US judge rules Pentagon’s blacklist of Anthropic unlawful, calls it First Amendment retaliation

A federal judge has blocked the Pentagon from treating Anthropic as a supply chain risk, ruling that the designation was likely an act of illegal retaliation against the AI company for speaking publicly about safety and refusing to strip restrictions from its models. US District Judge Rita F. Lin issued a preliminary injunction on March 26, finding that the Department of Defense’s blacklisting of Anthropic appears to violate the First Amendment. In a 43-page opinion, she described the government’s actions as “classic illegal First Amendment retaliation,” drawing a sharp line between legitimate national security concerns and what she characterized as punitive overreach. How the standoff started The conflict traces back to Anthropic’s refusal to comply with Pentagon requests to remove safety guardrails from its AI models. Specifically, the company declined to allow its technology to be deployed for surveillance or autonomous lethal weaponry, positions consistent with its longstanding public commitments on AI safety. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth escalated the situation on February 27, issuing directives that formally designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk. The label, which had ...