A panel of appellate judges appeared divided on Tuesday over a legal dispute between the Pentagon and technology company Anthropic, which claims Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth unlawfully branded it a national security risk for raising ethical concerns about AI in warfare.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, nominated by Republican President George H. W. Bush, said she saw no evidence to support the Pentagon's determination that Anthropic posed a supply-chain risk. “To me, this is just a spectacular overreach by the (Defence) Department,” she said.
However, Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump nominee, questioned the court's basis for second-guessing Hegseth's judgment. “I take the secretary to be making more general points... It's about risk,” she told Anthropic's attorney.
Anthropic filed lawsuits after the Pentagon designated it a supply-chain risk and President Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using its technology. The company claims the Pentagon is illegally retaliating against it for raising safety concerns about AI in autonomous weapons and surveillance.
Justice Department attorney Sharon Swingle argued that Anthropic could interfere with the Pentagon's use of its AI model “for critical military operations,” noting that failure could have “catastrophic national-security consequences.” Anthropic's attorney Kelly Dunbar countered that the designation “defied congressionally mandated procedures, exceeded statutory limits and violated the Constitution.”
The court did not indicate when it would rule on Anthropic's appeal. A separate federal judge in San Francisco has already blocked the Pentagon from labelling Anthropic as a supply-chain risk.
