# Alex Stamos on Why the US Should Lift Its Fable and Mythos Export Ban > Source: > Published: 2026-06-17 13:00:00+00:00 Late on Friday, June 12, Anthropic [announced](https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access) it had received a [letter](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/read-the-lutnick-letter-that-led-anthropic-to-disable-mythos) from the United States Department of Commerce notifying the company that the government had issued an export control directive forcing it to suspend all access to its AI models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including Anthropic's own foreign-national employees. To comply, the company disabled access to both models for all its customers. The Wall Street Journal [called](https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-halts-access-to-top-ai-models-after-u-s-ban-on-foreign-use-a4bca2cc?st=zNHWKH&reflink=article_copyURL_share) the episode one of the most powerful examples yet of US government intervention in the AI race. The White House move has left [many experts baffled](https://www.techpolicy.press/anthropics-mythos-recall-and-the-white-houses-missing-ai-safety-playbook/). And, it is [raising alarms](https://www.euronews.com/2026/06/13/wake-up-call-europe-reacts-to-anthropic-halting-access-to-its-fable-5-and-mythos-5-ai-mode) in foreign capitals about the wisdom of relying on American AI, suggesting the US will operate ad hoc, with access to advanced models revoked on a case-by-case basis. Against that backdrop, a group of cybersecurity leaders organized by **Alex Stamos** has urged the administration to reverse course [in an open letter](https://freefable.org/). Currently, Stamos is chief product officer at an AI security startup called Corridor. Previously, he was chief security officer at Facebook, before he left to found the Stanford Internet Observatory. **Justin Hendrix** caught up with him on Tuesday, June 16.