A federal judge has ruled the Pentagon's designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk illegal, finding the 
Donald Trump administration retaliated against the AI company in violation of the First Amendment. US District Judge Rita Lin also found Anthropic had been denied due process under the Fifth Amendment. In a 59-page order, she vacated the designation and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's boycott order and granted a permanent injunction, Decrypt reported.
What did the judge find? "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," Lin said in her ruling, which called the measures imposed on Anthropic "illegal and baseless." She said the label clashed with Hegseth's earlier proposal to invoke the Defense Production Act, which would have made Anthropic essential to national security, and with the Pentagon's continued pursuit of a contract. The ruling found the government's "words and deeds" showed a desire "to make a public example out of Anthropic for its 'arrogance' in criticizing the government," TechCrunch reported.
How did the dispute start? Anthropic refused to let the military use its models for fully autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans. After the Pentagon told it to accept a clause permitting "all lawful uses," the company dropped most usage restrictions but held those two red lines, Decrypt reported. Trump then ordered every federal agency to stop using Anthropic's technology, and Hegseth barred military contractors from doing business with it. The designation, which the BBC reported was the first such label publicly applied to an American company, uses a law typically reserved for companies from countries that pose a threat to the US.
What did the government argue? The Pentagon said it would use Anthropic's models only for lawful purposes and alleged the company could try to control how the military used models it had bought, TechCrunch reported. Lin said Anthropic "undisputedly lacks" backdoor access to its technology once it is handed over.
What else did the ruling decide? Lin refused the government a seven-day administrative stay, saying it had operated under a preliminary injunction since March without identifying any harm, Decrypt reported. Anthropic lost on one count, as she rejected its argument that Trump's directive to federal agencies exceeded presidential authority. Its separate suit in Washington, D.C., filed in March, is still ongoing, TechCrunch reported. Anthropic welcomed the ruling, saying it remained focused on "working productively with the government."
Figures referenced: Donald Trump. — JudgeMarket.
