Federal judge says Pentagon's treatment of Anthropic 'looks like an attempt to cripple' the company

"Supply chain risk" designation treated with heavy skepticism by court; government may have violated Anthropic's constitutional rights, judge says

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On Tuesday, a federal judge signaled that the Trump administration’s claims that Anthropic is a “supply chain risk” may not hold up in court, but instead will be recognized as punishment for going public with its Pentagon dispute.

The case erupted into public view late last month, after Anthropic apparently refused to let the Pentagon use its Claude AI without restrictions — specifically, without contractual guardrails keeping the government from using Claude for mass domestic surveillance of Americans conducted without warrants and for deployment in fully autonomous weapons systems.

In response, the Pentagon moved to designate Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” a label previously reserved for foreign adversaries like Chinese telecom firms — even as Pentagon officials continued to negotiate the contract with the company, with Pentagon CTO Emil Michael describing the two sides........

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