Judge Rules Pentagon Blacklists Require Reasons
A federal judge weakened America’s cherished national-security tradition Thursday by ruling that the Pentagon must have a legal basis before blacklisting a technology company for insufficient enthusiasm. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin found the Defense Department’s designation of Anthropic as a “supply-chain risk” illegal and baseless, citing the agency’s reliance on retaliation, missing evidence and a procurement theory assembled from spare parts. The decision introduced the novel requirement that federal punishments involve laws, procedures and misconduct, rather than an official becoming irritated during contract negotiations.
The dispute began after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei resisted demands for unrestricted military access to Claude, including uses that conflicted with company safeguards against mass domestic surveillance. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded by treating a disagreement over artificial-intelligence controls as the procurement equivalent of finding foreign spyware inside a nuclear submarine. “This ruling tells every American company that it can hide behind due process whenever the government wants to punish it without evidence,” Hegseth said. “If agencies must prove allegations before destroying a contractor’s reputation, we will soon be reduced to enforcing only the laws Congress actually passed.”
President Donald Trump praised the Pentagon’s restraint, noting that Anthropic had not also been declared a danger to agriculture, interstate highways or competitive ballroom dancing. Administration officials said those designations remained available if the company continued using phrases such as “constitutional rights” and “contract terms” in communications with senior officials. They also argued that the First Amendment protects government speech, particularly when that speech takes the form of a blacklist, a threat and several procurement officers quietly leaving the room.
Anthropic welcomed the ruling, while legal experts warned it could create a destabilizing precedent under which agencies may punish companies only for actual wrongdoing. The Pentagon is expected to appeal on the grounds that requiring evidence would burden national security, inconvenience retaliation and force officials to distinguish between a supply-chain threat and a chief executive who said no. The Constitution is now officially a loophole in federal contracting.
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