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Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal
https://archive.ph/ni6I3 https://archive.ph/ni6I3
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.465515/gov.uscourts.cand.465515.250.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.46...
- hingler36 1mo agoAt this point, does precedent even matter? Based on recent rulings, I feel like this exact scenario could play out again and the result would be the exact same.
- bushido 1mo agoIt was a master stroke in international politics though, the US created an arms race towards sovereign ai, small models, and self-hosting - exactly like they wanted to. (sarcasm intended)
- dboreham 1mo agoSimilarly the war created unstoppable momentum towards decarbonization.
- newsomix9xl 1mo agoWill Trump go down as one of the greatest environmentalists... ever?
- gonesilent 1mo agoThe windmill guys sure are happy with their paid off investment and now selling all the windmill orders back to China
- angry_octet 1mo agoThe Iran war and SoH crisis has been great for EV uptake outside of the US. In combination with the US AI apartheid, it has been a huge boost for Chinese EVs and Chinese AI adoption.
- bruce511 1mo agoAnd trade. The last 18 months the US has shown itself to be a unreliable trade partner. Lots of companies are looking at diversifying both markets and supply chains. The recent trip of the Canadian PM to China is but the most visible part of this shift. That's at govt level, but I've seen it happen all the way down to individual level. US products are typically more expensive here than Chinese. But at least you were buying from a friendly supplier. That distinction is eroding quickly. In my experience it's forced people to try Chinese, and generally been surprised (in a good way) over quality and features. And yes, the price of oil has focused people much more at the EV market. (Not least because people with an EV already aren't shy about gloating). Pretty much everyone I talk to, who would buy a car "new" tells me their next one will be electric. The tipping point is coming much faster than most people think.
- newsomix9xl 1mo agoI doubt the Canadians want their economy flooded with Chinese goods ("dumping" - selling goods at less than cost) - which destroys local industry. This was predicted in The Economist awhile back, that if the US blocked Chinese imports a tsunami of Chinese goods would flood other countries and now it's happening. Those countries will also, in turn, erect trade barriers, or suffer the devastation that massive Chinese dumping causes. So it's a nice protest gesture, but it's a cutting off your nose to spite your face gesture.
- inigyou 1mo agoOh no! Cheap goods and services! Maybe some other governments will be smart enough to not let a massive influx of nearly free stuff make everyone materially worse off. In fact it seems like only a completely idiotic system would make people worse off for having more free stuff.
- rozal 1mo agooh no, lost jobs and and dying economy!
- SwtCyber 1mo agoTruly a flawless strategy: convince every government and large company on earth that depending on US-hosted AI is a geopolitical risk.
- firefoxd 1mo agoThe law is too slow. It's like a horse carriage in the age of twitter. Why can't they expedite for special cases? Not even defending Antropic or any company. Just that if a tweet can cause damage in seconds, the law shouldn't be too far behind.
- physicalecon 1mo agoLaw was not in effect yet, and now it’s repealed. Cest la vie.
- inigyou 1mo agoThe law is normally supposed to repay whatever damage you suffered while the law was running.
- MBCook 1mo agoWhat would that even be in a case like this?
- valleyer 1mo agoAnthropic would estimate (and provide justification of) how much lost income (and perhaps brand equity, opportunity cost, etc.) it suffered as a result of the government's actions, and the judge would consider it and decide.
- MBCook 1mo agoI know that’s how it works. How could they possibly estimate that in this specific case.
- vkou 1mo agoGenerally, one side would come up with their idea of the number and state their reasoning, the other side would do the same, and the judge looks at their reasoning and decides what makes sense. This requires a lot of work to estimate and reason and argue and adjudicate, you're not going to get a napkin math answer on an internet forum.
- judgeizgw 1mo ago[dead]
- judgeizgw 1mo ago[dead]
- Arubis 1mo agoJudge rules horse must return to barn.
- skeledrew 1mo ago> unlawfully retaliated Can it be at all lawful to retaliate though?
