2 ms·

> The government is the one that said it didn't want/couldn't use this Technically, the Pentagon did. I don’t know if that’s legally binding on the NSA.

jeremyjh 7mo ago
TFA says the NSA is part of the DOD.
- rsfern 7mo ago
  It is, but NSA reports to the director of national intelligence, not the defense secretary, so it’s unclear (to me at least) that SecDef’s opinion of Anthropic counts for anything here I guess DOD is large enough they have multiple parallel cabinet level positions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency
  - derektank 7mo ago
    It’s not as clear as that. The NSA director is also, traditionally, dual-hatted as the Commander of CYBERCOM and thus a flag officer reporting ultimately to the SecDef. The DNI is responsible for coordinating/funding national intelligence activities but ultimately a lot of day to day operational decision making tends to flow through the pentagon. They would definitely need to abide by DoD policy
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > They would definitely need to abide by DoD policy The policy in question is a statement by SecDef being reviewed by courts. I think it’s fair to ask whether DNI is actually constrained by that, or if it’s a judgement call.
tren_hard 7mo ago
I work for a completely unrelated fed agency, who doesn’t use Anthropic products, and we all received the email stating we couldn’t use them period.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  Huh, does supply-chain risk mean SecDef can bar a company from all federal contracting?
  - tren_hard 7mo ago
    I have no idea but this went out to all fed agencies from what I could tell looking at the subreddit for fed employees. I was surprised by the notice because my agency does not have a contract with them and obviously we can’t just use any LLM provider.
  - pixl97 7mo ago
    Correct. And this quickly expands out into most companies in the US as the federal government uses and buys a huge amount of software. A component that you make and sell to X, that is used in Y, which is bundled up in Z that had Anthropic used on it can't be used by the fed.gov.

jeremyjh 7mo ago

TFA says the NSA is part of the DOD.

rsfern 7mo ago
It is, but NSA reports to the director of national intelligence, not the defense secretary, so it’s unclear (to me at least) that SecDef’s opinion of Anthropic counts for anything here I guess DOD is large enough they have multiple parallel cabinet level positions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency
- derektank 7mo ago
  It’s not as clear as that. The NSA director is also, traditionally, dual-hatted as the Commander of CYBERCOM and thus a flag officer reporting ultimately to the SecDef. The DNI is responsible for coordinating/funding national intelligence activities but ultimately a lot of day to day operational decision making tends to flow through the pentagon. They would definitely need to abide by DoD policy
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > They would definitely need to abide by DoD policy The policy in question is a statement by SecDef being reviewed by courts. I think it’s fair to ask whether DNI is actually constrained by that, or if it’s a judgement call.

tren_hard 7mo ago

I work for a completely unrelated fed agency, who doesn’t use Anthropic products, and we all received the email stating we couldn’t use them period.

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
Huh, does supply-chain risk mean SecDef can bar a company from all federal contracting?
- tren_hard 7mo ago
  I have no idea but this went out to all fed agencies from what I could tell looking at the subreddit for fed employees. I was surprised by the notice because my agency does not have a contract with them and obviously we can’t just use any LLM provider.
- pixl97 7mo ago
  Correct. And this quickly expands out into most companies in the US as the federal government uses and buys a huge amount of software. A component that you make and sell to X, that is used in Y, which is bundled up in Z that had Anthropic used on it can't be used by the fed.gov.