There was a time when regulation followed risk. Lawmakers held hearings, consulted experts, and tried to understand what they were voting on. That tradition has collapsed under the weight of partisanship and donor incentives. Today policy is drafted for optics rather than enforcement, leaving a digitizing society governed by deliberate ignorance.
In 2025 a budget megabill carried a proposed ten year moratorium on state and local artificial intelligence regulation. Policy groups warned it would preempt safeguards against algorithmic discrimination, biometric surveillance, and deepfake abuse just as those systems spread into elections and public services (Center for American Progress, Tech Policy Press). After public blowback, the Senate voted to strip the moratorium from the package, highlighting how speed and symbolism outran basic governance (Reuters, Tech Policy Press). The episode revealed how far lawmakers will go to silence oversight before the ink dries.
California provided a cautionary tale about urgency without specificity. AB 2655 ordered platforms to remove materially deceptive election deepfakes within forty eight hours, but courts enjoined and then invalidated key provisions on First Amendment and Section 230 grounds (Courthouse News, AP). Commentators warned from the start that the term deceptive lacked a clear definition and would collapse on contact with constitutional scrutiny (CalMatters). The result was performative toughness that failed in court rather than durable rules that could survive enforcement.
Federal workplace policy shows the same gap between talking points and technical reality. The Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies Act set a one hundred fifty square feet per person benchmark and a sixty percent utilization threshold tied to OMB reporting and GSA oversight (CRS, GSA, OMB M-25-25). At the same time, a 2025 return to office push ordered federal workers back full time despite the maturation of hybrid infrastructure and security practices (Reuters). The bureaucracy measured presence while the work had already moved to networks.
Drone integration is racing forward while local stakeholders struggle to be heard. In August 2025 the FAA proposed a beyond visual line of sight rule to normalize operations up to four hundred feet and to create a BVLOS rating for remote pilots, with the NPRM and docket laying out detect and avoid and airspace coordination issues (Federal Register, Regulations.gov, FAA). Courts have already limited some local drone rules on preemption grounds, which pushes the real balancing of noise, privacy, and safety to federal definitions (Singer v. City of Newton summary). Without harmonized standards and traffic coordination, the airspace expands while public trust shrinks.
Even the courts are tilting toward politics over expertise, and that drift will shape technology governance. On June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care for minors, applying rational basis review and deferring to legislative concerns despite clinical consensus cited by medical groups (Skrmetti slip opinion, Reuters, SCOTUSblog). Health policy is not a tech bill, but the signal is clear for digital rights. If empirical records can be brushed aside in one domain, lawmakers will try to claim the same deference in AI oversight, cybersecurity, and biometric regulation.
Data privacy completes the picture of fragmentation by design. In 2025 alone eight more state privacy laws take effect and more than a dozen are on the books, with different rights and obligations that whipsaw compliance and leave users with uneven protections (Stateline, IAPP tracker). Maryland bans sensitive data sales while Iowa permits collection subject to notice and opt out, showing how far the state lines have drifted (Gibson Dunn, White & Case). Practitioners now track state maps, grace periods, and novel rights like Minnesota’s right to question automated decisions, which adds yet another variable to enterprise governance (IAPP). The patchwork rewards lobbying and confuses users, and Washington still has no baseline.
There is a way to stop writing laws that fold on contact. Draft with stakeholder input, require explainability standards tied to use cases, and avoid vague terms that invite quick defeats in court (Tech Policy Press). Pair any federal preemption with minimum floors rather than total silence so states retain authority to act where harms are local (Tech Policy Press). Build procedures that demand public comment, open technical references, and pilot phases before mandates, and keep scope narrow enough to be testable (OECD). The best laws are boring, precise, and enforceable, not viral.