The Pentagon's ban on Anthropic just got thrown out by a federal judge who called it exactly what it looked like: retaliation dressed up as security.
A federal judge ruled that the Defense Department's block on Anthropic was illegal and baseless, rejecting the Pentagon's national security rationale outright. In the ruling, the judge wrote that "the empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics." The decision voids the ban and leaves the Pentagon needing a better explanation for why it targeted Anthropic in the first place. That kind of language, from a federal bench, is unusually blunt for what is normally dry procedural territory.
This isn't just an Anthropic problem. It's a test case for how courts treat national security when it's used as a catch-all excuse against an AI company whose politics or public statements annoy an administration. A ruling this direct gives other AI labs facing informal government pressure a legal roadmap for pushing back.
Governments love invoking national security. Courts, apparently, are starting to ask for receipts.