AI legal battle: US judge blocks Pentagon’s blacklisting of AI firm Anthropic
The ruling temporarily shields Anthropic from Pentagon sanctions, escalating a high-stakes dispute over AI safety, government contracts and national security
A U.S. federal judge has officially blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, delivering a major legal defeat to the Trump administration in its high-stakes dispute over AI use in warfare.
As reported U.S. District Judge Rita Lin issued a scathing 59-page ruling declaring the Department of Defense's decision to designate Anthropic as a national security supply-chain risk to be "illegal and baseless".
"The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," she wrote.
Judge Lin ruled that the administration's actions were not genuinely rooted in national security, but rather served as a punitive measure designed to make an example out of Anthropic for publicly criticizing the government and refusing to back down.
She noted that "the empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics."
The court found that the designation also violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment by unfairly targeting the company without proper legal footing or fair opportunity to contest the claims.
The clash began when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk after CEO Dario Amodei refused to remove "red lines" restricting the military's use of its Claude AI models for mass domestic surveillance or lethal autonomous weapons.
Anthropic argues that AI models are not reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action.
The designation made by the Pentagon was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage.
In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating against its views on AI safety.
The company said it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process.
However, in a latest update the artificial intelligence platform, Anthropic welcomed the decision, emphasizing that the company remains focused on working productively with the government to ensure the safe deployment of AI for national security.
