1 data center and the idea was that it was going to ultimately be a data center of 150 megawatts and that it would be served by the grid. But as you pointed out earlier, that scenario quickly changed and we learned that the grid connection was not going to happen fast enough for xAI's timetable. And so they set up unpermitted, uncontrolled combustion turbines. Initially it was 18 combustion turbines. At that point we raised concerns actually with the local air permitting authority, the Shelby County Health Department, and basically sent a letter and said, "Hey, these guys are running what is basically a power plant. They don't have a permit. You need to ask them to get a permit or require them to get a permit."

And the health department at that point said, "We don't think this is our responsibility. We think it's EPA's responsibility." And they basically punted to EPA. That was in August of 2024, so just before the presidential election. And initially it appeared that EPA was going to weigh in and they said they were going to issue a regulatory interpretation. And after the election happened, EPA went silent. At that point, we were not getting information from xAI, we were not getting information from the local air regulator, and meanwhile, these combustion turbines were pumping pollutants into the air 24/7. As far as we knew, they were operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And that's particularly concerning because we're talking about air pollution in Southwest Memphis. It's a known air toxics hotspot and the whole Memphis area is not meeting minimum federal standards for ozone pollution, which is also known as smog. So we were really concerned about the public health implications of these turbines. So we took matters into our own hands. We've actually worked with an organization called SouthWings that provides air flights for community groups that are investigating environmental damage across the South. And through that flight, we discovered that there were not just 18 combustion turbines anymore. There were 35 and we put that information out publicly. The mayor initially said that xAI told him, even though there were 35 on site, there were actually only 15 operating. We did another flight with a thermal camera and showed that 33 of the 35 were operating.

And at that point we decided that we couldn't wait for regulators to act any longer. And on behalf of the NAACP, we sent a 60-day notice to xAI. That notice basically said, "You have constructed and are operating a major source of air pollution without getting a permit," and asked them to cease operating until they got a permit. At the same time, they had applied for a permit to operate some different turbines on a permanent basis. They claimed that the ones that they were operating without a permit were temporary. And so we were also participating in that air permitting process.

This is all for Colossus 1. After we sent our 60-day notice, xAI did end up removing all of the temporary turbines and got their permit. So in a sense, on some level we won, right? They got rid of the temporary turbines, the ones that didn't have any pollution controls. They replaced them with permanent turbines that did have the pollution controls that have to do reporting and all the things that you would expect from a power plant.

But in the meantime, xAI had also grown. Somewhere along there, and I can't remember exactly when, they announced that they were actually going to grow Colossus 1 to 300 megawatts. Eventually all of that power, all the 300 megawatts would come from the grid and they would use these combustion turbines as backup power. But in the meantime, until they could get fully grid connected, they were going to keep running first the unpermitted turbines and then later when they got a permit, the permitted turbines.

So after xAI's permit was issued and they had removed all the turbines, we actually filed a permit appeal for Colossus 1. We challenged not just the permit, but also the health department's decision to adopt a policy of not requiring permits for what they called temporary turbines. Unfortunately, we filed that permit appeal on behalf of NAACP and Young, Gifted & Green. We had a hearing. There were hundreds of people there as there had been at the original permit hearing, and ultimately the air board determined that our case was moot. And so that question of whether they could not permit temporary turbines was not answered, but shortly, actually less than a month after we had that hearing, EPA actually issued a new rule about these turbines and expressly said, "We have always treated temporary turbines as stationary sources that require permits."

So we thought, okay, now we've got a clear statement from EPA that these things need permits, but in the meantime, xAI had expanded again. They had acquired land also in Memphis at Colossus 2 and they had also acquired a site in South Haven, Mississippi, just across the border from Colossus 2 that is the site of a former power plant. And it turned out that when they removed all of those turbines from Colossus 1, they just wheeled them across the border and set them up at this former gas plant site in South Haven, Mississippi. And they told a local gathering of the business community that they were planning to copy and paste what they had done at Colossus 1, at Colossus 2 at Southaven.

