Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
,
Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development
,
Standards, Regulations & Compliance
Both Parties Urge Judges Not to Throw Out Lawsuit

The U.S. Department of Defense denied an administrative request by artificial intelligence giant Anthropic to reconsider its blacklisting on national security grounds, federal attorneys disclosed in a Thursday court filing.
See Also: Securing AI Workloads With Ubuntu Pro
Anthropic is suing the department in U.S. federal appeals court after the department in early March designated the firm a supply-chain risk. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth blacklisted the company after talks collapsed between Anthropic and defense officials. Anthropic sought limits on using its Claude model for domestic surveillance and in autonomous weapons. Although Hegseth invoked emergency powers to put the designation into effect immediately, he also gave military agencies six months to phase out use of Claude models.
Whether or not Anthropic first asked the Pentagon to reconsider the designation through administrative channels has the potential to derail the lawsuit. A three judge panel demanded in late May to know whether the AI firm may have acted prematurely by suing rather than letting an administrative appeals process play out. According to federal attorneys, Anthropic did request that Hegseth review the blacklisting, but did so in an April 17 missive sent to the wrong email account.
Federal attorneys told the judges that “the secretary has now denied that reconsideration request and reaffirmed his original conclusions.”
That should make the matter moot, federal attorneys argued. “Because the parties and the court have already invested substantial resources in this case and because the secretary has now acted on the reconsideration request, prudential considerations weigh against dismissing the petition,” they wrote.
News that Hegseth didn’t change his mind may come as a surprise to Anthropic, whose attorneys told the court in a separate filing that “Anthropic hopes the secretary will rescind his designation” and that the firm was willing to hit pause on litigation for 45 days in order for the secretary to reconsider.
Anthropic also urged the court not to throw out the lawsuit as premature, arguing that, in any case, when it emailed the Pentagon in April, it sought “recession, not reconsideration.” That is, it asked the secretary of defense to overthrow a legally-reviewable decision rather than to change his mind, and so judges shouldn’t invoke the judicial doctrine against premature lawsuits.
A majority of the three judge panel that heard oral arguments in Washington, D.C., in May appeared disposed to allowing Hegseth to proceed with the designation (see: Judges Clash Over Pentagon’s Anthropic Ban).
