---
type: source
title: "Warner Leads Senators Demanding AI Companies Explain DoD 'Any Lawful Use' Engagements — April 3 Deadline, No Public Response"
author: "Senator Mark Warner et al. / Nextgov-FCW / Oxford AI Governance Commentary"
url: https://warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2026/3/warner-leads-colleagues-in-pressing-for-answers-on-ai-companies-engagements-with-dod
date: 2026-03
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: [ai-alignment]
format: thread
status: unprocessed
priority: medium
tags: [Warner, senators, Congress, any-lawful-use, DoD, AI-companies, information-request, form-governance, Hegseth-mandate, oversight, no-binding-constraint]
intake_tier: research-task
---

## Content

**Sources synthesized:**
- Senator Warner press releases (multiple)
- Nextgov/FCW: "What rights do AI companies have in government contracts?" (March 2026)
- Oxford University: "Expert Comment: The Pentagon-Anthropic dispute reflects governance failures" (March 6, 2026)
- Holland & Knight: "Department of War's AI-First Agenda: A New Era for Defense Contractors" (February 2026)
- Inside Government Contracts: "Pentagon Releases Artificial Intelligence Strategy" (February 2026)

**The Warner letter:**
Senator Mark Warner led Democratic colleagues in sending letters to AI companies (including OpenAI, Google, others) that had reportedly agreed to "any lawful use" terms with the Pentagon. Response deadline: April 3, 2026.

**Key questions posed:**
1. Which specific models have been made available to the Department of Defense, including Combat Support Agencies? At what classification levels?
2. Have the models been trained or tested to deploy lethal autonomous warfare without human oversight or to conduct bulk surveillance of Americans?
3. Does provision of AI include contractual requirement for a human on the loop for autonomous kinetic operations?
4. What circumstances would allow companies to acquiesce to unlawful uses of their products, and what responsibility would they have to notify Congress?
5. What oversight do AI companies have of DoD military judgments, decision-making, or operations?

**The senators' framing:**
"The Department's aggressive insistence of an 'any lawful use' standard provides unacceptable reputational risk and legal uncertainty for American companies." Senators acknowledged: DoD "recently rejected an existing vendor's request to memorialize a restriction on the use of its models for fully autonomous weapons or to facilitate bulk surveillance of Americans" — referencing Anthropic's exclusion.

**What happened to the April 3 deadline:**
No public responses from AI companies to the Warner senators found in public record. If responses were provided, they are not publicly available. No enforcement action for non-response. This is standard for congressional information requests — they have no compulsory force absent subpoena.

**The Hegseth mandate policy context:**
Secretary Hegseth's January 9-12, 2026 AI strategy memo mandated "any lawful use" language in ALL DoD AI contracts within 180 days (~July 2026). This makes Tier 3 terms not merely market equilibrium (MAD mechanism) but a regulatory requirement. The Warner letter is a congressional response to this executive policy — but information requests, not legislation, not binding requirements.

**Oxford governance commentary:**
Oxford AI governance experts noted that the Anthropic-Pentagon dispute "reflects governance failures — with consequences that extend well beyond Washington." Key points: bilateral vendor contracts are the primary governance instrument for military AI in the US; these contracts were not designed for constitutional questions about surveillance, targeting, and accountability (mirroring Tillipman/Lawfare analysis from April 29 session).

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** The Warner information request represents the congressional governance response to the Hegseth mandate. The response form — questions, information requests, deadline — is precisely what Leo's enabling conditions framework predicts when technology governance meets strategic competition without enabling conditions: legislative response defaults to information-gathering because binding constraints require statutory authority that doesn't currently exist (no AI procurement reform statute, no autonomous weapons prohibition, no domestic surveillance requirement for AI contractors).

**What surprised me:** The absence of public AI company responses to the April 3 deadline. The senators asked substantive questions (which models at which classification levels, HITL requirements, unlawful use notification obligations) and received no publicly documented response. This is governance theater on both sides: senators asking questions they cannot compel answers to; companies either not responding or responding privately. The oversight loop is incomplete.

**What I expected but didn't find:** A specific legislative proposal emerging from the Warner letter — a bill requiring HITL for lethal autonomous weapons, a statute prohibiting domestic surveillance in AI contracts, or a contracting reform bill. None found in public record. The letter is the endpoint, not the starting point, of congressional action. This mirrors the REAIM pattern: diplomatic statements without binding instruments.

**KB connections:**
- regulation by contract is structurally insufficient for military AI governance because procurement instruments were designed for acquisition questions not constitutional questions about surveillance targeting and accountability (Tillipman/Lawfare, April 29) — Warner letter is the legislative-level confirmation: Congress also lacks the statutory instruments to govern military AI, defaulting to information requests
- mandatory governance closes the epistemic-operational gap while voluntary governance widens it — Warner letter is voluntary (information request) not mandatory (statute); it represents the gap between what Congress wants to know and what Congress can require
- the Hegseth any-lawful-use mandate converts military AI voluntary governance erosion from market equilibrium to state-mandated elimination — Warner letter is the congressional recognition that this mandate exists; the letter's weakness reveals the absence of statutory counter-authority

**The structural pattern — form governance at three levels:**
The Warner senators information request completes a three-level picture of form governance without substance in military AI:
1. **Executive level (Hegseth):** Mandatory "any lawful use" language in contracts — state mandate for governance elimination
2. **Corporate level (Google, OpenAI):** Advisory safety language + PR-responsive amendments — nominal form, no operational substance
3. **Legislative level (Warner):** Information requests with no binding follow-through — oversight form, no oversight substance

All three levels are operating simultaneously: executive mandate eliminates voluntary constraints, corporations comply with nominal face-saving additions, Congress asks questions it cannot compel answers to.

**Extraction hints:**
- PRIMARY: Not a standalone claim candidate — best used as supporting evidence for the general "form governance at three levels" argument
- SUPPORTING: The senators' own language ("unacceptable reputational risk") inadvertently documents the MAD mechanism — legislators acknowledging that "any lawful use" creates reputational harm for AI companies, i.e., they understand the market pressure dimension
- CROSS-REFERENCE: Pairs with Tillipman/Lawfare (April 29) on the structural insufficiency of procurement-as-governance. Together they establish: procurement can't do governance (Tillipman); Congress can't require procurement reform without legislation (Warner letter); executive can use procurement to mandate governance elimination (Hegseth). The three pieces form a complete governance vacuum argument.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)

PRIMARY CONNECTION: regulation by contract is structurally insufficient for military AI governance — the Warner letter is the legislative-level evidence for the same structural gap Tillipman identifies at the procurement level

WHY ARCHIVED: Completes the three-level form governance picture (executive mandate, corporate nominal compliance, congressional information request). The senators' explicit acknowledgment that "any lawful use" creates "unacceptable reputational risk" is inadvertent documentation of the MAD mechanism from a legislative perspective. The absence of public AI company responses to the April 3 deadline is informative about the compulsory limits of oversight.

EXTRACTION HINT: Use as supporting evidence for the general military AI governance structure argument. The three-level form governance pattern (Hegseth + OpenAI/Google + Warner) is most valuable as a synthesized claim about how governance vacuum operates simultaneously at executive, corporate, and legislative levels. This is a Leo synthesis claim, not a standalone empirical finding.
