A United States judge has blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of technology company Anthropic. In a 59-page written order issued on Thursday night, District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Department of Defense had acted illegally when it designated the company a supply chain risk to national security. The government is expected to fight the ruling. The judge's order rebuked the Pentagon, saying it had targeted and punished Anthropic for the company's public criticism of the Defense Department's stance on AI deployment on the battlefield. "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," Lin, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote.

A US federal court has ruled that the Pentagon's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk was illegal, CNBC reported. US District judge Rita Lin found that the US Department of Defense's restrictions placed on the AI company and its Claude model were "illegal and baseless." As part of the ruling, the judge barred certain federal agencies from enforcing President Trump's order to stop using Anthropic's tools. "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," Judge Lin said in a 59-page decision. "Neither the Constitution nor the federal statute invoked by Defendants allows them to impose sweeping penalties based principally on Anthropic's critique of the Administration's views."

In her Anthropic ruling, Judge Rita Lin said the'empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics'. In her Anthropic ruling, Judge Rita Lin said the'empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics'. Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic was unlawful, US judge rules Anthropic argued designation as'supply chain risk' could cost the company billions of dollars in lost business and reputational harm A US federal judge ruled Thursday that sanctions imposed in February by the Trump administration against AI giant Anthropic were illegal, finding that the government had punished the artificial intelligence company for publicly criticising the Pentagon. "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics," Judge Rita Lin said in a 59-page decision. She barred the federal agencies named in the lawsuit from enforcing President Donald Trump's order to stop using the tools of Anthropic - creator of the Claude AI models - and overturned defense secretary Pete Hegseth's designation of the company as a "supply chain risk", a status previously reserved for foreign firms.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., rejects "AI doomsdaying," arguing that China benefits from U.S. overreaction on AI data centers and that energy dominance underpins national security.

China's AI models have Trump's AI world at war with itself Kimi and other free models from China have again been seen as a wake-up call. David Sacks, the president's AI and crypto "czar" until March, branded Anthropic's models as "lobotomized" and "woke." Emil Michael, a top Pentagon official, called OpenAI's new head of strategic futures a "supreme village idiot." It began because no one can agree on what to do about Kimi, a free, open source model that Chinese AI company Moonshot launched last week. It appears to rival the intelligence of models from OpenAI and Anthropic, which are very much not free. Kimi and other Chinese models like it pose a real problem for Trump.

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Trump Risks Key Surveillance Authority Over'Unqualified' Spy-Chief Pick US lawmakers are alarmed that Bill Pulte, a housing official with no intelligence experience, is poised to take charge of one of the government's most powerful surveillance tools. A sweeping warrantless surveillance authority remains on track to expire Friday, with no clear path to a deal, after President Donald Trump refused this week to abandon his pick of housing official Bill Pulte to temporarily lead the US intelligence community--even tasking Pulte with gutting the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a DOGE-style "downsizing" before a permanent director is named. In a Truth Social post after his second White House meeting in two days with House speaker Mike Johnson, Trump called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "very important to our military, and keeping the American people safe" and asked Congress for a short-term extension to give him time to find a permanent director of national intelligence. Section 702 lets the government collect the communications of foreign targets abroad without a warrant, sweeping in an unknown volume of Americans' messages that the FBI can later search. It faces a first-ever lapse in its legal authorization if Congress does not act by the end of Friday, June 12.

Alex Vindman Survived Trump's Retaliation Machine. In 2019, Alex Vindman testified during President Trump's first impeachment trial--a decision that ended his military career. Now he wants to challenge the president from the halls of Congress. Alex Vindman knows a thing or two about pissing off President Donald Trump . In 2019, Vindman rose to national prominence when he served as a witness during Trump's first impeachment trial. If you've lost track of that particular scandal, it's the one involving Trump, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, the Biden family and Vindman listening in on a troubling phone call in his capacity as the director for European affairs on the National Security Council. Vindman's congressional testimony describing that pivotal call was widely lauded, even as it ended his storied military career: After being ousted from the NSC, Vindman retired from the Army in 2020. Six years later, he's got his eye on another governmental gig. In January, Vindman announced plans to challenge Republican incumbent Ashley Moody for the Florida seat in the US Senate previously held by Marco Rubio. Vindman, who tells me he moved to Florida in 2023 because his wife wanted to politics, is the latest candidate I'm chatting with ahead of the November midterms. He's particularly interesting to me, and WIRED, for a few reasons: Vindman has lived through--and emerged from--the Trump retaliation machine, and I wanted to hear more about that journey; he's been vocal about his opposition to both the war in Iran and ICE, two topics we cover frequently; and I wanted his view, as a longtime service member, on AI through the lens of national security. Then there's the fact that Vindman, running in what's ostensibly a Republican stronghold, has a decent shot at winning the damn thing: Though Senator Moody still leads in most polls, Vindman is often within spitting distance--no small feat for a first-time candidate whose campaign started around five months ago. KATIE DRUMMOND: Welcome to the Big Interview, Alex. Good to be here with you, Katie. So glad to have you here. You are maybe best known on a national level as a whistleblower, but you were also an Army veteran of more than 20 years. You were honored with a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq, and you were on the National Security Council.

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AI regulation requires harmonization between state and federal approaches, but fragmented policies risk undermining US competitive advantage in this critical technology.