- protocolture 1mo agoThere was a guy in the comments of the first article on this topic, who claimed to be an expert on this law and was adamant that the decision by the Trump admin was perfectly legal. Not just for accountability sake, but if that gentleman could come back in here and outline what he thinks is going on that would be quite interesting.
- swingboy 1mo agoIt’s possible this could go before multiple judges who won’t all agree with this particular one.
- goatlover 1mo agoIt's also possible the Trump admin has people commenting online.
- bruce511 1mo agoThey don't need to be part of the administration. More than 50% of voters voted for Trump. Even today >30% (of everyone) think he's doing a good job. (Ie about equal to the voters in absolute number terms). Lots of people believe eat he is doing is legal simply because he is doing it.
- trimethylpurine 1mo agoI don't agree. When anthropic contractually stopped the US government from using the platform for certain purposes that they could not prevent the average user from pursuing they created a de facto national security risk. Prevent everyone from doing it or don't prevent anyone. You can't single out and cripple only one country. I don't imagine that this was Anthropic's intent anyway. They were just trying to say that it shouldn't be used for warfare. Respectable, but short sighted considering that they couldn't stop other people from using it for that same purpose.
- qotgalaxy 1mo ago[dead]
- dosisking 1mo ago> When anthropic contractually stopped the US government from using the platform for certain purposes that they could not prevent the average user from pursuing they created a de facto national security risk. The 'national security risk' is imaginary and exists solely in the minds of the government morons in charge of AI policy
- trimethylpurine 1mo agoBro, we know the US government is using it as a weapon because they told us! That is national security.
- techblueberry 1mo agoYou’re free to not agree with the law but you should know sometimes there are consequences for acting on that belief.
- trimethylpurine 1mo ago[flagged]
- doginasuit 1mo ago> When anthropic contractually stopped the US government from using the platform for certain purposes that they could not prevent the average user from pursuing they created a de facto national security risk. Anthropic had two red lines: 1) no lethal autonomous warfare without a human in the loop, and 2) no mass surveillance of Americans. How is that something the average user is capable of? How are those red lines creating a national security risk? These were not special terms for the U.S. government, they were a part of the usage policy since 2024. Governments are not in the same class as the average user, their capability and potential for misuse of the service is not comparable. There is no reason why the U.S. government should dispute those terms, and their reaction was dystopian.
- replwoacause 1mo agoMost of what Trump does is illegal.
- darig 1mo ago[dead]
- ButlerianJihad 1mo agoA lot of what the President does is ineffectual. And this is speaking with generality, including Presidents Obama, Biden, Clinton, et. al. The modern method of "ruling by Executive Order/Action" is a clever political ruse. It garners a lot of attention to decree an EO on some wedge issue, doesn't it? It stirs the pot quite effectively, even if the EO isn't, in fact, effective to do anything at all. Ruling by EO is a way to keep campaign promises. It's a way to assuage constituents and donors and benefactors, "hey, I'm doing what you wanted from me!" and it's a way to keep ahold of the narrative. What it isn't, is effective governance. The USA is not ruled by decree. The EOs, if they are on subjects that are normally the remit of the judicial or legislative branch, may not do much, if anything at all. The President can say he's meddling with the national budget; the media can say he's meddling; the citizens can all complain that he's meddling, but only Congress can actually do budgetary things. The "#nokings" protests are attacking a straw man, because the USA has no king indeed. We uphold the Constitution in this house. A lot of EOs simply get blocked or countermanded or never take effect, and remain as Presidential Suggestions or Presidential Wishful Thinking entirely. And nobody notices when they fizzle: they only notice when the pen hits paper and they supposedly take effect. They fulfill his promises. They galvanize the base. They assuage benefactors. Don't be fooled, though. Ruling by EO is simply another layer of lawfare. It's not effective governance and it's not intended to be. It's intended to confuse and beguile you. What is it that Sun Tzu and Saul Alinsky said about having power? Check on that first.
