A federal judge has voided the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic as a national security supply-chain risk, finding that the label was punishment for the company’s public criticism of the Trump administration rather than a security assessment. US District Judge Rita Lin, of the Northern District of California, issued the decision on Thursday in a 59-page order.
Lin wrote that “the empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,” as Jack Queen reported for Reuters.
The order found violations of the First Amendment and of the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, and requires the government to withdraw the directives it issued against the company, according to Quartz.
The dispute began on February 27, when President Donald Trump instructed agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the company a supply-chain risk on the same day. The trigger, Courthouse News reported, was Anthropic’s refusal to lift two contractual restrictions on Claude: no mass surveillance of Americans, and no fully autonomous weapons.
Anthropic sued in March, calling the designation unlawful retaliation, and Lin granted a preliminary injunction later that month on First Amendment grounds. The Pentagon’s chief technology officer told Breaking Defense at the time that the ban stood regardless, which is roughly where the case has sat since.
