On July 30, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin of the Northern District of California held a hearing on cross-motions for summary judgment in Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War. In the suit, Anthropic is challenging the Department of Defense’s unprecedented designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk last March under 10 U.S.C. § 3252. The dispute arose out of Anthropic’s refusal to permit the government to use its frontier artificial intelligence products for lethal autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of the U.S. population. Anthropic alleges that the designation was unconstitutional punishment for First Amendment protected speech and also violated its Fifth Amendment Due Process rights and the Administrative Procedure Act. The government alleges that its actions were justified by legitimate national security concerns that grew out of distrust of the company and concern that undisclosed guardrails, built into its products to effectuate the company’s private view of morality, could risk the safety of warfighters and civilians.Last March, Judge Lin granted a preliminary injunction in favor of Anthropic. The parties agree that the case is now ready for final decision on the merits on the basis of the written record. (Anthropic has a similar suit pending against the Defense Department in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to challenge a supply-chain risk designation Secretary Pete Hegseth made at about the same time under a different statute: 41 U.S.C. § 4713.)Lawfare’s Roger Parloff live-posted the hearing as it happened, by following on a Zoom feed. Read his account by clicking the button below or by viewing his thread on X here.Liveblog