the people via their elected reps.. the government. The government is of the people and by the people. They're not different if democracy is truly working.

> but it may be able to do so in the future.

You don't obey laws in the future, you obey laws today. Companies have an obligation to follow the laws as written today. Not only that, as americans they and all americans have a patriotic and civic duty to resist attempts to bypass or undermine the constitution of their country. You literally can't be patriotic or loyal to your country without doing so, it is what constitutes the country.

It's not like Anthropic can't update their guardrails and contracts once the laws of the land are updated. They simply resisted a criminal and treasonous abuse of power.