- digi59404 1mo agoInteresting. I wonder how those who were laid off by the Government feel about this. Or those who are harmed by ICE Agents. Maybe those who are stuck in limbo because their visas aren’t going to be renewed. You’re point about /effective/ governance makes sense. To that I agree, often the EOs are overturned or have little affect. However, the damage EOs cause is very real, lasting, and can be disastrous. For example Trumps tariffs, while ineffective at their (stated) goal, were eventually overturned. But the damage they caused will be very long lasting. Supply chains are organic, they respond to outside forces, when those forces cause them to shift and change. Rarely do they on their own shift back.
- thinkcontext 1mo agoGood for Anthropic for standing up for themselves but think of the masses of companies that decided not to take the risk. The tone was definitely set at Trump's inauguration with all the tech execs front and center on display. They knew that if they didn't play ball Trump would use government power against them. Law firms blackmailed into doing pro bono work for Trump's pet causes, intelligence analysts not able to tell the truth, energy companies giving up wind leases and switching to fossil fuels. And of course the constant shakedowns for cash.
- solenoid0937 1mo agoIt's a shame companies like Google immediately folded instead of standing with them. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iKm2FhpWkuuBojm82/why-i-left-google-deepmind https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iKm2FhpWkuuBojm82/why-i-left... In his recent interview Emil Michael (DoW undersecretary, "AI czar") even mentions that the Anthropic case served as motivation for Google folding. It is a shame that Google's leadership is so spineless. On the minuscule off-chance any of those VPs are reading HN - you are bad and you should feel shame for increasing x-risk for a percentage point of profit.
- newsomix9xl 1mo agoDidn't google give up "not being evil" a long long time ago? Are you really surprised?
- solenoid0937 1mo agoJust because you expect someone to do a bad thing doesn't mean you shouldn't shame them when they actually do the bad thing.
- UncleMeat 1mo agoGoogle does plenty of evil. This has nothing to do with the slogan. "Don't be evil" was never removed. But even if it was, the idea that Google just was champing at the bit to do all this evil but was held back by the pesky slogan is ridiculous.
- glerk 1mo agoNo fine imposed on the Trump Administration corporation (doing business as the federal government of the US of A)? Does the current legal system allow Anthropic to sue for loss of revenue, reputational damage, etc.?
- hingler36 1mo agoEven if they are stuck with a fine, who enforces the fine? What's stopping them from just... Not paying it?
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- bamboozled 1mo agoSo what if it’s illegal, what can be done about it, the corruption is so extreme there will be no recourse. I hope I’m wrong…
- hirvi74 1mo agoYou're not wrong. The United States has a legal system and not a justice system. Having spent many years of my life involved 'adjacently' with the system, I'd say it's actually a rigged, sadistic system.
- theshrike79 1mo agoWhat the current regime has brought to light is that WAY too much of the American "checks and balances" are based on "trust me bro" and "a person with morals just wouldn't do that". Zero penalties for doing the wrong thing. People can just go in front of a congressional hearing and ... lie. Just plain faced bold provable lies. Nobody can call them a liar because of The Code, but there's also no penalty for them for lying, zero.
- bamboozled 1mo agoWhat system successfully combats this though? The only hope I think we have is education, good education so children have a brain and know when people are lying. For me it's not the lies that are the problem in politics, it's the massive number of people that believe the lies.
- SmarsJerry 1mo ago[flagged]
- frog42 1mo agoSo can they now sue the government and recoup their inflated theoretical losses to be paid out of tax revenue? It feels like any outcome here will have no negative effect on the major players actually involved.
- dools 1mo agos/out of tax revenue/with public money/ This is the federal government. When they collect taxes it is the minus operation that corresponds to the plus operation when they spent it initially.
- nullc 1mo agoIf they what they missed out on was selling the government tokens at a loss ... do they now have to pay the government the value of what they would have lost? :P
- sb057 1mo agoThere are several hundred federal judges, and cases like this can be brought before virtually any of them. As a consequence at least one judge has ruled practically every single action by the Trump administration is illegal. These rulings are typically overturn at some point in the appeals process up to the Supreme Court, which has mostly upheld them as legal.
- dools 1mo ago> As a consequence at least one judge has ruled practically every single action by the Trump administration is illegal. Because he is a shameless crook who heads up a corrupt administration > These rulings are typically overturn at some point in the appeals process up to the Supreme Court, which has mostly upheld them as legal. Gee I wonder why that is!!
