By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-25 16:46:40 | Updated at 2026-09-25 17:43:38
1 hour ago
Pages from the Anthropic website and the company's logo are displayed on a computer screen in New York City on Feb. 26, 2026. Patrick Sison/AP Photo
A federal appeals court on Sept. 25 upheld the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk, rejecting the artificial intelligence company’s claims that the label exceeded the law and punished protected speech.
The Department of War cut Anthropic off after the company declined to let the military use its Claude AI product without limits that the company wanted on autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance.
Government officials said no private company gets to set the rules for war.
Anthropic said the government was punishing it for speaking up, not stopping a genuine security threat.
Two courts went in different directions. A federal judge in San Francisco previously threw out one version of the ban in August, calling it unlawful retaliation.
On Sept. 25, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2–1, ruling the Pentagon had sufficient reason to be concerned that Claude’s built-in limits could freeze up in a real operation.
“The department had ample support for its conclusion that the continued integration of Claude into the department’s information systems, by the department or its contractors, presented a statutorily covered national-security risk,” U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas wrote for the panel.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
