Anthropic doesn’t trust the Pentagon, and neither should you

Today we’re talking about the messy, fast-moving situation at Anthropic, the maker of Claude that now finds itself in a very ugly legal battle with the Pentagon.  The back-and-forth is complicated, but as of a few days ago, the Pentagon had deemed Anthropic a supply chain risk, and Anthropic has filed a lawsuit challenging that designation, saying the government has violated its First and Fifth Amendment rights by “seeking to destroy the economic value created by one of the world’s fastest-growing private companies.” I can tell you right now: We’re going to be talking about the twists and turns of that case on The Verge and here on Decoder in the months to come. But today I wanted to take a moment and really dig in here on one very important element of this situation that’s not gotten enough attention as this has spiraled out of control: how the United States government does surveillance, the legal authority that allows that surveillance to occur, and why Anthropic was distrustful of t