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“The ultimate result is to create something infringing by saying, ‘Hey, here you go, go grab that infringing stuff and use that in our system,’” said Cathay Y. N. Smith, a law professor and co-director of Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Program in Intellectual Property Law. Microsoft “could potentially have some sort of secondary contributory liability for copyright infringement, downloading it, as well as then using it to encourage others to use it for training purposes.”

“This administration is using all the tools it has to stifle dissent, that if you challenge them, they’re going to set out the machinery of the government against you,” said Harold Krent, a Chicago-Kent College of Law professor who has worked at the Department of Justice. “You’ll have to hire an attorney, miss work, you might be frightened — and maybe they’ll get an indictment once in a while.”

“It’s an enormous problem that federal officials are in some ways the hardest people to hold accountable for violating people’s constitutional rights, even harder than state and local officials,” said Carolyn Shapiro, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law and a former solicitor general of Illinois.