Anthropic filed two suits against the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, one in the US District Court for the Northern District of California and one in the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It argued that the late-February "supply chain risk" designation and the government-wide ban on its products went beyond an ordinary contract dispute and amounted to an "unlawful campaign of retaliation" that violated its First Amendment rights and exceeded the reach of the supply chain risk statute. The negotiations had broken down over two conditions Anthropic would not drop: that Claude not be used for mass surveillance of US citizens, and not for killing by autonomous weapons. The company said its "reputation and core First Amendment freedoms are under attack" and asked the courts to stop the bans from being enforced.