- jghn 1mo agoSince SCOTUS is stacked, it really doesn't matter.
- cubefox 1mo agoNote that this is a ruling on (just) one of two independent lawsuits, as stated in the article.
- perarneng 1mo agoDoes anything matter if it's illegal or not when it comes to the current government? This is not a flamewar im interested from a practical perspective if things like this has any effects at all in practice.
- dannyw 1mo agoYes, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in Maryland, as one example.
- ncr100 1mo agoIDK. I'm seeing the gov capitalize on the lag time of the US judicial system reacting authoritatively to illegal gov behavior. To me this is a continuation of a Win At All Costs strategy.
- bpodgursky 1mo agoIt de-risks defense contractors working with Anthropic on other projects. The most aggressive interpretation of the blacklist is that Lockheed Martin was not allowed to use Anthropic to develop their own products, and that's not on the table anymore.
- SmarsJerry 1mo agoGovernment has three branches for this reason, so yes everything matters if it is illegal.
- perarneng 1mo agowhat are the potential consequences then
- ExoticPearTree 1mo agoBefore bashing Trump for not liking Anthropic, people should consider the consequences of having the judiciary decide what software companies the government can and cannot use. You might get a petty win against the current administration, but lose big when next time a judge decides that $random_department must use Oracle for ERP and not SAP for example because Oracle has better lawyers and wants money from the government. You get the idea.
- Arodex 1mo agoMaybe read about the case and the reasoning of the judge before saying things that aren't pertinent. "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics"
- ExoticPearTree 1mo agoWhat I said is pertinent: Anthropic refusing to build software for autonomous weapons platforms is a national security issue. They have the capability, but they just don't want to do it because they don't feel like it. Soldiers don't need to die because a company is stubborn.
- Arodex 1mo ago>because they don't feel like it Your argument would be more reasonable if you didn't handwave genuine and difficult moral and ethical decisions under those dismissive terms. Civilians, including certainly 120 school girls, don't need to die because an AI hallucinated. Anthropic engages its responsability if their tools are used to designate targets. They have a right not to be implicated - or the Trump administration has to be open about requisitioning their tools and drafting their engineers in the name of a warm against Iran, which is another status altogether. As it stands, there is no war against Iran, especially not one approved by Congress, and the only ones putting soldiers at risk are a senile reality show conman who was elected on the explicit promise of no new wars, and his gung-ho, racist, alcoholic TV host secretary of defense.
- xiphias2 1mo agoAnthropic may win this but strategically it was just plain stupid. Mythos was blocked for just enough time for OpenAI to just catch up with Sol and get lots of enterprise customers.
- sixothree 1mo agoStrategically, America was the loser here, not Anthropic.
- xiphias2 1mo agoWe'll see, it will depend on the supreme court decision I guess. I'm quite confident the administration will bring it to higher court.
- polski-g 1mo agoMythos development was never blocked. And this case wasn't even about mythos.
- s3p 1mo agodo you think 100% of anthropic employees are citizens?
- giwook 1mo agoLike so many of this administration's actions, unfortunately...
- crassus_ed 1mo agoAs they said during Louis the 14th's reign: "Si veut le roi, si veut la loi.", which translates to the law wants what the king wants.
- bsian 1mo agoIn most modern democratic countries (I don't know about the US, since I'm European) executive and legislative branches are one and the same, so that still holds up!
- lukan 1mo agoCan you name some examples?
- bsian 1mo agoAll parliamentary democracies. If you have the majority, you can’t even be removed through a vote of no confidence.
- rootusrootus 1mo agoBut you have a head of state who can, in theory, remove the head of government at their own discretion, right? In the US the head of state and the head of government are the same person.
- wasabi991011 1mo agoYes in theory, the King Charles III and/or his representative the Governor General, could remove the Prime Minister, though the Governor General is chosen following advice (i.e. choice) of the Prime Minister, so I can't imagine that happening in practice.
