A federal judge in California ruled on Thursday evening that the Trump administration\u2019s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk was illegal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said in her ruling that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s labeling of Anthropic as a risk to national security signified \u201cunlawful retaliation\u201d in violation of the First Amendment, and said the decision was \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d Lin also said Anthropic was denied due process, as required under the Fifth Amendment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Hegseth and President Donald Trump labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk and\u00a0ordered all federal agencies, even those outside of defense, to stop working with the Claude maker.<\/p>\n
The dispute stemmed from Anthropic setting hard lines on certain safety guardrails that would allow the Pentagon to use its models for fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of American citizens. The Pentagon denied that it would use Anthropic models for anything but lawful purposes, and alleged that Anthropic could try to control the military\u2019s use of the models it bought and paid for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In her ruling, Lin said that the government\u2019s \u201cwords and deeds confirm that the challenged actions were based on a desire to make a public example out of Anthropic for its \u2018arrogance\u2019 in criticizing the government.\u201d <\/p>\n
She pointed out the disconnect between the supply-chain label and other actions from the government, like Hegseth\u2019s proposition to apply the Defense Production Act to Anthropic, \u201cwhich would mean the company was essential to national security rather than a threat to it.\u201d She also pointed to the Department of Defense continuing to pursue a contract with the company, and the government collaborating with the company\u2019s new model, Mythos, for cybersecurity.<\/p>\n
Lin also said it\u2019s clear that Anthropic \u201cundisputedly lacks\u201d any backdoor access to its technology once it hands it over to the DOD.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThough the Department of War is undisputedly free to select the AI vendor of its choice, the evidence demonstrates that the broad measures imposed on Anthropic were illegal and baseless,\u201d Lin wrote.\u00a0\u201cThe empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcome the court\u2019s ruling that this supply chain risk designation was unlawful,\u201d an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement shared with TechCrunch. \u201cWe remain focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anthropic filed two complaints against the DOD in March in California and Washington, D.C. The D.C. suit is still ongoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
TechCrunch has reached out to the DOD for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2278736523.jpeg?resize=1200,798″] A federal judge in California ruled on Thursday evening that the Trump administration\u2019s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk was illegal.\u00a0 U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said in her ruling that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s labeling of Anthropic as a risk to national security signified \u201cunlawful retaliation\u201d in violation of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,62],"class_list":["post-2117833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-techcrunch-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2117833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2117833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2117833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2117833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}