AIBRIEF
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said the record has 'in some ways' gotten worse for the government since it blacklisted the AI company over a dispute about red lines for autonomous weapons without human oversight and surveillance of Americans.
A judge told a federal court Tuesday that she is unpersuaded by the Pentagon's case for keeping the company on a "supply-chain risk" blacklist, according to Axios courtroom reporting summarized by Gizmodo.
"I don't see additional evidence from the government really justifying what it did," the judge said from the bench, per Axios. "If anything, it seems like the record, in some ways, has gotten worse for the government."
The dispute began earlier in 2026, when the company refused a Defense Department demand that its models be usable for "all lawful purposes." The lab asked for redlines excluding autonomous weapons without humans in the loop and surveillance of U.S. citizens. The Pentagon refused. It then labeled the company a supply-chain risk, a procurement tag normally reserved for foreign adversaries, forcing the rest of the federal government to stop doing business with the company.
The judge also rejected a Pentagon theory that the company could tamper with delivered models, saying she saw no evidence the lab "could alter the model after it was delivered or flip some kind of kill switch."
The case, Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War, is now at the merits stage. A Lawfare hearing diary and BBC reporting have tracked the litigation. A final ruling has not been issued.