Appeals Court Backs Pentagon's Ban on Claude

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Pentagon's ban on Anthropic's Claude AI, ruling 2-1 that the Defense Department had sufficient grounds to designate Claude a national security risk under a 2018 law called FASCSA. The ban stemmed from Anthropic's refusal to remove usage restrictions prohibiting mass surveillance and autonomous weapons development from its user agreement. The ruling conflicts with an August decision by a California federal court that found the ban illegal under a different law. Anthropic, which had secured a $200 million Pentagon contract in 2025, said it disagrees with the ruling and is weighing options including a Supreme Court appeal.