Well, I guess I'll kind of jump in there. So at this stage we've got now multiple facilities. On some level, it sounds like we know xAI was keen to get up and running as fast as possible. Effectively, they moved very, very quickly. The authorities effectively weren't able to keep up on some level. All these processes that you're referring to happened after the fact. They get Colossus 1 up and running and powered and then they recognize that they want to build more capacity so they go to South Haven, go to Colossus 2, et cetera. There's maybe a little bit of almost like a kind of arbitrage of what's going on with these gas turbines, but where are we at right now? I mean, are they still powering South Haven with turbines or what's happening there? Have they succeeded in developing more of a power source? I know that was part of the proposition at one point, that they were going to build a more long-term source of energy.

Right. Great question, Justin. They are still operating unpermitted turbines at the South Haven gas plant, and it's worth stating that, okay, so Colossus 1 is 300 megawatts. Colossus 2 is 1,200 megawatts, so a much larger data center. And that data center is currently being powered by permitted turbines that are, some of them have some controls on them, but overall they are similarly not, they don't have the types of controls that they would need to have if they were permitted.

In terms of where things stand right now, we have filed a... So we once again sent a 60-day notice on behalf of the NAACP, same kinds of claims about constructing a major source without getting a permit. And we have filed litigation in the Northern District of Mississippi. We have also filed a preliminary injunction motion in that case and that is set for hearing in August. So basically two years after the initial announcement of xAI coming to Memphis, we will be in court litigating over these unpermitted turbines in August.

I understand with that preliminary injunction request pending, you also now expect the Justice Department to get involved. Are we expecting the federal government to effectively attempt to intervene here?

They have indicated that they are considering intervening and we should learn more about that in the month ahead.

I really can't talk about that aspect of the litigations because it's pending, but I will say in addition to... We talked about xAI copying and pasting from Colossus 1. There is a difference here, which is that xAI is not intending to ultimately connect to the grid for Colossus 2. So instead, they proposed their own permanent power plant of sorts, but it's not a combined cycle gas plant, which is what you would expect for something of this scale like 1.2 gigawatts is a lot of power. It's enough to power a mid-sized city. Instead, it's a collection of multiple types of combustion turbines, including some that are just refurbished jet engines. And they obtained a permit from MDEQ, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

And so we have also filed a permit appeal for that installation of turbines, which again is separate from the unpermitted ones that are operating currently. They're on the same site, but they're two different sets of turbines. And that permit appeal is, we are in the process of... We're first of all, I guess, representing NAACP, Young, Gifted & Green and Safe and Sound Coalition, which is an organization of local neighbors that live near the plant. That is set for hearing in November of this year. So we have challenges to the temporary installation and the permanent installation of combustion turbines at this South Haven site.

I want to ask you a question about this idea of speculative demand. I know you commissioned a report on the idea that projected data center energy demand, I suppose data center demand generally may be wildly overstated. Can you talk a little bit about your findings there, how it matters for the cases that you've got in front of you right now?

Sure. So I think we've actually commissioned two different reports, and 

 ,and that one really looked at if you add up all of the demand projections for data center development, it would outpace the ability of chip manufacturers to provide chips to run those data centers. So it really calls into question whether what is being proposed by the data center developers is really feasible even from their own technological standpoint. And you're starting to hear tech companies talk about that, like the pressure on the chip market.

And once we had that report, we decided to look more specifically at our own utilities in our region and the demand forecasts that they were using in their energy planning. And when we took a look at that, once again, when you compared what our utilities were projecting with third party estimates of potential demand over the next 20 years or so, they didn't match up. And there's a certain amount of course, data center developers are shopping around, they're getting in the queue in multiple jurisdictions, but they're ultimately only going to develop a data center in one of those jurisdictions. So that's part of it.

The other part is that our utilities are regulated, mostly vertically integrated monopolies. They make their money by building new shiny things. And so they have historically had an incentive to overbuild new capacity and this has just kind of put that on hyper-speed in terms of the amount of investment.

The problem, of course, is that if all of that demand doesn't materialize, who is going to be left paying for these stranded assets? And right now, the answer, in our region at least, is largely everyday rate payers are the ones that are going to be left holding the bag if we overbuild. And we are almost certainly overbuilding because ultimately there's going to be... All this data center development is not going to come to fruition, and some of it that does come to fruition may fall by the wayside over time.

So you mentioned that SELC has been working on these types of issues for decades. If you look back at the history of industrial development in the South, maybe more generally, is this a kind of precedent-breaking industry or does this look like other things that your organization has seen in the past? I mean, clearly the scale is historic. I mean, the amount of many, many, many hundreds of billions, trillions that are being invested in data centers across the country and the world is one of the largest infrastructure projects, I assume, that we can point to as a singular effort of the species on the planet over some period of time. But I don't know, are there patterns you see or ways that this breaks the pattern?

