![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787902812_478_2017-06-08T131939Z_1189275883_RC11B0FE7F20_RTRMADP_3_GULF-QATAR-JAZEERA-1714943623.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 28 Aug 202628 Aug 2026<\/p>\n
A United States judge has blocked the Pentagon\u2019s blacklisting of technology company Anthropic.<\/p>\n
In a 59-page written order issued on Thursday night, District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Department of Defense had acted illegally when it designated the company a supply chain risk to national security.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
The decision marks the latest turn in the Claude maker\u2019s high-stakes fight with the US military over artificial intelligence safety on the battlefield. The government is expected to fight the ruling.<\/p>\n
The judge\u2019s order rebuked the Pentagon, saying it had targeted and punished Anthropic for the company\u2019s public criticism of the Defense Department\u2019s stance on AI deployment on the battlefield.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,\u201d Lin, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote.<\/p>\n
Autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance<\/p>\n
Anthropic\u2019s lawsuit in a California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated the company a national security supply-chain risk.<\/p>\n
Hegseth\u2019s move, which blocked Anthropic from military contracts, followed the company\u2019s refusal to allow the military to use its Claude AI models for US surveillance or autonomous weapons.<\/p>\n
Anthropic argues that AI models are not reliable enough for autonomous weapons and opposes domestic surveillance. The Pentagon maintains that private companies should not constrain military action.<\/p>\n
Executives have said the ban could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business.<\/p>\n
During a hearing on July 30, Lin described the government\u2019s position as \u201creally troubling\u201d and \u201cat odds \u2026 with the First Amendment\u201d, adding that the record had \u201cgotten worse for the government\u201d over time.<\/p>\n
In the same hearing, Department of Justice lawyers argued that the nature of AI models is \u201cso staggeringly enormous and opaque\u201d that the Pentagon cannot evaluate them like physical hardware.<\/p>\n
First use of obscure statute<\/p>\n
Anthropic welcomed the ruling, stating it remained \u201cfocused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology\u201d.<\/p>\n
The designation was the first time a US company has been publicly labelled a supply-chain risk under an obscure procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage.<\/p>\n
In its lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its constitutional rights to free speech and due process by retaliating against its views on AI safety without allowing it to dispute the claim.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit called the decision unlawful, unsupported by facts, and inconsistent with the military\u2019s past praise of Claude.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon on the ruling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Court order rules that Pentagon acted illegally, punishing AI company for criticism of government. Published On 28 Aug…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,12248,9085,1302,597,208,66,1715,214,4464],"class_list":["post-154170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-censorship","tag-civil-rights","tag-courts","tag-government","tag-military","tag-news","tag-regulation","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154170","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=154170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}