{"id":125056,"date":"2026-07-31T00:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/125056\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T00:06:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:06:23","slug":"anthropic-pentagon-clash-over-first-amendment-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/125056\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthropic, Pentagon Clash Over First Amendment Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning<\/a>
\n ,
\n Litigation<\/a>
\n ,
\n Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

Judge Questions Defense Department’s Blacklisting of AI Company<\/p>\n

Emilia David<\/a> \u2022
\n July 30, 2026 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\n

\"Anthropic,
\n Image: Shutterstock\/ISMG <\/p>\n

A San Francisco federal judge showed skepticism Thursday over whether the Department of Defense acted lawfully when it blacklisted artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, telling federal attorneys at the onset of a roughly 90 minute hearing that the Pentagon is “at odds with the First Amendment.”<\/p>\n

See Also: Securing AI Workloads With Ubuntu Pro<\/a><\/p>\n

Both sides of the lawsuit initiated by Anthropic after its March designation as a “supply-chain risk” by the Pentagon were in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to ask Judge Rita F. Lin to short circuit additional proceedings and rule in their favor. Anthropic has said billions of dollars of revenue are at stake while the Pentagon asserts it must be able to freely make national security decisions (see: Anthropic and DOD Set to Face Off Thursday Over Blacklisting<\/a>).<\/p>\n

“Don’t see how the additional evidence from the government would help; in some ways it’s almost worse for the government,” Lin said in her opening remarks. “The government is retaliating against a contractor, and I find that position to be troubling and at odds with the First Amendment.”<\/p>\n

Federal attorneys attempted to steer away Lin from focusing heavily on the First Amendment – an issue that’s proven precarious terrain for the government, especially following a March 26 order<\/a> from Lin temporarily pausing portions of the blacklisting order, in which she characterized the government as “Orwellian.” Lin wrote that Anthropic has likely shown that the supply-chain risk designation was likely Pentagon retaliation for the AI firm’s public position about acceptable uses of its technology.<\/p>\n

“All the government did was act as a contractor and inwardly focus on its own IT system,” said James Harlow, a senior trial attorney for the Department of Justice. “The government was simply doing some messaging for contractors and is not doing regulatory action.”<\/p>\n

The lawsuit came after Anthropic sought to limit some use of its Claude models set for deployment onto the GenAI.mil platform. The company already signed a contract worth up to $200 million over two years in July 2025 but asked for assurances its models will not be used for mass surveillance.<\/p>\n

Anthropic outside attorney Michael Mongan argued that the department’s actions, in particular its invocation of national security concerns, was just cover for the company’s refusal to allow its models to be used for mass surveillance of Americans or lethal autonomous warfare. The Pentagon insisted that it be able to use the models for “all lawful uses.”<\/p>\n

Federal attorneys argued that AI is a qualitatively different technology. Unlike traditional software updated through patches, more powerful AI models often mean users must trust a completely new version that’s essentially a black box, Harlow said. Users don’t know what novel features or behaviors companies added to it.<\/p>\n

“Anthropic has a privileged view of its model and can add its own guardrails,” he said. “They can bake their own corporate views into their models. The department needs to trust what companies are adding to their technology, and the leap is greater for AI.”<\/p>\n

Mongan countered that the condition Harlow described is true of all AI providers, not just Anthropic.<\/p>\n

Lin asked both sides if any government agencies either terminated their contracts with Anthropic or even expanded the use of Claude since her preliminary injunction order in March. Federal attorneys mostly evaded the question, stating that while some agencies have wound down their usage of Claude, it sets a dangerous precedent for the government to detail which frontier models it is using.<\/p>\n

Lin said she will make a written ruling.<\/p>\n

The hearing did clarify one aspect of the Pentagon blacklisting. When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went public<\/a> with his decision to designate Anthropic, he said the blacklisting would prevent every “contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military” from using an Anthropic model.<\/p>\n

Government lawyers told the court that Hegseth’s tweeted assertion was not a legal directive and that there has been no secondary boycott.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning , Litigation , Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development Judge Questions Defense Department’s Blacklisting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[53,10965,10649,24273,24276,24275,24274,24277,24278,24279,24280,7514,7508,7511,7513,7512,7510,7509,5990,2112,24281],"class_list":["post-125056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anthropic","tag-anthropic","tag-anti-money-laundering","tag-authentication","tag-bank-information-security","tag-bank-information-security-regulations","tag-bank-regulations","tag-banking-information-security","tag-fdic","tag-fincen","tag-gao","tag-glba","tag-identity-theft","tag-information-security","tag-information-security-articles","tag-information-security-events","tag-information-security-news","tag-information-security-webinars","tag-information-security-white-papers","tag-phishing","tag-risk-management","tag-sarbanes-oxley-sox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}