- DannyBee 1mo agoThe opinion is quite straightforward, and the evidence on the government's side was entirely nonsense, essentially. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.465515/gov.uscourts.cand.465515.250.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.46...
- rimworld 1mo ago[dead]
- londons_explore 1mo agoPresumably this is going to lead to anthropic getting a big payday from the US gov for all the time their flagship product was banned and all the users they lost due to it
- ReptileMan 1mo agoThe case is not about that though
- harimau777 1mo agoI thought that the blacklisting was what led to them losing the business? Didn't the blacklisting effectively mean that contractors couldn't use Anthropic because it was supposedly a supply chain risk?
- simonw 1mo agoThat was a different issue from the US government preventing Anthropic from selling general access to their Fable 5 model for a few weeks.
- peri-cl 1mo agoThis is about the DoD supply chain risk designation—*not* the export controls.
- derektank 1mo ago[flagged]
- dgellow 1mo agoThe government would just not pay, similar to what trump tried with his rape verdict
- criley2 1mo agoThe government will pay because it's not his money, it's our money. He loves spending our money...
- whalesalad 1mo agoUnlawful means absolutely nothing these days.
- noir_lord 1mo agoIt's the Gish gallop applied to a legal/legislative system - it just can't keep up with the sheer volume of cases that would need to be brought to curtail even the worst of it and that's assuming that if/when it eventually gets in front of the supreme court that that "august" body actually does curtail it.
- horsawlarway 1mo agoYes - because the system is trying to prevent the flood by piling up sticks instead of removing the source of water. It's in failure mode (intentionally, is my read) because while it might eventually declare "x is not legal" at no point is it discouraging the people who did X (and have now also done y, z, 1, 2, and 3 - all also likely illegal) because there is zero actual accountability at the personal level. If your house is flooding from a broken pipe... you don't bail. You turn the water off.
- estearum 1mo agoThe problem is that courts are getting flooded but it's up to Congress (de facto the Republican party) to remove the source of water. But they're a mixture of exclusively cultists or cowards so they won't do it. They need to be charged with any and every crime they can credibly be accused of so this calculus changes in the future.
- Tangurena2 1mo agoSteve Bannon, who advised the 45 administration, called that tactic "flood the zone with shit". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone https://archive.ph/BfuVs https://archive.ph/BfuVs
- mc32 1mo agoRight, like the student debt forgiveness. We hate the ones we disagree with and we love the ones we agree with.
- small_model 1mo ago"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
- blitzar 1mo ago"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is"
- Tangurena2 1mo agoClinton, being a lawyer, asked for a definition of "sex". The definition given to him did not include oral sex. When a lawyer asks you for a definition of a word, then you are getting screwed.
- blitzar 1mo ago> then you are getting screwed depends what the definition ...
- ModernMech 1mo agoThe modern Trump version is: "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment." - Trump's legal defense during his first impeachment.
- embedding-shape 1mo agoThis is probably as a concise summary as you could get from there: > Defendants have now submitted the administrative record justifying those actions. The record is slim. A four-page memorandum, which post dates two of the three challenged actions, provides the entirety of the government’s rationale. Defendants have now backed away from the thrust of their risk assessment, which relied on Anthropic having backdoor access to its technology once deployed in a national security system. It is now clear that Anthropic undisputedly lacks any such access and that, as Defendants concede, Anthropic’s technology is itself no riskier to the national security than any other “black box” artificial intelligence model
- idiotsecant 1mo agoIt did what it was supposed to - punish an entity that dared not do what the government told them to. It doesn't matter if anthropic gets a payday out of it, the administration doesn't get hurt by that and won't learn any lessons. We need to hold individual politicians and functionaries accountable
- micromacrofoot 1mo agoAdd it to the "but no one's going to do anything about it" pile
- dude250711 1mo agoI think Anthropic will tone down the hype in their PR. So there is hope.
- solenoid0937 1mo agoAI companies no longer talking about AI risk is a good thing now?
- DaSHacka 1mo agoNo longer saying its some skynet-esque superintelligence in order to gain more relevance and mindshare in the eyes of average people is good, yes.
