THE DAILY EDITION · 25 SEPTEMBER 2026
Appeals court upholds military exclusion of Anthropic’s Claude
Why this story?
The ruling upholds Claude’s exclusion from the military supply chain after Anthropic refused to relax restrictions on autonomous warfare and domestic surveillance.
A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on September 25 rejected Anthropic’s challenge to the military’s exclusion of Claude from its supply chain. The majority upheld the action under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act and rejected the company’s constitutional claims.
The dispute arose after Anthropic refused to relax contractual prohibitions on using Claude for lethal autonomous warfare or domestic surveillance. Writing for the majority, Judge Katsas said the department had ample support for treating Claude’s continued integration into its systems, including use by contractors, as a national-security risk.
The majority pointed to restrictions encoded into Claude that had prevented it from performing tasks requested by government users. It also cited a dispute over whether Anthropic’s contract restrictions barred use in an ongoing overseas military operation, leaving the department uncertain whether the model would perform as intended.
The court rejected Anthropic’s due-process claim, saying the department had given it notice, explained the exclusion and provided a fair opportunity to contest it. It also rejected the First Amendment claim: the majority attributed the exclusion to a disagreement over contract terms, rather than Anthropic’s advocacy for greater government regulation of AI.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented over the statute’s definition of a supply-chain risk. She argued that the term referring to manipulation should be read in the context of sabotage and other intentionally subversive conduct. The majority accepted a broader interpretation that did not depend on purpose or motive.