Policy
Legislation and Executive Orders
A quick reference to nine bills and orders, in force or pending, that bear on whether anyone outside a Super Intelligence system can check what it did: ranked, with the issue in each and where a remedy would attach.
Executive Order 14434 of 29 September 2026 directs the executive branch to use the terms Super Intelligence and SI in place of artificial intelligence and AI. This page uses the new term. Bills, orders and quotations keep the words they were written in.
ProofSmith builds to the test this page applies; that is our interest in these instruments. The proposed language names no vendor or product, and anything that meets the test would satisfy it.
I · The standard
The three pillars ProofSmith is built on
Independence
An arbiter that sits outside the systems it checks.
Governance
Before an action runs, it checks the request against the authority for it: a delegation of authority, a rule of engagement, a limit or a policy. It applies the authority you delegated, not its own judgment, and signs a permit or a deny.
Proof
The signed permit or deny is the record.
Anyone you authorize can check that record later, using methods we provide to them, and reach the same answer without trusting us, the Super Intelligence system’s vendor, or the system that acted.
What it does not do. The Arbiter does not make a model more accurate, and it does not judge whether the authority behind a decision was sound.
II · First principles
Where the rule comes from
No Chief Executive Officer and no Combatant Commander can yet prove, to anyone outside the system, that an autonomous action stayed within authority. We know of no system in service that can. What is left is self-attestation: trust, not proof.
A machine that acts and then vouches for itself is a judge in its own cause. The founders named that defect and wrote against it.
The Declaration of Independence charged the King: “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.” Declaration of Independence, 1776 Madison stated the rule in Federalist No. 10: “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.” James Madison, Federalist No. 10, 1787
In 1798 Justice Chase named “a law that makes a man a Judge in his own cause” among the powers it is “against all reason and justice” for a people to entrust to a legislature. Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386, 388 (1798) In 1995, quoting Madison’s sentence, the Supreme Court called the rule “a mainstay of our system of government.” Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 428 (1995)
The full argument, in order, is on The Question.
III · The quick reference
Senate, House, executive and State
Segmented by chamber, with the executive and State instruments on their own. Within each segment, instruments are ranked first by how far each has advanced toward taking effect (bills still in committee count as equal), then by how much it would govern, then by how directly it bears on the question below. Each is read against one question: can the record on which a judgment rests be verified by an authorized party without relying on the party whose conduct is in question, or on an inspector that party retains?
Go to: Senate bills · House bills · Executive and State instruments
Senate bills
The Senate has not taken up its defense bill, which makes it the most amendable vehicle in either chamber.
| Rank | Instrument | Status, 21 September 2026 | The issue | Proposed remedy, and where it attaches | Language |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S. 4784 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, secs. 1647 and 1642Senate | Reported 15 June 2026 (S. Rept. 119-127) and placed on the calendar. Cloture on the motion to proceed was not invoked, 50 to 46, on 14 July; the bill has not been taken up. | It would require, where practicable, records of target selection data, decision logic and human operator actions sufficient for post-engagement review, but is silent on their integrity (sec. 1647); its guidance on agents covers their permissions and monitoring but asks for no record of each action permitted or denied (sec. 1642(a)(2)); and where it asks a provider to protect the Department’s data, it relies on the provider’s own certification, backed by fines and contract termination for false compliance (sec. 1637(c)(3)). | At sec. 1647 (proposed 10 U.S.C. 4577(c)(1)(D)(v)), make those records tamper-evident and verifiable by an official independent of the contractor and the program office; at sec. 1642(a)(2), add a verifiable record of each agent action permitted or denied. | Request the proposed language |
| 2 | S. 5105 Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks (CATS) ActSenate | Introduced 23 July 2026, with one original cosponsor. Referred to the Judiciary Committee. Its House twin, H.R. 9914, is identical. | An antitrust safe harbor for sharing information about adversarial threats: it conditions the exemption on “reasonable internal controls” but requires no record that they held, and in court the firm must prove its own good faith (secs. 3(b) and 3(c)). | No amendment. The bill conditions the exemption on reasonable internal controls but requires no record that they operated; we note it and propose nothing. | No amendment proposed. Ask about this bill |
Noted and not ranked: S. 5417, a bill to require human-controlled shutdown mechanisms in all AI systems, referred to the Commerce Committee on 16 September; its text has not been published.
House bills
The House passed its defense bill on 22 July; the other four are introduced and in committee.
