The U.S. Department of Defense filed a 40-page brief in a California federal court Tuesday arguing that Anthropic poses an “unacceptable risk to national security,” its first formal rebuttal to the AI company’s lawsuits challenging a Pentagon decision to label it a supply-chain risk.
The department’s central concern is that Anthropic might “attempt to disable its technology or preemptively alter the behavior of its model” during “warfighting operations” if the company “feels that its corporate ‘red lines’ are being crossed,” according to the filing.
The dispute stems from a $200 million contract Anthropic signed with the Pentagon last summer to deploy its technology within classified systems. During follow-on negotiations, the company said it did not want its systems used for mass surveillance of Americans and maintained the technology was not ready for targeting or firing decisions involving lethal weapons. The Pentagon’s position was that a private company should not dictate how the military uses contracted technology.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk last month. The company subsequently sued, accusing the department of violating its First Amendment rights and retaliating against it on ideological grounds. As part of those complaints, Anthropic asked the court to temporarily block enforcement of the label.
No Investigation, Lawyer Says
Chris Mattei, a former Justice Department attorney specializing in First Amendment issues, said no investigation supports the DOD’s scenario of Anthropic disabling or altering its models mid-operation. Without that foundation, he argued, the department cannot coherently explain how a negotiating position makes a contractor an “adversary.”
“The government is relying completely on conjectural, speculative imaginings to justify a very, very serious legal step they’ve taken against Anthropic,” Mattei said.
He also said the filing failed to “articulate a credible or even comprehensible rationale for why Anthropic’s refusal to agree to an ‘all lawful use’ provision rendered it a supply chain risk as opposed to a vendor that DOD simply didn’t want to do business with.”
Critics of the Pentagon’s approach — including tech employees from OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, as well as legal rights organizations — have filed amicus briefs in support of Anthropic, with several arguing the department could have simply ended the contract rather than impose a national security designation.
Retaliation Claim
Mattei went further, suggesting the government’s own arguments undercut its case. “In many ways, the government’s nonsensical arguments are themselves the best evidence that the administration’s conduct was plainly a retaliatory punishment for Anthropic’s refusal to agree to the government’s terms, which, contrary to the government’s brief, is a form of protected expression,” he said.
A hearing on Anthropic’s request for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for next Tuesday. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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