- solenoid0937 1mo agoI think you do not even have the faintest understanding of how good these models are getting and how quickly. It's not slowing down. That is exactly what they are building. You should make some friends at the labs to better inform yourself.
- digitaltrees 1mo agoWhen this administration is done we need to amend the constitution to hold politicians legally and financially responsible for intentionally lying and intentionally breaking the law. This was obviously illegal on its face and yet there is no consequence to pushing the norms.
- j4yav 1mo agoPresumably taxpayers will pay for it one way or the other.
- digitaltrees 1mo agoI think they get a personal financial penalty with no insurance coverage. This has to stop.
- estearum 1mo agoI don't think that'd require a Constitutional amendment, would it?
- datsci_est_2015 1mo agoLiterally the purpose of the House of Representatives, if I understand correctly. So it requires a critical mass of very local reps to care about executive accountability. Which is exactly why Project 2025 / Trumpism plays the endorsement game so heavily. Fealty.
- bell-cot 1mo agoCould you tell us why the politicians - who are the only ones who have the power to amend the Constitution - would be interested in doing that?
- watwut 1mo agoThey actually had laws supposed to act as stop guard against corruption and executive lawlessness. Supreme court systematically dismantled them. And by supreme court, I mean right wing justices specifically. Who got there thanks to their heritage foundation connections. Which made project 2025.
- CGMthrowaway 1mo ago[flagged]
- LadyCailin 1mo agoOk, let’s say I buy that. Why was Anthropic singled out?
- kridsdale1 1mo agoBecause Dario won’t say Yes Sir to the big man.
- pjc50 1mo agoEveryone is, yes, that's how rule of law works.
- MeetingsBrowser 1mo agoYou've got that warhammer 40k "innocence proves nothing" mindset.
- techneek 1mo ago"The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics."
- josefritzishere 1mo agoLots of that going around in this administration
- SimonWAds 1mo ago[flagged]
- junon 1mo agoNot sure if you're just trolling or what but your comment is demonstrably false and very easily disproven at that
- dzonga 1mo ago[flagged]
- nekusar 1mo agoAnd NOT a damned thing will be done to punish the administration for these obvious illegal actions. And they'll continue to do so, because it takes months to unwind this shit, and the damage was done immediately.
- cubefox 1mo agoBut I guess Anthropic will not be compensated?
- thataccount 1mo agohttps://san.com/cc/no-the-nsa-wasnt-hacked-by-ai-heres-what-actually-happened/ https://san.com/cc/no-the-nsa-wasnt-hacked-by-ai-heres-what-... If this article is accurate, it sounds like Mythos via Anthropic had proven itself to be a security risk. This explains the dual speak around it being both essential and a supply chain risk, since if it were hacked by another country it would compromise security. Not being any riskier than any other "blackbox" AI is still sufficiently dangerous and I suppose the difference, without knowing more about what the government tested, was that they knew Mythos could do these things as they had evaluated it themselves.
- doc_ick 29d agoDon’t worry, I’m sure they they tested each and every llm provider equally, especially Twitter.
- andrewla 1mo agoI think this both overstates and understates the case. The evidence being weak does not invalidate the decision; as the court notes, the government gets substantial deference on matters of national security. The invalidation comes from the fact that this is clearly retaliatory behavior for speech; and the evidence for this is fairly strong since the administration has made public statements to that effect. The evidence being weak means that it is clear that there is no reasonable belief that the cause of action is anything but an attempt to apply a penalty for the use of protected speech.
- superxpro12 1mo ago[flagged]
- rogerrogerr 1mo ago[flagged]
- bloppe 1mo agoDemocrats tend to pass more legislation
- ecocentrik 1mo agoPolitics is frequently a game of semantic drift. The application of labels with unclear meaning to further dilute meaning or extend it for the purpose of engagement, legal reclassification... it's not engineering and you can't expect well defined terms from people who want power without accountability.
- jacobolus 1mo agoPolitics doesn't work if a significant part of the leadership is constantly acting in bad faith, and behaving essentially sociopathically. Voters' and citizens' (and some judges') willingness to support sociopathic behavior by leaders is a profound failing at their basic social duties, and is deeply shameful.
