The Trump administration’s approach to AI safety, particularly the generative AI models that regularly grab headlines, has been haphazard at best. At worst, it’s unconstitutional. As EFF and our allies explained in an
amicus brief
, the Pentagon’s actions against one company, Anthropic, violate the First Amendment because they were motivated by the administration’s desire to punish an uncooperative company, not legitimate concerns about national security.
By and large, the Trump administration’s AI strategy has minimized regulation in the name of “winning” the global “race” to develop leading frontier models. It has pared back regulations intended to address even the most serious AI threats—like AI-enabled cyberattacks on government systems—to protect AI innovation.
Yet it has repeatedly singled out one AI company for arbitrary, heavy-handed rules and sanctions. For years, the federal government relied on Anthropic’s models for use in its classified systems. But after Anthropic resisted the government’s demands to use Anthropic’s models to autonomously kill people or spy on Americans, the government declared war on the “woke” company. It designated the company a “supply chain risk,” effectively banning agencies and government contractors from doing business with the company.
A court issued a
preliminary injunction
preventing these sanctions from taking effect, as EFF and other civil liberties organizations
urged it to do
in an amicus brief filed earlier this year. But absent judicial action, these sanctions would’ve cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. Either way, it sent a clear signal that companies must adhere to the government’s wishes or face similar consequences.
As we explained in our
brief filed today
, these sanctions were clear retaliation for the company’s public refusal to allow the Pentagon to use its models to develop fully autonomous weapons and spy on Americans. This kind of retaliation is unconstitutional.
In a recent ex
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