New bill to protect American citizens access to AI – Please read and share

Two draft bills, one federal and one for Minnesota, aim to create a statutory "right to compute" that protects lawful acquisition, possession, development, sharing, access and operation of computational resources, AI systems and open model weights while forbidding government capability-based restrictions. They respond to a trend of regulating by system capability (compute, parameter counts, benchmarks) that tends to preserve access for agencies and large institutions while degrading access for individuals, small businesses and researchers. The drafts remove government authority to restrict tools solely because of how capable they are, require federal agencies to publish inventories of nonclassified civilian AI uses (Section 117), and preserve criminal and regulatory powers to punish harmful conduct rather than to cap tools. An RFRA-style compelling-interest, least-restrictive-means standard governs other burdens, but capability restrictions are categorically void.

Key specifics: no ceilings or proxies (compute thresholds, parameter counts) may be used; no back-door pressure on cloud providers, chipmakers, app stores or payment processors; publishing and redistributing model weights is protected expression with no duty to police downloads; agencies running nonclassified civilian capabilities must publish them and may not forbid citizens comparable ones; executive and administrative restrictions expire after three years unless re-justified; operators of AI controlling critical infrastructure must keep written risk policies and a human halt, with small-business exemptions. The drafts leave export controls, sanctions and classified information untouched, build on Montana’s 2025 Right to Compute precedent, and are published in the public domain with no sponsor yet.