Judge Rules DOD Unlawfully Retaliated Against Anthropic
A federal judge has sided with Anthropic on its claims that the Department of Defense illegally retaliated against Anthropic’s protected speech by labeling the AI company a “supply chain risk.” The judge found that designation, intended to penalize Anthropic for telling the U.S. military it would not allow their technology to be used for mass surveillance of U.S. persons, “constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment.” EFF joined a coalition of organizations in filing multiple amicus briefs (here, here) arguing that the Pentagon had trampled on Anthropics First Amendment rights. We agree with the court’s decision and applaud the judge for slapping down such an obvious act of illegal and unconstitutional retribution by the Pentagon—even as the court left open the broader question of whether a company’s choices about how its technology may be used are protected speech in their own right.
From the start of this conflict, EFF argued that companies should not be penalized for not wanting to conduct mass surveillance of US persons. Nor do we want to live in a legal system where our susceptibility to surveillance is hashed out and decided in closed-door contract negotiations between a few powerful people at the military and an AI company. Unfortunately, this ruling does little to address the bigger problem: that Congress has abdicated its responsibility to adopt statutory safeguards to protect our privacy, and instead left us reliant on the whims of private companies to decide when they are and are not willing to help the government conduct mass surveillance.
In February 2026, the government began threatening to penalize Anthropic unless it backed off its position that it did not want the U.S. military using its AI product Claude for mass surveillance of Americans or to power autonomous weapons systems. Ultimately, the Department of Defense, deciding that it did not want military contractors dictating what its products could or could not be used for, declared the company a “supply chain risk.” This national security designation means the government and companies that do business with it cannot use the company’s products for government projects. It was, in essence, an attempted blacklisting of Anthropic for setting boundaries and articulating unacceptable use cases for its products.
None of this is to say that Anthropic is a morally unimpeachable company, or that it and other companies would never permit their products to be used under specific conditions to aid in surveillance or analysis of collected data that could affect U.S. persons—but the facts remain: the government cannot punish a company for having preferences regarding unconstitutional uses of its technology.
Unsupported claims that a company poses a national security risk should never be an excuse for government retaliation. This ruling correctly recognizes the dangerous implications of allowing the government to punish a company for its critical speech and for refusing to allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance. While we applaud the court’s decision, we continue to urge lawmakers to take the protection of our privacy seriously. We shouldn’t have to rely on private companies to protect us from the surveillance state. It’s past time for Congress to act.