I think this is breaking the pattern. As you point out, the scale and also the pace of development. I mean, and xAI is a perfect example of this, right? They came in and built a data center in 122 days and they have expanded that massively over the past two years. And we're talking again about the type of infrastructure that normally would take years to develop and a power plant that provides power for... that would otherwise be providing power for a mid-sized city and is just being operated to serve this one company. The amount of water that the xAI data center requires is also hugely significant in terms of relying on a community's fresh drinking water source.

So I think we're seeing in particular the systems that we use to process development applications and go through permitting and all of that are not set up for something of this scale. These are something that economic development... There's been a use of NDAs, non-disclosure agreements in economic development for a long time, and they've always been problematic, but they are even more problematic when you are talking about impacts of the scale that we are talking about.

And what we hear from communities over and over again is we need to have a seat at the table when we're talking about impacts that could have these profound effects on our community, on our shared resources like drinking water, like air quality, like energy usage, all of these systems that we all rely on together, and our decision-makers are making these decisions kind of behind closed doors without community input. And so I think I really think about the data center rush as pushing these systems to the breaking point and it's the reason why we need better policies.

And that's what you're starting to see across our region and across the country. It's starting at the local level because that is where people are feeling the impacts most directly. And I literally this morning got a picture from my colleague in Birmingham of 200 people waiting to get into the Birmingham City Council meeting where they are deliberating over common-sense protections for what are the terms on which we are willing to allow data centers into our community. You see communities across the Southeast adopting moratoria. They're pressing pause. They're saying, "We know our systems are not set up for this and we really need to have a conversation as a community about whether and on what terms we're going to allow data centers to be part of our landscape, to be part of our water system, to be part of our electricity system."

So I do think that is happening. We're also starting to see conversations happening at the state level. There was a lot of data center legislation proposed. I know Tech Policy Press just published a great article that kind of summarized the state of play at the state level. And it's early days in terms of what the state level protections are going to look like, but it is what we're seeing on the ground that is driving those conversations. And same thing at the federal level. We're starting to see some legislators proposing legislation to address the impacts of data centers, but it is early days, but it is very much being informed by the experience of people on the ground and the concerns that are being raised by local communities.

Does seem to me like Memphis also kicked off in many ways the national news cycle on this, that it was one of the most prominent examples, most severe examples I think in many ways the kind of mixture of variables in that particular situation lent themselves to lots of coverage and the personalities involved, the companies involved, the nature of the harm to the local community there was so apparent in many ways. Also, a lot of really amazing activist voices, folks from the civil rights community and others who I think did an enormously good job of getting out the word beyond Tennessee certainly about what was going on there. Are there other places in the South now, you point to Birmingham, are there other places that you're working in that you think may be other points of national prominence over the next months or years as this conversation carries on?

I think we are really seeing the data center issue across the spectrum of rural, urban, low wealth, wealthy, conservative, more liberal communities in our region. Memphis is obviously an urban predominantly lower wealth, Black community, but we have seen and are continuing to see a lot of data center development in more rural areas in our region as well. I don't have a crystal ball about which one is going to become the most highly visible, but I will say that I think that communities across the southeast are really looking to the model of community activism that Memphis provided.

And you mentioned the Civil Rights Movement, which of course Memphis is a center of civil rights history, and the same sorts of community organizing principles that have informed civil rights advocacy as well as the environmental justice movement are being used by communities of every type across the country right now to push back against data centers.

So our clients at the NAACP actually convened a meeting in August of, I think it was in August of 2025 where they developed a frontline framework, basically it was informed by the 17 principles of environmental justice and the Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing, but it applies those specifically to the data center context. And I would encourage anybody to go look at that frontline framework in terms of how the community organizing is happening.

I will point to another way in which xAI was unfortunately influential and then I'll tell you about a situation that's happening right now that illustrates this point, which is basically this idea of standing up their own power source onsite or nearby rather than waiting to get connected to the grid. President Trump has endorsed this idea of developing fossil-fuel-powered onsite or dedicated generation. I call them popup power plants and we are unfortunately starting to see more of those in our region. And so then you're talking about not just the impacts of the data center itself on site, but also all of the attendant air pollution and the same concerns that we have had at xAI.

