{"slug": "pentagon-s-anthropic-ban-deemed-illegal-and-baseless", "title": "Pentagon's Anthropic ban deemed \"illegal and baseless\"", "summary": "A US district judge permanently lifted the Pentagon's ban on Anthropic, ruling the decision to blacklist the Claude maker as a supply chain risk was \"illegal and baseless\" and that the national security justification was \"empty.\" The ban, imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in March after a dispute over contract guardrails prohibiting use of Anthropic's technology for autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance, was reversed by Judge Rita Lin, and Anthropic said it is focused on working with the government to harness AI for national security.", "body_md": "[AI](/tag/ai/)\n\nA US district judge has permanently lifted the Pentagon’s decision to blacklist Anthropic after the Claude maker filed a lawsuit to counter the department’s decision to label it a supply chain risk.\n\nThe California federal court judge said the decision was “illegal and baseless” and described the Pentagon’s “invocation of national security” as “empty”, making permanent an earlier temporary reversal of the ban.\n\nDefence Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic a supply chain risk [ in March](https://www.thestack.technology/pentagon-calls-anthropic-ceo-a-liar-with-a-god-complex-as-ai-guardrails-spat-escalates/) after a spat over contract guardrails explicitly banning use of its technology for autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.\n\nAnthropic hailed District Judge Rita Lin’s decision and said it was “focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.”\n\n**The spat**\n\n## Get the full story: Subscribe for free\n\nJoin peers managing over $100 billion in annual IT spend and subscribe to unlock full access to The Stack’s analysis and events.\n\n[Subscribe now](https://www.thestack.technology/membership/)\n\nAlready a member? [Sign in](https://www.thestack.technology/signin/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pentagon-s-anthropic-ban-deemed-illegal-and-baseless", "canonical_source": "https://www.thestack.technology/pentagons-anthropic-ban-deemed-illegal-and-baseless/", "published_at": "2026-08-28 16:13:48+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-28 16:18:08.285183+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-safety"], "entities": ["Anthropic", "Pentagon", "Pete Hegseth", "Rita Lin", "Claude"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pentagon-s-anthropic-ban-deemed-illegal-and-baseless", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pentagon-s-anthropic-ban-deemed-illegal-and-baseless.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pentagon-s-anthropic-ban-deemed-illegal-and-baseless.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pentagon-s-anthropic-ban-deemed-illegal-and-baseless.jsonld"}}