A federal judge ruled on August 27 that the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic as a supply chain risk was unconstitutional, vacating the designation and ordering the Department of Defense to rescind every directive it issued against the company.
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Transcript
In February, the Pentagon told Anthropic to drop its limits on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, or lose its federal contracts. Anthropic said no. Defense Secretary Hegseth blacklisted the company as a supply chain risk, killed a two hundred million dollar deal, and the Pentagon turned to OpenAI instead. Anthropic sued. In March, a judge blocked the designation, calling it classic First Amendment retaliation. The government kept fighting. Then on August 27, Judge Rita Lin ruled again, this time for good. She vacated the designation entirely, found it violated due process, and ordered the Department of Defense to rescind every directive it issued against Anthropic. It is a real check on using blacklists to punish a vendor for saying no in public.