- kypro 1mo agoI know most will see this as a good thing, and perhaps in this case it is, but I think it's generally concerning that people can vote for leaders who effectively can't do anything significant. I understand this community largely disagrees with Trump, but the only people who win overall from these scenarios are people who support the status-quo and don't like the idea of a leader having significant power to change things. Any leader who is elected on a mandate to govern differently will face similar legal challenges. I'm also not saying there's no place for legal challenges either, but there is a balance to be found there. The idea the Pentagon can't blacklist a US company for whatever reason it wants just seems absurd to me regardless of whether this specific ruling is good or bad.
- parineum 1mo ago> but I think it's generally concerning that people can vote for leaders who effectively can't do anything significant. The people vote for a lot more than just the president. This isn't the president's job. That's what the judge says, not that nobody can do it, just the president/executive can't. The people also vote for the people who's job it is to have done the same thing but legally.
- iamatworknow 1mo agoIf only it were that simple. Recall the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act". The legislature _did_ pass a law banning software then and the executive just ignored it.
- pjc50 1mo ago> I think it's generally concerning that people can vote for leaders who effectively can't do anything significant There's been a ton of this sort of discussion over the past three hundred years, and the consensus which was particularly strong in the Federalist Papers was explicitly that there should be no _one_ person with significant, arbitrary powers.
- drngdds 1mo agoI support the status quo in comparison to Donald Trump being allowed to use Claude for automated weapons and mass domestic surveillance, yeah
- sailfast 1mo agoThis is good, generally, for government overstepping especially in the case of targeted domestic restrictions (and what amounts to anti-competitive blackmail in my opinion) BUT! The judge’s opinion that “The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," is actually false. In the current administration it’s absolutely a blank check to punish and retaliate and I’m not sure under which authority a federal judge would stop them at this point. Current Supreme Court had made it clear they don’t have many controls here… Furthermore, Anthropic isn’t likely to recover any funds after this. So what if it happens to your small hardware startup? It’s a terrible precedent for Hegseth to set, and will lead to future harm. But he’s not the brightest bulb. Keep on talking up “Lethality” buddy… :/
- kevinthedigger 1mo ago[flagged]
- gigatexal 1mo agoWill it matter? Trump and his gang of criminal owns the Supreme Court and are happy to flout the law in a move fast a break things approach all the time. (See also the stupid gaudy ballroom) This win a pyrrhic one at best.
- manlymuppet 1mo agoAs much as I dislike this administration's actions, why? Doesn't the Department of Defense get discretion to contract for whatever reasons it likes, as long as they think it serves public interests? If Pete Hegseth, who is albeit highly incompetent, decides that Anthropic's values don't match with those of the DoD, isn't that entirely his call to make? Unless there's very specific circumstances at play, Hegseth is at least a public official, and gets to decide to do what he thinks is best for the public. Although he is wrong and Anthropic is right, no judge should force the government to use Anthropic products. Does anybody have the legal analysis? I'm (clearly) not a lawyer, but I'm more interested for now in the question of whether this is allowed rather than whether it's morally right (it's obviously not).
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- Plasmoid 1mo agoThe core issue is that it went beyond just not picking a vendor. They labeled anthropic as a supply chain risk. This banned the use of their software for the whole government (and contractors IIRC).
- philipwhiuk 1mo agoThe short answer is that there's Federal law on how contracts are awarded and the criteria used to exclude vendors. For other things that have gone to court see DoD JEDI and the NASA HLS.
- lettergram 1mo agoJudges at this level often do things like this, and given it was brought in California likely the next level would also block the administration. That said, the Supreme Court has been pretty clear that the executive branch has broad and the only authority to designate supply chain risk. That said, they do need to justify it, not sure they did it well enough here, but this is far from an impartial judge. Also, judges are political appointees -- This one has ruled against the Trump administration repeatedly and it's why this case was brought here. She was appointed by Joe Biden, was born/lives/works in the Bay Area and has a track record.
