Federal Judge Blocks Pentagon from Branding Anthropic a National Security Risk

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin granted Anthropic a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon from designating the AI company as a supply chain risk and halting enforcement of President Trump's directive banning federal agencies from using Claude. Lin called the actions "classic illegal First Amendment retaliation," writing that "nothing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary and saboteur of the U.S. for expressing disagreement with the government." The dispute originated when Anthropic, the first AI company to deploy models on DOD classified networks under a $200M contract, refused to grant the Pentagon unfettered access without assurances against use in autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance.