28th August 2026 – (San Francisco) Judge Rita Lin of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has ruled that the Pentagon’s decision to blacklist artificial intelligence company Anthropic was both unlawful and in breach of the company’s constitutional rights. The judge found that the United States government’s move amounted to unlawful retaliation after Anthropic refused requests from the military to provide access to its Claude platform for mass domestic surveillance or to enable fully autonomous weapon systems.
In her ruling, Judge Lin determined that the action taken by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who announced on 27th February that Anthropic would be designated a supply-chain risk, was arbitrary and capricious under the relevant statutory framework. Hegseth’s directive prohibited all contractors, suppliers and partners working with the United States military from engaging in any commercial dealings with Anthropic.
In a separate measure, President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to cease using Anthropic’s technology, with a phased six-month period for those agencies already using it to discontinue its deployment. Anthropic responded by filing a legal challenge in federal court in March, leading Judge Lin to grant a preliminary injunction later that month, preventing the enforcement of the restrictions while the case proceeded.