法院表示，使用“任何人”这一表述表明，该定义并不限于对手或外国实体。法院还指出“拒绝”一词，称其适用于 Anthropic 阻止美国使用 Claude 某些功能的行为。
“总之，我们认定，部长对 Anthropic 使 Claude 无法执行该部门所请求的合法操作的担忧，属于第 4713 条意义上的‘供应链风险’，”法院多数意见表示。法院还表示，“该部门有理由担心 Anthropic 可能操纵 Claude 的设计，使其无法执行该部门认为合同授权且必要的国家安全职能。”
法官异议
异议票由 Karen Henderson 法官投出，她由 George H.W. Bush 任命。Henderson 对多数意见关于第 4713 条中该定义的解读提出异议，称当“置于其法定语境中来看时，所涉动词都指向故意阻碍或窃听已进入联邦供应链的受涵盖物品的‘功能、使用或运行’”。
国会“制定该法规，是为了回应美国情报界要求立法以应对‘敌对国家及其他恶意行为者’通过供应链渗透联邦政府信息与技术系统的威胁的呼声，”Henderson 写道。她表示，该定义不应被解释为涵盖“承包商诚实且公开地执行政府对受涵盖物品使用所不认可的限制”。
Anthropic 指控称，在其拒绝取消对产品用于致命性自主作战和大规模监控美国人的限制后，特朗普政府对该公司的报复行为违法，加利福尼亚州联邦地区法院法官对此表示认同。
上诉法院表示，Anthropic“将限制条件编码进 Claude 之中，以阻止该模型执行 Anthropic 希望阻止的任务。这些限制已不止一次阻止 Claude 执行政府用户请求的任务。而最近，围绕合同禁令是否禁止在正在进行的海外军事行动中使用 Claude 产生了争议，使国防部无法确定 Claude 是否会按需并按预期运行。”
这起案件在加利福尼亚州北区联邦地区法院审理，主审法官是拜登任命的 Rita Lin。Lin 认定该黑名单行为违反了第一修正案。“空洞地援引国家安全，并不是一张可以随意惩罚和报复政府批评者的空白支票，”她写道。
The use of “any person” shows that the definition is not limited to adversaries or foreign entities, the court said. The court also pointed to the word “deny,” which it said applies to Anthropic preventing the US from using certain Claude features.
“In sum, we conclude that the Secretary’s concern about Anthropic disabling Claude from performing lawful actions requested by the Department qualifies as a ‘supply chain risk’ within the meaning of section 4713,” the court majority said. It also said “the Department reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions that the Department deems contractually authorized and necessary.”
Judge’s dissent
The dissenting vote was cast by Judge Karen Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee. Henderson disputed the majority’s reading of the definition in 4713, saying that when “viewed in their statutory context, the verbs at issue are all directed at deliberately impeding or eavesdropping on the ‘function, use, or operation’ of a covered article that has entered the federal supply chain.”
Congress “enacted the statute in response to calls from the US intelligence community for legislation to meet the threat of ‘[h]ostile nation state and other bad actors’ infiltrating the federal government’s information and technology systems through its supply chains,” Henderson wrote. She said the definition should not be interpreted to cover “a contractor’s honest and upfront enforcement of restrictions on a covered article’s use disfavored by the government.”
Anthropic alleged, and the district court judge in California agreed, that the Trump administration illegally retaliated against the company after it refused to drop restrictions on the use of its products for lethal autonomous warfare and mass surveillance of Americans.
The appeals court said that Anthropic “encodes restrictions into Claude that prevent the model from performing tasks that Anthropic wishes to prevent. On more than one occasion, these restrictions have stopped Claude from performing tasks requested by government users. And recently, a dispute arose over whether the contractual prohibitions barred the use of Claude in an ongoing overseas military operation, leaving the Department uncertain whether Claude would perform as needed and intended.”
The case in the Northern District of California was presided over by Judge Rita Lin, a Biden appointee. Lin determined that the blacklisting violated the First Amendment. “The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,” she wrote.