House Democrats demand testimony from AI company leaders on security breaches

A group of House Democrats, led by Representative Greg Casar of Texas, has called on the chief executives of OpenAI, Anthropic, and other major artificial intelligence companies to testify before Congress regarding recent cybersecurity incidents. The lawmakers contend that current security lapses represent serious threats to national security and argue that Congress has failed to develop adequate policy responses to risks inherent in AI development. In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Democrats characterize recent hacking incidents as potentially 'the canary in the coal mine' signaling more severe problems unless models continue to advance without sufficient regulation. The group seeks executive testimony specifically addressing how these breaches occurred, what internal failures or negligence enabled them, and which regulatory frameworks are required to prevent future incidents. The request coincides with growing congressional momentum around proposed 'AI Kill Switch' legislation that would mandate companies retain operational capabilities to rapidly shut down, throttle, or suspend their models in case of emergency.