Appeals Court Rules Pentagon Can Blacklist Anthropic: When AI Safety Guardrails Became a “National Security Risk”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 on September 25 that the Pentagon lawfully blacklisted AI startup Anthropic as a national security supply chain risk. Anthropic was banned from military contracts after refusing to remove Claude’s safety guardrails — the company would not allow its AI to power autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance. The court’s majority held that the restrictions encoded into the model are themselves the security risk, rejecting Anthropic’s retaliation claim. The decision hands sweeping power to the executive branch to tag even U.S. companies as supply chain risks. Anthropic says the blacklist has cost billions ahead of its IPO and is weighing en banc review.