- lettergram 1mo agoThis would likely be overturned if the federal government needs to push it. At the time Anthropic was saying publicly that they oppose certain actions and their model is restricted in certain ways. The executive branch viewed that as a risk and has the ultimate say over it's vendors, regardless of the judges ruling. The supreme court has been pretty clear on this. This is also a reminder that, contrary to popular understanding, judges are indeed political appointees. This one was appointed by Joe Biden, works in the Bay Area and definitely has a political bias in both the track record and in activism. https://grokipedia.com/page/Rita_F._Lin https://grokipedia.com/page/Rita_F._Lin
- jtrn 1mo agoI get irrational angry by logical and nonsensical statements. When I read this: “ Pentagon says private companies should not be able to constrain military action.” I am screaming: But they can fucking how what THEY want to sell to anybody! Setting terms for THEIR side is NOT constraining military action, unless military suddenly has totalitarian power over everybody !
- paxys 1mo agoSure, and what are you going to do about it? The current government is above laws.
- voganmother42 1mo agoYou can beat the rap but not the ride
- stronglikedan 1mo agoGood. Before, there were questions. Now, there's precedence. Thanks for taking one for the team, Anthropic!
- Kranar 1mo agoThis ruling does not establish legal precedence. There is a second lawsuit that is still ongoing that will establish legal precedence. The article points out that the Trump administration is likely to wait for a ruling on that second lawsuit before deciding whether to appeal the ruling of this one.
- bradthebeaverfa 1mo ago[flagged]
- panny 1mo agoSure, but who in Trump's DOJ is going to prosecute Trump? Separation of powers my ass.
- hnfong 1mo agoThis is one of the reasons why most heads of state have legal immunity during the time they are serving.
- mrlonglong 1mo ago[dead]
- robomartin 1mo agoIANAL, so I can't comment on the legal merits of any of it. From a practical/business perspective, I can see the government's position. It's very simple and it makes sense. Here's an analogy that I think is apt: We use Solidworks, Altium Designer and JetBrains tools for our work. Imagine a scenario where each of these companies has license terms that restrict their use to certain domains or types of products they --for whatever reason; it does not have to be political-- do not agree with. Further imagine that the restrictions are different for each product, creating a virtual mine field of sorts. Now imagine that every supplier adopts this philosophy over time; hardware, software, tools, components, fabricators, contractors, consultants, etc. Well, very soon you will have to conclude that the only job you will be able to do is drive for Uber, if that. The DoD/DoW is massive and massively multidisciplinary. They simply cannot afford to have vendors create no-go mine fields for them. It quickly becomes an unmanageable pain in the ass. So, yeah, under those circumstances, I would not touch Anthropic with a ten foot pole duct-taped to another ten foot pole. It simply would not be a reasonable decision to work with them.
- NorthSouthNorth 1mo agoWhich is very different to labelling them a national security risk instead of just not awarding them contracts.
- Analemma_ 1mo agoEvery single person I've seen trying to defend the government's actions in this case has carefully elided the difference between "not awarding them a contract" (which would've been fine) and "using the law to try and destroy their business". The fact that almost nobody on the government's side has actually spoken honestly about the facts of the case makes it pretty obvious who is in the right and wrong here.
- robomartin 1mo agoIt is a security risk. That's the problem you create if you allow every single vendor from imposing their own rules. The contracts are not awarded because doing so would create a security risk. I don't know what analogy would drive the point home. Imagine a password management system where the people running the company have an ideology that leads them to believe that their system should not allow anyone to secure anything used in military applications. Well, that's a security risk. And no contracts should be granted. Cause and effect. There's no confusion here.
- TheMagicHorsey 1mo agoDo judicial rulings have much effect on this administration anymore? It feels a bit like the judges are goalies trying to block penalty shots, and this administration just keeps kicking balls at the goal, and eventually something gets in ... because the judicial system itself is a bit stochastic.
- lqstuart 1mo agotwo more fucking years of this
- herpdyderp 1mo agoit is not going to end in 2 years
- firesteelrain 1mo agoI believe it when I see it that Claude will be allowed again. There will still be that national security clause that will stop anything and the courts can’t prevent it.