Mostly, the law is not creating the right incentives. In this case in particular, I don't think it's so much a matter of speed: I suspect the current US admin would still sow the chaos they do to the same degree if it was ruled illegal within a week instead of within months.

You're right: the current administration would find a way because they don't care what the law says. The law, to them, is a system to be hacked when necessary.

Many Americans take for granted the idea that the US is a "nation of laws" and that "rule of law" governs above all else. But the reality is this: there is no such thing as a perfect legal system.

You can have a strong legal system by design (good oversight, various checks and balances, etc.) but in practice, any system is only as good as the most powerful people are decent and respectful of it.

If you have someone in the most powerful position (the executive) who doesn't respect the law and who isn't willing to, with wisdom in his or her heart, exercise restraint with the understanding that protecting the integrity of the system is ultimately more important than getting your way, the law stands no chance.

The harder problem is designing remedies that make illegal government action actually expensive enough to discourage it, without also making officials afraid to make legitimate decisions.

Agreed. There's little doubt the admin knew they'd lose in court before they did it but they also knew it would still hurt Anthropic and make an example showing what happens to "any vendor who tries to put restrictions on the DoW's use of their product."