| Rank | Instrument | Status, 21 September 2026 | The issue | Proposed remedy, and where it attaches | Language |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | H.R. 8800 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, sec. 1524(b)(5)House | Passed the House 22 July 2026, 216 to 212. Received in the Senate 14 September. No conference has been requested. | It calls for auditability, traceability and accountability in a policy not yet written; the word “record” does not appear in the section, and nothing says whether one must be tamper-evident or checkable outside the program that kept it. | At sec. 1524(b)(5), now only through the Senate amendment or the final text, require tamper-evident records whose integrity a party independent of the vendor can verify. | Request the proposed language |
| 2 | H.R. 9925 FRONTIER ActHouse | Introduced 23 July 2026. Seven cosponsors, two of them added 16 September. Referred to Energy and Commerce and to Science, Space, and Technology. No hearing, no markup, no Senate companion. | It goes further toward independent third-party assessment than any other instrument on this page, but the developer retains both of its examiners, and nothing requires the records beneath their reports to be tamper-evident; the only copies sit with the developer and the examiner it retains (sec. 5(l)). | At sec. 5(l), require that the records an assessment rests on be kept tamper-evident and verifiable without the developer, and bring sec. 5(l) under the civil penalty at sec. 5(p)(2)(A). | Request the proposed language |
| 3 | H.R. 10362 Stop Rogue AI ActHouse | Introduced 14 September 2026, with one original cosponsor. Referred to Science, Space, and Technology and to Oversight and Government Reform. No hearing or markup. | Of the bills on this page, it comes closest to meeting the test above: it requires tamper-evident logs of agent actions, and discovery and verification capabilities the agency can use without relying on the contractor, but it does not require that each material action be permitted before it proceeds, or that the control be independent of the contractor. | At sec. 2(b)(2)(D), make the agency’s control independent of the contractor, so that no material agent action proceeds unless permitted; at sec. 2(b)(2)(F), make the log a tamper-evident record of each action permitted or denied, which the agency can verify without the contractor. | Request the proposed language |
| 4 | H.R. 9917 AI Kill Switch ActHouse | Introduced 23 July 2026. Three cosponsors, two of them added 15 September. Referred to Homeland Security, and on 24 July to its Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection. | After an order under the Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security would verify compliance through audit, telemetry, on-site inspection or other forensic review, but the telemetry is the covered entity’s own, and nothing requires it to be tamper-evident. | At proposed sec. 2220F(c)(2)(A) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, require the preserved weights and telemetry to be kept in a tamper-evident form the Secretary of Homeland Security can verify without the covered entity. | Request the proposed language |
| 5 | H.R. 9914 Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks (CATS) ActHouse | Introduced 23 July 2026 with eight original cosponsors; 22 as of 16 September. Referred to the Judiciary Committee. Its Senate twin, S. 5105, is identical. | An antitrust safe harbor for sharing information about adversarial threats: it conditions the exemption on “reasonable internal controls” but requires no record that they held, and in court the firm must prove its own good faith (secs. 3(b) and 3(c)). | No amendment. As for S. 5105, we note it and propose nothing. | No amendment proposed. Ask about this bill |
Executive and State instruments
Both are in force, with dates running.
| Rank | Instrument | Status, 21 September 2026 | The issue | Proposed remedy, and where it attaches | Language |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NSPM-11 National Security Presidential Memorandum 11, “Artificial Intelligence in the National Security Enterprise”Executive | Issued 5 June 2026. The update to Directive 3000.09 was due 3 September; none has been made public. The 120-day review of procurement processes runs to 3 October. | It places accountability on commanders, directors and agency heads, but no public provision requires that the record of what a system did be verifiable by anyone independent of the party that kept it. | In the Directive 3000.09 update under sec. 3(a), require tamper-evident records for autonomous and SI-enabled systems, verifiable by a component of the Department independent of the contractor and the program office. | Request the proposed language |
| 2 | N-9-26 California Executive Order N-9-26, recommendations on independent verification and a kill switchState | Signed 18 September 2026. Recommendations from the State’s Government Operations Agency are due 16 November 2026. It requires nothing of any developer. | Three of its four study items turn on an independent verification organization, and none asks whether the records that organization relies on could be verified without the developer. | Under paragraph 3, whose list is a floor, put a fifth item before 16 November: that the records an independent verifier relies on be tamper-evident and checkable by someone other than the developer. | Request the proposed language |
Read and not ranked: Executive Orders 14319, 14365 and 14409, which are in force and none of which is an oversight regime. Executive Order 14365 bears on the State order below.
IV · Executive orders
Two proposed orders
Each order is described here, not reproduced. The text of both is available on request.
A proposed order for the President
It sets three conditions on the Super Intelligence systems that agencies buy and use: a control independent of the system and its vendor, a permit or a deny before each action, and a record an authorized party can check without the vendor. It applies to national security systems too, in a manner that must not impede operations, and it works the way procurement already works, through guidance and contract terms.
It names no vendor or product. The order makes the same terms available to any State, local, Tribal or territorial government for its own purchasing.
What it does not doIt licenses nothing: no model needs permission to be built or released. It creates no new agency, places no mandate on the private market, and replaces none of the testing or inspection the law already requires.
A model order for any Governor
A Governor adopts the same three terms for the Super Intelligence systems the State itself buys and uses, through State procurement. It governs the State’s own systems, not how a developer builds its models.
That is the lane federal texts leave to the States. Section 9(c)(4) of H.R. 9925, as introduced, would preserve State authority over what a State itself procures and uses. Executive Order 14365 directs, at section 8(b)(iii), that the legislative recommendation it calls for not propose preempting otherwise lawful State laws on a State’s own procurement and use of AI, and the recommendations delivered in March 2026 kept that point. The limit binds the recommendation; it does not bind the AI Litigation Task Force established under the same order.
What it does not doIt names no vendor, and it reaches no developer except as a vendor to the State.
The proposed language for seven of the nine ranked instruments, and for both orders, is available on request. For the CATS Act, none is proposed. Status as of 21 September 2026. Bill texts from the Government Publishing Office.