A federal judge in California, Rita Lin, has temporarily blocked directives from former US President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that ordered all government agencies to immediately stop using tools from the artificial intelligence company Anthropic. In her order, Judge Lin stated that the government was attempting to "cripple Anthropic" and "chill public debate" due to the company's concerns over how its technology is being utilized by the US Department of Defense.
Judge Lin added, "This appears to be classic First Amendment retaliation." The ruling means that Anthropic's tools, such as Claude, will continue to be used within the government and by external companies collaborating with the military until the lawsuit is resolved. Representatives from the White House and the Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.
Anthropic filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense and several other agencies earlier this month after Trump publicly criticized the company and Hegseth labeled it a "supply chain risk" – marking the first time a US company has publicly received such a designation. This label indicates that a tool or service is not secure enough for government use and has historically been reserved for companies based in adversarial nations.
In her order, Judge Lin noted that Trump and Hegseth in their public statements referred to Anthropic as "woke" and comprised of "left-wing nut jobs," rather than citing security deficiencies. Lin wrote, "If this were merely a contracting impasse, the Department of Defense would presumably have just stopped using Claude. The challenged actions, however, far exceed the scope of what could reasonably address such a national security interest."
Anthropic had been negotiating with the Department of Defense for months prior to filing the lawsuit over new demands linked to a planned expansion of its $200 million contract. The Pentagon allegedly wanted the contract to specify that it could use Anthropic's tools for "any lawful use," but the company and its CEO Dario Amodei were concerned this would pave the way for mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. The conflict spilled into public view in February when Hegseth issued a deadline for Anthropic to accept new contract terms, which the company declined to do.
Source: www.bbc.com