‘These actions are unprecedented and unlawful’: Anthropic sues Pentagon over “supply chain risk” designation — claims free speech and due process violations

• Anthropic has filed two lawsuits against the Pentagon
• The lawsuits call upon the courts to remove the "supply chain designation"
• Anthropic feared its Claude model would be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems.

Anthropic has filed two federal lawsuits against the Pentagon for designating the AI company as a “supply chain risk” over its refusal to provide full access to its Claude model.

Citing fears of mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems, Anthropic had drawn red-lines in the Pentagon’s usage of its model.

Anthropic subsequently lost its $200 million contract with the Department of Defense, and its technology is now banned from use by government contractors working on behalf of the US military.

Far reaching implications for AI

"The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech. No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here,” Anthropic wrote, with the lawsuits also alleging the company’s due process rights have been violated, according to Reuters.

The two lawsuits request that the courts remove the “supply chain risk” designation, block its enforcement, and make federal agencies withdraw directives to stop the use of Anthropic’s tools.

Following the battle between Anthropic and the Pentagon over the use of Claude, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made clear his stance on the issue, stating, “We cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”

While the Department of Defense has not issued a comment on the lawsuit, Liz Huston, a spokeswoman for the White House, said Anthropic was “a radical left, woke company,” adding that, “Under the Trump Administration, our military will obey the United States Constitution – not any woke AI company's terms of service.”

Before Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth levelled the designation against Anthropic, President Trump stated that the company was being run by “left wing nut jobs.” President Trump also previously threatened Anthropic to “get their act together,” or he would “use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow.”

OpenAI has since stepped up to fill the gap left by Anthropic by extending its contract with the Pentagon, but was forced to quickly backtrack on wording within its contract that would have allowed the Pentagon to use its AI models in exactly the same way Anthropic feared its Claude model would be used.

OpenAI’s head of robotics has resigned over the company’s new deal with the Pentagon, stating in a social media post that, “surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got.”

The Trump administration has frequently cited its desire to reduce regulations on technology in order to allow the US to retain AI superiority - most recently in its newly unveiled cyber strategy. However, less regulation appears to translate into allowing the Trump administration free reign to use technology however it sees fit to achieve its own aims, regardless of the consequences.

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