And a recent example of this is happening, is unfolding right now in Spartanburg, South Carolina, a very rural, very conservative community where a data center initially set up with 50 megawatts of onsite power and recently announced that it is going to increase that to 450 megawatts of onsite power and the community is really getting organized and engaging, is very opposed to this idea that they're going to be hosting this massive data center and a power plant onsite to serve it. So I do think the popup power plants and more of the rural data center development are kind of a big theme of what we're seeing right now.

I think the primary thing that I would want folks to take away from xAI is that it is a cautionary tale for communities in terms of what happens when communities don't have a seat at the table, right? You end up with a project that is not in line with the community's vision or values and the importance for local leaders and policymakers of making sure that communities are involved. And so we have a guide at SELC called Getting It Right: Local Approaches to Data Center Development that talks about making sure that your local zoning ordinances are allowing for that opportunity for public engagement and input early in the process before the data center locates and gets up and running.

The other thing that I would just want to highlight for folks is that although data centers are posing a huge threat to Southern communities, they are also providing a huge opportunity that we see people taking advantage of. And that is the opportunity to get involved in the democratic process, to show up to public hearings, to show up to your city council meeting, to advocate for what you want. And we're really seeing that engagement again across the political spectrum, people demanding more and better from their local leaders to do the work that government is supposed to do in balancing the needs and interests of industry with the needs and interests of the community.

So I really take a lot of hope for democracy from the data center work because I am seeing such profound levels of engagement from people all across the South on this issue. As you pointed out, it started in Memphis. It started with a community that is deeply rooted in community organizing and advocacy and civil rights ensuring that people get a seat at the table, and that's the model that we're seeing play out across the country and it's pretty inspiring.

Last week, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) 

 fifteen people in Minnesota on conspiracy charges stemming from local community organizing efforts during “Operation Metro Surge”—a federal assault on the Twin Cities that followed 

 by President Donald Trump targeting the area’s Somali community late last year.

By the time the Trump administration announced the 

 of Operation Metro Surge in February—a 

 characterization as abductions and harassment by federal agents continued—ICE and Border Patrol agents had 

 two people, poet Renee Good and intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. Federal agents had forced a naturalized citizen out of his home in subfreezing temperatures wearing nothing but shorts and a blanket, in an arrest that is now being 

 on the way to and from school pickup, with school administrators scrambling to make sure their students weren’t left without caregivers.

 recently released by Human Rights Watch describes the violence wrought by Operation Metro Surge as “a wide range of human rights violations.” These included not only the use of excessive force in the streets—with federal agents smashing car windows and deploying chemical munitions in neighborhoods—but also “inhuman and degrading conditions” in detention facilities, including restricted access to food, health care, and legal counsel. The report also 

 federal agents harassing and intimidating community observers—including multiple cases of agents driving to people’s homes and stopping to take photographs while making sure the residents were watching.

All of this is described throughout the indictment as, simply, federal agents “performing their official duties.”

In those same pages, rapid-response community organizing efforts are cast as pillars of a sweeping conspiracy—with a particular focus on efforts to gather information on federal agents’ activities and to share that information widely.

, throughout the siege in Minnesota, ICE and Border Patrol agents systematically worked to avoid identification, from covering their faces and not wearing identifying badges to covering or using fake license plates on their vehicles. These practices have been so common nationwide that 

 passed bans on federal agents wearing masks.

The public has few tools comparable to the sprawling surveillance apparatus and legal investigatory powers of the federal government—particularly when the government is invested in 

 officers engaging in violence and likely civil and human rights violations. But in the Twin Cities and across the country, communities have responded with the tools available: the 

 whistles. Word of mouth. Crowd-sourced maps. Spreadsheets. Group chats.

In other words: information-sharing. Efforts to keep people aware of and safe from the well-documented violence federal agents perpetrated. Efforts now cited as evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

Extremely standard anti-surveillance precautions are also listed among the core elements of the alleged conspiracy: collecting phones and smart watches before holding closed-door meetings, using the popular encrypted messaging app Signal, and otherwise “practicing ‘operational security’ or ‘OPSEC.’”

 that efforts to organize against ICE and Border Patrol operations—and efforts to document federal agents’ activities in public, in particular—amount to offenses ranging from obstruction of justice to domestic terrorism. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi, in remarks about the developer behind one app crowdsourcing information about ICE raids, 

 “he better watch out, because that’s not a protected speech.” Both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and DOJ have 

 information about people running ICE watch accounts on social media.

 activity of observing and reporting on the public activities of federal agents remains particularly jarring when considered alongside ICE and Border Patrol’s aggressive pattern of surveillance, intimidation, and harassment targeting reporters, community observers, and bystanders alike.

