Court finds Pentagon’s Anthropic ban unconstitutional

Federal Judge Rita Lin ruled in San Francisco that the Department of Defense violated the First Amendment by designating Anthropic a supply chain threat. The threat status remains in effect while litigation continues, Bloomberg reports.

The Pentagon placed Anthropic on the blacklist in March after negotiations broke down. Anthropic had sought guarantees that Claude would not be used in fully autonomous weapons systems.

Judge Lin stated that the Defense Department created the designation out of a desire to make a public example of the company.