Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic was unconstitutional, judge rules

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A federal judge set aside the supply chain risk designation that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had placed on the AI startup

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Pentagon's effort to blacklist Anthropic violated the First Amendment and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, and ordered the government to rescind all directives issued against the AI company.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin of the Northern District of California found that officials had retaliated against Anthropic in violation of the First Amendment and had stripped the company of liberty interests without adequate notice or a meaningful chance to respond. "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," Lin wrote in her 59-page opinion.