In February, the ACLU of Minnesota updated its lawsuit challenging federal agents’ activities in Minneapolis by 

 dozens of declarations that—like the recently-released Human Rights Watch report—describe ICE and Border Patrol agents following protestors to their homes, or arresting community observers for recording their activities. A similar lawsuit has been 

 federal agents documenting their license plates, taking photos of their faces, addressing them by name, and 

 to add them to a “nice little database” of domestic terrorists.

This week, a poll worker in Syracuse was 

 by ICE agents threatening the possibility of prosecution over social media posts critical of ICE.

The attempted criminalization of anti-surveillance measures is similarly alarming as DHS 

 its already invasive surveillance apparatus, from 

 to mobile phone location data through commercial data brokers.

Efforts to sweep a broad swath of extremely routine organizing activities under the vague umbrella of conspiracy charges are not new – and have largely failed in court.

Just weeks before the Minnesota indictment was filed, federal prosecutors were 

 against the “Broadview Six”—organizers, including a local congressional candidate, who had been indicted on conspiracy charges following protests against “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago.

Both the Chicago and the Minnesota indictments 

 conspiracy charges filed against dozens of people in Atlanta involved in opposing the construction of “Cop City,” a 

 of one of the city’s “largest remaining green spaces.” Evidence cited by Georgia prosecutors 

 distributing flyers, organizing a bail fund, and possessing zines critical of capitalism and the government. Those charges were 

The underlying logic of these prosecutions involves criminalizing 

 connected to direct action—despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that direct action has been a core tactic of every major social movement in US history, from the Greensboro sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement to “

” on the steps of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) headquarters during the AIDS crisis.

At the same time, these prosecutions have explicitly sought to undermine core First Amendment protections for speech and association. Like the Stop Cop City indictments in Atlanta, the recent Minnesota indictment repeatedly cites as evidence simple communications of ideology: wearing shirts or patches; declaring a belief in anti-fascism, in particular, but also anti-authoritarianism, anti-capitalism, and anarchism; and publishing newsletters or zines.

Recently, the Trump administration secured multiple draconian convictions on similar charges against anti-ICE protestors in Prairieland, Texas. Touted as the first case to 

 the viability of the Trump administration’s 

 of “Antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization,” the government’s allegations focused heavily on the protestors’ political beliefs to justify terrorism-related charges. Two defendants, Elizabeth and Ines Soto, were 

 with “providing material support to terrorists” for printing anarchist zines. This week, Elizabeth Soto was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison. Another defendant, Daniel “Des” Sanchez, was 

 with transporting “Antifa materials”: a box of pamphlets and zines 

 as having “anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-Trump sentiments.” Sanchez was 

 basic anti-surveillance practices, like using encrypting messaging apps, as evidence of criminal intent.

As the Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent escalates, it’s critical to recognize that indictments are not just legal documents—they’re also messaging tools, often targeting small groups of people as a chilling example for movements at large. And the message is clear: the administration wants to deter not only specific types of protest, like direct action, but also any organizing efforts that effectively interrupt the administration’s agenda.

But using Signal is not evidence of a criminal conspiracy just because federal prosecutors in Minnesota claim it is. Printing and distributing political pamphlets and zines is still protected by the First Amendment, even if the contents of those pamphlets speak to the long list of ideologies the Trump administration is 

, like anti-fascism, anti-capitalism, and “extremism on migration, race, and gender.” Observing and reporting on law enforcement agents’ public activities is also still a 

These efforts will only succeed if they do, in fact, deter people from exercising their constitutional rights, from organizing to protect their communities, and from speaking out against abuses of power, against fascism, and against state-sponsored violence in its many forms. Crackdowns on dissent aren’t a reflection of power—they’re a projection of power.

And they’re a projection we have a collective obligation to refuse.

 that the United States government appears to have 

 its restriction of Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model, allowing major US firms and government agencies access to its latest offering. In a letter to the company, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick indicated he had “determined that appropriate safeguards are in place to permit certain trusted partners to access the Claude Mythos 5 Model,” and that “a license will no longer be required to export, reexport, or in-country transfer” the technology to a list of specific entities, their foreign national employees, and Anthropic’s own foreign national employees.

