美国法官叫停五角大楼对Anthropic的黑名单制裁

US judge blocks Pentagon’s Anthropic blacklisting

2026-08-28T01:27:19.988Z / Reuters

By Jack Queen

August 28, 2026 1:27 AM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

Anthropic logo, a keyboard and a robotic hand in this illustration taken June 5, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

• Anthropic alleges Pentagon chief overstepped his authority Pentagon says national security risk designation is lawful
• Judge Lin found designation was ‘illegal and baseless’

August 27(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic, ​the latest turn in the Claude maker’s high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the ​battlefield.

Anthropic’s lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label the government can apply to companies that expose military systems to potential infiltration or sabotage by adversaries.

Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Hegseth’s unprecedented move, which blocked ​Anthropic from certain military contracts, followed Anthropic’s refusal to allow the military to use its Claude AI models ​for U.S. surveillance or autonomous weapons. Anthropic executives have said it could cost the company billions of ⁠dollars in lost business and reputational harm.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, ​made the ruling in a 59-page order where she found that the Pentagon’s decision was “illegal and baseless.”

“The empty invocation of national ​security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,” she wrote.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Anthropic welcomed the ruling and said in a statement that it remained “focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.”

The ​Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anthropic argues that AI models are not reliable enough to be ​safely used in autonomous weapons and that it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of rights, but the Pentagon says private companies ‌should not ⁠be able to constrain military action.

The designation made by the Pentagon was the first time a U.S. company has been publicly designated a supply-chain risk under an obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage.

In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic alleged the government violated its right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution by retaliating ​against its views on AI ​safety. The company said ⁠it was not given a chance to dispute the designation, in violation of its Fifth Amendment right to due process.

blob:https://www.reuters.com/dadf876c-9d69-4161-9b60-98544c623d09

The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent ​with the military’s past praise of Claude.

The Justice Department countered that Anthropic’s refusal to ​lift the restrictions ⁠could cause uncertainty in the Pentagon over how it could use Claude and risk disabling military systems during operations, according to a court filing.

The government said the designation stemmed from Anthropic’s refusal to accept contractual terms, not its views on AI safety.

Anthropic has ⁠a second ​lawsuit pending in Washington, D.C., over a separate Pentagon supply-chain risk designation ​that could lead to its exclusion from civilian government contracts.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.