Pentagon's National Security Ruling on Anthropic AI Under Scrutiny Again
Key Summary
Anthropic has petitioned the full US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to revisit a September ruling that designated the AI company as a national security risk, citing concerns over due process and First Amendment issues. The designation has barred Pentagon personnel and contractors from using Anthropic's AI technology, including the Claude model.
What Anthropic is asking for
The filing is a petition for rehearing en banc. That is the legal term for asking every active judge on the court to weigh in, rather than leaving the final word to the panel that heard the case.The panel majority found ample support for the designation and pointed to the possibility that Anthropic's model restrictions could constrain military operations.
Judge Henderson dissented from the majority's decision.
Anthropic's petition argues the panel got the law wrong. According to the filing, the court moved ahead without properly grappling with the due process and First Amendment questions raised by the Pentagon's actions.
How a contract dispute became a security designation
The fight traces back to early 2026. Anthropic and the Pentagon were negotiating over military applications of the company's AI, and those talks stalled.When the discussions collapsed, the Trump administration escalated. It labeled Anthropic a national security risk, a significant and unprecedented move against a domestic AI firm.
Anthropic has also been fighting on a second front. In August 2026, Judge Rita Lin of a California district court ruled that related Pentagon actions amounted to unlawful retaliation against Anthropic's public positions on AI safety.
That decision, issued August 27, characterized the government's conduct as unconstitutional retaliatory measures.
So the company now holds a win in California and a loss in Washington. The two courts examined connected government conduct and reached rather different places.
What this means
For Anthropic, the immediate issue is access. As long as the designation stands, the Defense Department and its contractor network cannot use Claude.The en banc petition is an attempt to reset that outcome without going straight to the Supreme Court. If the full D.C. Circuit agrees to rehear the case, the September panel ruling could be reconsidered from scratch.
Anthropic's petition leans directly on the gap between national security deference and constitutional protections, arguing that the panel skipped the First Amendment and due process issues.
The next step is the court's decision on whether to grant the petition. If it does, the full D.C. Circuit will have to decide whether national security deference or constitutional protections should carry more weight.
If it declines, the panel ruling stands in that circuit, leaving two federal courts with sharply different views of the same government campaign against an AI company.