The news suggests this latest dispute between the Trump administration and the AI firm is at least partially resolved. But Lutnick’s letter does little to answer deeper questions about the blunt tool the government used to restrict Mythos in the first place: export controls.

Two weeks ago, the Department of Commerce sent a letter to Anthropic informing the artificial intelligence developer that it was imposing export controls on its latest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. This followed a 

 within the Trump administration that kicked off after officials received information from a researcher at Amazon, communicated via CEO Andy Jassey, that there was a jailbreak within Fable 5 that might allow bad actors to leverage the tool to conduct cyber attacks.

In response, Anthropic restricted access to its tools for all users, both outside and inside the US, while also 

 that the disclosed jailbreak impacts models that have been on the market for months.

 highlights a fundamental challenge confronting US technology policy. Export controls, in both the US and around the world, are designed to regulate the transfer of goods, software, and technical information across national borders. However, while frontier AI models, their weights, and training data, from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, remain within the US, their capabilities are made available globally through cloud-based services as well as secondary firms that leverage their APIs, building products on top of their core technology.

As a result, policymakers, regulators, and firms are increasingly struggling to answer a deceptively simple question: what exactly constitutes an export in the age of AI?

The answer matters because the stakes extend far beyond a single company or model. This most recent episode illustrates how existing export control frameworks are being stretched to accommodate technologies that do not fit comfortably within traditional regulatory categories. More importantly, it reveals the growing tension between two competing visions of AI governance: one that seeks to manage risks by controlling access to advanced capabilities, and another that emphasizes innovation, diffusion, and market competition.

At first glance, US export control authorities appear broad enough to cover AI systems. The 

 (2018) and administered by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), provide substantial flexibility for regulating dual-use technologies. Other authorities, including the 

International Traffic in Arms Regulations

International Emergency Economic Powers Act

 (IEEPA), may also be relevant depending on how an administration engages with a particular technology. Over the past five years, Commerce has repeatedly signaled its view that advanced AI technologies fall within the scope of export control authorities—even as the actual export control regime emanating from the US (particularly toward China) has oscillated from one extreme to the other.

Indeed, the practical application of those authorities remains unsettled. Traditional export controls assume that a controlled item moves from one jurisdiction to another. AI deployment operates differently. As mentioned briefly above, frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic are typically hosted on servers located within the United States and accessed through cloud-based APIs, enterprise licensing arrangements, and other service-based mechanisms. The model weights themselves never leave US territory. What crosses borders is access to capability rather than possession of technology. Perhaps ironically, open-weight models have hitherto avoided export restrictions via ECCN 4E091 licensing requirements (itself currently not enforced by BIS), given that global distribution cannot be practically contained after they are published.

This distinction has led to significant uncertainty regarding the allocation of regulatory responsibility. Many frontier model developers have argued that because the underlying technology remains hosted domestically, compliance obligations should focus primarily on users and downstream access rather than on the providers themselves. Policymakers and national security officials, meanwhile, have increasingly focused on the possibility that access to advanced AI capabilities may itself represent a strategically significant transfer of technology. The result is a regulatory gray zone in which neither firms nor governments possesses a clear understanding of where responsibility begins and ends.

Anthropic’s apparent position following the receipt of the June 12 letter illustrates the challenge (notwithstanding that shutting down model access may also serve a political purpose). If 

 to a frontier model by a foreign national constitutes a “

,” then the relevant transfer may occur even when both the model and the user are physically located within the United States. Under this logic, providing access to an AI capability becomes analogous to providing controlled technical knowledge. Whether existing authorities clearly support such an interpretation remains subject to debate, but the fact that the debate exists underscores how far regulators (and regulated firms) have moved beyond the assumptions embedded in traditional export control frameworks. In today’s arrangement with Anthropic, the government appears to deal with this risk 

: “a license will no longer be required to export, reexport, or in-country transfer (including deemed exports and reexports) the Claude Mythos 5 Model to entities identified in Annex A to this letter and their foreign national employees, or to Anthropic’s foreign national employees.”

To be sure, export controls have long applied to software and digital technologies. 

