I wouldn't say "pure" theatre. I think the demands were serious while also being a common sense PR move that would also motivate (or not demotivate) their employees.

But they were supposed to just be easy to agree to. "Okay, yeah, we'll have an overseer on the murder bots, and we won't use it to spy on Americans." Even with an optional wink wink nudge nudge, it still mostly works for Anthropic's PR.

It was supposed to be a layup, and the administration airballed it.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Why would they want to turn down the ability to collect surveillance data on all their enemies?