Proposed Bills Would Protect Lawful Access to Compute and Advanced AI

Summary

Right to Run, a private citizen initiative, has published unofficial draft bills for the federal government and Minnesota that would protect lawful access to computational resources and AI systems. The drafts have no sponsor and have not been introduced, considered, or endorsed by Congress, the Minnesota Legislature, or another legislative body. Their central proposal is a categorical prohibition on government restrictions imposed because of a system’s capability, including compute thresholds, parameter counts, benchmarks, autonomy, or similar proxies. The drafts would preserve government authority to investigate and punish conduct that is already illegal, including fraud, intrusion, weapons development, attacks on critical infrastructure, and harm to children. They would also protect publishing, receiving, and redistributing open model weights, without prior approval, licensing, or a duty to police downloads; however, they would not require developers to release models, weights, training data, source code, or trade secrets. For other burdens on the protected right, the drafts use a compelling-interest and least-restrictive-means test modeled on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but that test would not apply to a capability restriction. The proposals would prohibit government from pressuring cloud providers, chipmakers, app stores, or payment processors to impose restrictions indirectly, and would require notice when someone is cut off because of government pressure. If an agency operates a nonclassified civilian capability, it could not deny citizens a comparable capability and would have to publish an annual inventory; a capability omitted from the inventory would be unenforceable under the draft. The bills also prohibit federally mandated refusal lists for information adults could obtain in a public library, create three-year expirations for covered executive and administrative restrictions, and include a petition mechanism for repeal. Operators of AI controlling critical infrastructure would need a written risk policy and a human override, with an exemption for businesses with fewer than 50 employees unless they serve more than 10,000 customers. The drafts leave export controls, sanctions, classified information, and existing criminal prohibitions intact. They build on Montana’s 2025 Right to Compute Act, but go further by withholding authority for capability restrictions instead of subjecting them to a balancing test. The site acknowledges that a later legislature could still repeal or override the provisions and that making the right constitutionally unreachable would be a separate question. A public access program in each draft is severable, and the texts are dedicated to the public domain for legislative offices to revise and introduce.