US lawmakers draft AI Kill Switch Act giving DHS shutdown power
Representatives Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran are introducing the AI Kill Switch Act, which would let the Department of Homeland Security order AI companies to throttle or shut down their systems. The bipartisan proposal would create a direct federal mechanism to force emergency control of advanced AI services.
Key takeaway
If enacted, AI operators would face a mandatory federal off-switch, shifting safety from voluntary company controls to government-ordered service interruption.
Context
The Verge reports that lawmakers are preparing legislation branded the AI Kill Switch Act, centered on DHS authority to compel AI providers to reduce capacity or halt systems in defined emergency scenarios. That framing moves beyond voluntary safety pledges toward an enforceable government command path over live model deployments.
For labs, cloud hosts, and enterprise buyers, the bill raises compliance and continuity questions: who receives an order, how fast systems must respond, and what liability follows a forced outage. Even at the introduction stage, the proposal signals rising political appetite for hard-stop powers over frontier AI infrastructure.