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- A federal judge in California on Thursday ruled that the Pentagon’s effort to blacklist Anthropic earlier this year violated the First Amendment.
- U.S. District Judge Rita Lin vacated Anthropic’s supply chain risk designation and declared that the Department of Defense’s actions violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anthropic, during an interview on “The Circuit with Emily Chang” at Anthropic’s headquarters in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, April 30, 2026.Jason Henry | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A federal judge in California on Thursday ruled that the Pentagon’s effort to blacklist Anthropic earlier this year violated the First Amendment and deprived the artificial intelligence company of its constitutionally protected liberties.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin vacated Anthropic’s supply chain risk designation and declared that the Department of Defense’s actions violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Lin directed the DOD to rescind all guidance, directives, communications or instructions that it issued against the company.
“Defendants claim that because of Anthropic’s ‘increasingly hostile manner through the press’ and its criticism of the Department of War’s views on AI use, Defendants ‘cannot trust Anthropic to ensure the integrity of its models,’ ” Lin wrote. “Neither the Constitution nor the federal statute invoked by Defendants allows them to impose sweeping penalties based principally on Anthropic’s critique of the Administration’s views.”
In March, the DOD designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, meaning the company purportedly threatened U.S. national security, after negotiations about how the military could use its Claude AI models spiraled out of control. The designation barred defense contractors from using Anthropic’s technology in their work with the agency.
Anthropic sued the Trump administration in an effort to reverse its blacklisting. In addition to its lawsuit in California, the company filed a separate but related suit in Washington, D.C., and that case is still ongoing. The DOD relied on two distinct designations to justify its supply chain risk action, which means they have to be litigated in two separate courts.
In a statement, Anthropic praised Lin’s decision.
“We welcome the court’s ruling that this supply chain risk designation was unlawful,” a spokesperson told CNBC. “We remain focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.”
The ruling clears a significant hurdle for Anthropic as it marches toward what’s expected to be a near-record IPO. While the company has shown no signs of a slowdown since the blacklisting, if it’s able to reestablish ties with the Pentagon, it could open additional business opportunities that had been cut off.
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