A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Pentagon’s blacklisting of artificial intelligence company Anthropic violated the Constitution, marking a significant victory for the AI firm in its dispute with the Trump administration. The decision came from U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin in California, who determined that the military’s actions constituted illegal retaliation against the company for exercising its First Amendment rights.
The conflict originated when the Defense Department sought to renegotiate AI contracts to grant broader military authority over artificial intelligence systems. Anthropic declined to sign the revised terms, maintaining two restrictions: prohibiting its technology from enabling mass surveillance of Americans or powering autonomous weapons systems that operate without human control. This refusal prompted the Pentagon to designate the company a supply chain risk, a classification typically reserved for national security threats.
Judge Lin’s ruling rejected the government’s national security justification, stating that such claims cannot serve as justification for punishing critics. The judge found that the Pentagon’s decision was “arbitrary and capricious” and that designating Anthropic a supply chain risk specifically because of its public opposition to the contract terms violated constitutional protections. The company had filed its lawsuit in March after the initial blacklisting decision.
Following the designation, the Pentagon moved to shift its AI partnerships to seven other companies, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Thursday’s ruling effectively invalidated those retaliatory measures against Anthropic.
Originally reported by Theverge →
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