| Type | Senate bill (proposed) |
| Short title | Human Authority in Lethal Operations Act ("HALO Act") |
| Sponsor | Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) |
| Introduced | June 8, 2026 |
| Status | Introduced; not enacted |
| Subject | Human control over military AI and autonomous weapons |
The Human Authority in Lethal Operations Act, or HALO Act, is a bill introduced in the US Senate on June 8, 2026 by Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to keep the Department of Defense's autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons under meaningful human control (Sources: thehill.com, thedebrief.org).
Provisions
As described in early reporting, the bill would (Sources: thedebrief.org, insideaipolicy.com):
- Require the Pentagon to keep autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons under meaningful human control.
- Designate accountable human commanders for AI-enabled engagements.
- Confine such systems to predefined geographies, target sets, and timeframes.
- Explicitly bar removing humans from the nuclear decision chain.
- Prohibit covered systems from inferring a person's religion, race, political identity, or emotional state.
- Restrict purchases of Americans' data from data brokers.
The provision barring autonomy in nuclear command-and-control parallels long-standing US policy statements on human control of nuclear weapons, while the limits on inferring protected attributes connect military-AI governance to broader concerns about profiling and surveillance.
Legislative context
The bill followed similar measures introduced by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Elissa Slotkin, setting up a possible contest over autonomous-weapons language in the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (FY27 NDAA) (Source: thedebrief.org). The House Armed Services Committee had already approved its version of the FY27 NDAA on June 4, 2026, including language intended to bolster human oversight of autonomous weapon systems (Source: insideaipolicy.com). The HALO Act also arrived days after a June 5, 2026 national-security directive instructing the Department of Defense to rework its policy on autonomous weapons systems within 90 days (Source: insideaipolicy.com). It thus enters an active multi-track debate over how much human control US law should require over military AI.
Relationships
- related: Autonomous Weapons — the systems the bill would constrain.
- related: FY27 National Defense Authorization Act (Chairman's Mark) — the likely legislative vehicle for autonomous-weapons provisions.
- related: AI and National Security, DOD — Department of Defense (AI Deployer).
- related: GUARD Act (Hawley) — another 2026 AI-safety bill in the same Congress.