{"id":7906,"date":"2026-05-19T18:32:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7906"},"modified":"2026-05-19T18:32:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:32:21","slug":"appeals-court-judges-appear-to-be-divided-over-pentagons-legal-dispute-with-ai-company-anthropic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7906","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court judges appear to be divided over Pentagon\u2019s legal dispute with AI company Anthropic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A panel of appellate judges appeared to be divided on Tuesday over a legal dispute between the Pentagon and technology company Anthropic, which claims Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unlawfully and falsely branded it as a for raising ethical and safety concerns about AI usage in war.<\/p>\n

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Three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit didn\u2019t indicate how soon they would rule on , but some of their questions and remarks hinted at how they might decide the case.<\/p>\n

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson said she sees no evidence to support the Pentagon\u2019s determination that Anthropic poses a supply-chain risk to national security.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, this is just a spectacular overreach by the (Defense) Department,\u201d said Henderson, who was nominated by Republican President George H. W. Bush.<\/p>\n

Judge Neomi Rao, who was nominated by Republican President Donald Trump, questioned what basis the court could have for second-guessing Hegseth\u2019s judgment. The Pentagon\u2019s dispute with Anthropic centers on how AI technology can be used in fully autonomous weapons and potential surveillance of Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take the secretary to be making more general points than the ones that you\u2019ve identified,\u201d Rao told Anthropic attorney Kelly Dunbar. \u201cIt\u2019s about risk, and they say, \u2018Well, based on what we know, we can\u2019t trust that the (AI) model may not have something embedded within it that is going to create a problem for military capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthropic filed lawsuits in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco after the Pentagon designated the San Francisco-based company as a supply chain risk and Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using its technology. Anthropic claims the Pentagon is illegally retaliating against it by stigmatizing it with a designation meant to protect against sabotage of national security systems by foreign adversaries.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Anthropic says neither lawsuit seeks to force the government to contract with the company. But it claims that it has been irreparably harmed by Hegseth\u2019s supply-chain risk designation.<\/p>\n

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Earlier this month, the D.C. circuit rejected Anthropic\u2019s request for an order that would have blocked the Pentagon\u2019s actions while the company\u2019s appeal is pending.<\/p>\n

In a separate but related case, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled in Anthropic\u2019s favor last month and blocked the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a supply-chain risk.<\/p>\n

In a court filing ahead of Tuesday\u2019s hearing in Washington, Anthropic said it can\u2019t manipulate its AI tool Claude once it is deployed in classified Pentagon military networks.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

But a Justice Department attorney, Sharon Swingle, told the D.C. Circuit judges that Anthropic clearly has the ability to interfere with the Pentagon\u2019s usage of the company\u2019s AI model \u201cfor critical military operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s undisputed that the failure of the model in active military operations could have catastrophic national-security consequences and put service members\u2019 lives at risk,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dunbar said Hegseth\u2019s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk \u201cdefied congressionally mandated procedures, exceeded statutory limits and violated the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time ever, the secretary turned a powerful national security authority against an American company, and he did so to gain leverage in a contract dispute,\u201d Dunbar said.<\/p>\n

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Judge Gregory Katsas, another Trump nominee, also heard Tuesday\u2019s arguments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A panel of appellate judges appears to be divided over a legal dispute between the Pentagon and Anthropic. The AI technology company claims Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unlawfully and falsely branded it as a national security risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-based-on-facts-either-observed-and-verified-directly-by-the-reporter-or-reported-and-verified-from-knowledgeable-sources","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAppeals court judges appear to be divided over Pentagon\u2019s legal dispute with AI company Anthropic - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7906\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Appeals court judges appear to be divided over Pentagon\u2019s legal dispute with AI company Anthropic - Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A panel of appellate judges appears to be divided over a legal dispute between the Pentagon and Anthropic. 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