, and technical data have all generated difficult regulatory questions. Yet frontier AI models present a distinct challenge. Unlike software that can be downloaded, copied, and transferred, many advanced models increasingly function as remotely accessed services. The technology remains centralized while the capability becomes globally available.

This distinction has important policy implications. Regulating physical goods is difficult. Regulating software is harder. Regulating access to a cloud-hosted capability may be harder still. The Internet has always been a leaky sieve, and attempts to impose perfect control over digital technologies have historically proven elusive. AI compounds these challenges because the capabilities involved may be far more scalable than many previously controlled technologies. A single model can simultaneously support scientific research, software development, intelligence analysis, cyber operations, and military planning across thousands or millions of users.

The deeper significance of this episode lies in what it reveals about the future of AI governance. Increasingly, policymakers are shifting their focus away from AI artifacts—such as model weights, code, or hardware—and toward AI use. Rather than asking whether a model should exist, regulators are asking who should be permitted to access it, under what conditions, and for what purposes. This represents a profound evolution in governance philosophy.

Such a shift is understandable. The most strategically relevant risks associated with advanced AI emerge from use rather than possession (as much of the discussion surrounding “use cases” suggests). Yet regulating use creates its own challenges. Effective governance increasingly requires providers to monitor users, evaluate intent, identify suspicious activity, and intervene when they believe misuse may occur. Responsibility, like the technology development itself, migrates from governments toward firms, which become de facto gatekeepers for strategically important technologies.

This trend raises difficult questions regarding both effectiveness and legitimacy. Private companies may possess technical expertise that governments 

, particularly in rapidly evolving fields like AI. At the same time, firms face strong commercial incentives that do not necessarily align with public objectives. They are asked simultaneously to innovate, compete globally, protect national security, and enforce ambiguous policy goals.

The broader lesson is that the current (lack of) governance regime may be increasingly unsustainable. For years, policymakers have attempted to adapt existing legal authorities to technologies that differ fundamentally from those that the authorities were designed to regulate. The resulting framework often pushes responsibility downstream while leaving fundamental questions unresolved. Who bears responsibility for controlling access to frontier capabilities? What level of diligence is required? Which risks justify intervention? And what degree of imperfection is acceptable?

These questions become particularly important when considering technical safeguards. Some observers implicitly assume that frontier models should be engineered to be impossible to misuse or jailbreak. Yet such a standard is unattainable in practice (at least at the time of writing in June of 2026). Every security system is imperfect, and frontier AI is unlikely to prove an exception. Indeed, a governance regime that assumes perfect technical control may ultimately prove incompatible with the existence of useful frontier models at all.

A more realistic approach (undertaken by Anthropic, among other AI firms) may involve layered defenses that combine technical safeguards, monitoring systems, user vetting, transparency mechanisms, and government oversight. Such an approach acknowledges both the reality of risk and the inevitability of imperfection. The objective is not to eliminate misuse entirely but to raise the costs of harmful activity while preserving the innovative potential that makes these technologies valuable.

The Mythos/Fable controversy should not be viewed primarily as a dispute about one firm's policies. It is better understood as an early warning signal. As AI capabilities become increasingly powerful and increasingly accessible through cloud-based services, the distinction between exporting technology and providing access to technology will continue to erode.

While policymakers can continue stretching existing frameworks to accommodate this reality, eventually, they may need to confront a more fundamental question: whether a governance architecture built around controlling 

Access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet is a prerequisite for nearly every part of modern life, from finding work and finishing schoolwork to seeing a doctor or staying in touch with family. Yet millions of American households remain stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide.

The Blueprint for Equitable Digital Participation

," a report released in May from Public Knowledge, UnidosUS, and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. Rather than beginning in Washington policy circles, this report centers the lived experiences of low- and moderate-income households to find out what's actually standing in their way and what should be done about it. Justin Hendrix had the chance to dig into the findings with the report’s authors: 

, broadband policy director at Public Knowledge, and 

, senior civil rights policy advisor at UnidosUS.

A Meta sign at Meta Headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in January 2025.

Tech Workers Are Fighting Against Silicon Valley’s AI Push

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds a cabinet meeting at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Big Tech's Proxy War Against Brazil's New Platform Accountability Rules

Tech Policy Press - Technology and Democracy

Tech Policy Press is tracking laws and regulations, along with government investigations and litigation, that will shape the rules and accountability for tech companies.

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