Judge rules Pentagon's supply chain risk designation for Anthropic was illegal

A US federal judge has ruled that the Pentagon's designation of artificial intelligence firm Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" was illegal. According to The Hill, Judge Rita Lin said the Trump administration had retaliated against Anthropic for its constitutionally protected activity, violating the First Amendment.

The lawsuit, filed in March, accused the Trump administration of unlawfully retaliating against Anthropic for setting "red lines" or unacceptable military use cases of its AI technology. CBS News reported that Anthropic had sought to prevent its AI model, Claude, from being used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, but the military had argued it should be allowed to use the model for all lawful purposes.

The judge's ruling permanently barred the Trump administration from enforcing a set of rules aimed at cutting off Anthropic from the federal government, with Judge Lin declaring that the actions against Anthropic violated the company's due process rights and constituted unlawful retaliation for protected speech. The Verge noted that Judge Lin wrote the "empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics".

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had declared Anthropic a supply chain risk, aiming to prevent private defense contractors from using its AI model to do work for the military, as reported by CBS News and Quartz.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Hill, The Verge, CBS News, Winnipeg Free Press, Quartz — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.