Anthropic has strong case against Pentagon blacklisting, legal experts say(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Anthropic has strong case against Pentagon blacklisting, legal experts say
https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/anthropic-has-strong-case-against-pentagon-blacklisting-legal-experts-say-2026-03-11/
12 comments
The thing is with mob tactics none of this matters. Who cares if it’s illegal what they did? They just go to another company and say hey if you want this government contract, you can’t work with them. I’m sure they might sue but after a year or two of the case going, who knows what other damage has been done when you don’t follow the rule of law or are bound to it having a judgment against you is meaningless.
The weird thing about that is that those sort of mob tactics work by being indirect. You hint that you're not a big fan of Company X, you waggle your eyebrows at the guy who approves contracts, he denies the contract for some made up bullshit, and everybody understands the message.
Here, the administration sucks at pulling this off. They say the quiet part out loud. The law is frequently "the administration can do whatever it wants with whatever made up process it wants, you just can't say that you're going after them because you don't like their speech," and then the President tweets "I am hereby banning company X because, and only because, I don't care for their speech."
Here, the administration sucks at pulling this off. They say the quiet part out loud. The law is frequently "the administration can do whatever it wants with whatever made up process it wants, you just can't say that you're going after them because you don't like their speech," and then the President tweets "I am hereby banning company X because, and only because, I don't care for their speech."
I don't see how they "suck at pulling this off." They dunk, and they dunk, and they dunk, and...
Nobody who cares to stop them has any power, and nobody who has any power cares.
Nobody who cares to stop them has any power, and nobody who has any power cares.
That's not really the case. Things often fail to work out for them after everyone gets bored and wanders off. Like when he tried to dunk of the law firms. Sure, lots of them capitulated immediately, but the ones who stuck it out and sued had slam dunk cases that they easily won. This may be fine for Trump and co, after all their goal is usually headline and spur-of-the-moment decision, and they don't face any penalties when it falls apart later, but it does mean that folks often do beat them just by sticking with it for long enough.
You don't understand. He's a narcissist. He 'wins' when his name appears in a headline.
When he loses a case, the worst thing that ever happens is that we, the taxpayers, pick up the tab. It doesn't affect him at all, or discourage him from trying again. Because as you say yourself, it is seldom actually about winning and losing in court; instead, it is about rolling rocks downhill at his enemy and garnering publicity in the process.
When he wins, well, he wins, and the newspapers have to say so.
As for your last point, you cannot win a war of endurance against a guy who gets to use US DOJ as his own personal law firm, and whose cases are often tried by judges he appointed himself. You might not lose, but you aren't going to win.
When he loses a case, the worst thing that ever happens is that we, the taxpayers, pick up the tab. It doesn't affect him at all, or discourage him from trying again. Because as you say yourself, it is seldom actually about winning and losing in court; instead, it is about rolling rocks downhill at his enemy and garnering publicity in the process.
When he wins, well, he wins, and the newspapers have to say so.
As for your last point, you cannot win a war of endurance against a guy who gets to use US DOJ as his own personal law firm, and whose cases are often tried by judges he appointed himself. You might not lose, but you aren't going to win.
It’s not all about the government contract itself. By being labeled a supply chain risk, other companies cannot use Anthropic products if they want to work with the government. So it’s worth having that distinction by a judge, even if it takes some time to get it.
Cannot use Anthropic products when doing work for the government- not in general.
But yes, otherwise you’re correct.
But yes, otherwise you’re correct.
I think honestly this has helped more than hurt Anthropic from a PR and marketing perspective. Sure it was a huge contract no doubt and obviously the government knows how good Claude is, but I applaud them for sticking to their guns. Despite Anthropic making some questionable choices (for example even though they announced it, saying that they will start training on user data starting last year unless you explicitly opt out was a bit out if left field for them among other things), it must have been some crazy stuff they were asking to do.
It's all a bit hyped up for the media though. It's like saying a rapist is good but a murder is bad. Both are bad, you can argue either way but ultimiately both OpenAI, Anthropic and likely Google will enable/disable whatever systems to allow killing humans if it means they get a big check from the US Gov.
Anthropic has let its system kill humans, although it happened in a roundabout way which in my opinion, doesn't dissolve their responsibility.
"A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision".
The fact we are drifting away from this every day scares me.
Anthropic has let its system kill humans, although it happened in a roundabout way which in my opinion, doesn't dissolve their responsibility.
"A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision".
The fact we are drifting away from this every day scares me.
I understand what you're saying, it's incredible technology and I use it everyday in my work, but we are too busy racing to one up each other and ignoring the critical safety components, which is extremely dangerous and irresponsible. Even Anthropic to your point, was supposed to be the safer AI company when they started out, but they continue to move away from that path slowly. The problem is the cat's out of the bag and people won't stop now unless something terrible happens. Question is, how bad of an event will it be?
Here are all the quotes, from the article:
> "It's not at all clear that the statute can even apply to an American company where there's no foreign entanglement,"
> "These are basically safety protocols. You can debate whether these protocols are acceptable or not, but they run directly counter to the risk that the law is designed to regulate
> "A lot of things Hegseth has said and the Pentagon has done undermine their case and suggest there was personal animus and bad blood between the parties, and that the Pentagon had it out for Anthropic,
> The government was simultaneously threatening to use the (Defense Production Act) to force Anthropic to sell its services, using its services in active military operations, and saying it's too dangerous to use them in government contracts, ... Not all of these things can be true
Authors description:
> Jack Queen covers major lawsuits against the Trump administration involving urgent questions of executive power and how their resolution could affect the law and the legal profession in the years to come.