The whole idea that signals emitted on a network is an "export" in the same way that shipping precursor materials to make a weapon (the actual activity this questionable government power was granted to curtail) is an "export" is just totally odious.

If I make some statement, and post it on the internet, and someone downloads it in another country, I haven't exported anything. I haven't _moved_ anything. It's the same mythology that casts copying of bytes as tantamount to stealing; it tells a lie about the nature of physical matter as contrasted with the nature of information.

So, OK, let's say this is so - that this activity is not a legitimate target of the export control - why doesn't Anthropic just tell the US government to pound sand, and that they'll choose to ignore this directive?

Is it just because they fear violent reprisal from agents of the state?

And if so - if the reason that we tolerate censorship and damage to the internet, a global collaborative project specifically designed to evolve above the whim of any legacy state is that the actors in question fear violence - haven't we departed democratic notions of decision-making in favor of a "might makes right" approach?

I'm not convinced that the US government can ever embody (or has ever embodied) the republic framework set forth in its founding documents, but at a minimum, for it to do so, and for it to be constrained to those functions, its constituents need to somehow overcome this fear of telling the government, "no, we won't do that. See you in court."