A federal judge has ruled that the Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal, a major defeat for the government in its fight over AI safety rules. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin found the Defense Department supply-chain risk designation violated Anthropic First Amendment rights and denied the company due-process protections required under the Fifth Amendment. The ruling vacates the blacklisting and blocks the government from enforcing the restrictions Anthropic challenged.
The dispute began in February, when the Pentagon demanded that Anthropic allow Claude to be used for all lawful military purposes. Anthropic refused to remove restrictions on using its AI for mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons, arguing current systems are not reliable enough for autonomous warfare. In response, the Pentagon designated the company a supply-chain risk and blocked it from certain military contracts.
Judge Lin rejected the government argument that contractual restrictions, rather than Anthropic policy views, drove the designation. The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics, she wrote. The government is expected to appeal. Anthropic welcomed the ruling and said it remains willing to work with the government on national-security AI applications.