The Trump administration is defending its position that blacklisting Anthropic as a government vendor is justified and within the bounds of the law.
Last week, Anthropic sued the US government after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the firm a “supply-chain risk to national security” designation and President Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using its AI models.
Anthropic claims that its refusal to allow its AI systems to be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons was met with retaliation that violated the First and Fifth Amendments.
In a filing with the US District Court for the Northern District of California, the government says it is well within its authority to blacklist Anthropic and did not violate the firm’s First Amendment rights.
“The refusal is conduct, not speech. Anthropic says that agreeing to the Government’s contractual term would be against its ‘mission to advance the safe and beneficial development and use of AI.’
But Anthropic was free to reject DoW’s term for that reason, and it did, along with the reason that agreeing to the term would be bad for business…
Because the Government unquestionably has authority ‘to determine those with whom it will deal, and to fix the terms and conditions upon which it will make needed purchases,’ it makes no sense to suggest that the Government risks a First Amendment violation every time it rejects a vendor’s contractual term.”
As for Anthropic’s claim that the Trump administration violated the Fifth Amendment, the government says the firm has failed to show that it has been deprived of a protected liberty or property interest.
“And even if it had, Anthropic still has the opportunity to receive any process it is due by seeking agency reconsideration, not to mention that it is already pursuing this litigation. Anthropic also fails to establish that it is likely to suffer an irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief or that the balance of equities favors emergency relief. Anthropic’s claims of harm—mostly centering on its potential loss of business are speculative and legally insufficient to constitute irreparable injury.”
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