US judge sides with Anthropic, blocks Pentagon from branding company a supply chain risk

Anthropic sued the Department of War over being labeled a supply chain risk; a U.S. court temporarily blocked the Pentagon from using that designation, AP reported.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said the ruling did not address how the Pentagon wanted to use Claude and found no statute allowing an American company to be branded a potential adversary for disagreeing with the government.

Judge Lin said that if the concern is the integrity of the operational chain of command, the Department of War could stop using Claude.

The dispute arose after CEO Dario Amodei refused to allow Claude to be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons; Amodei warned the government could buy data on Americans and use AI to build profiles without a warrant, and said AI cannot make judgments like humans for fully autonomous weapons.

President Donald Trump posted that the United States will not allow a 'radical left, woke company' to dictate how the military fights and said he is directing every federal agency to cease using Anthropic technology; Anthropic argues the designation violated its First Amendment rights and denied due process.