(a thank you letter for not capitulating)
Copy and paste the letter below into your word processing software and then replace the placeholder text with your personal information and the date or download a version in Word and personalize it that way.
Don’t forget to make this letter your own by adding your personal story and concerns.
[ Your Name ]
[ Your Address ]
[ Your City, State, Zip ]
[ Your Email Address ]
[ Today’s Date, Eg: September 5, 2026 ]
Anthropic PBC
Attn: Mr. Dario Amodei, CEO
548 Market Street, PMB 90375
San Francisco, CA 94104
Dear Mr. Amodei and the Anthropic team,
I am writing as a resident of Ojai, California, and a member of Indivisible Ojai Valley, to thank you for holding your ground.
In January 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued an AI strategy memorandum directing that every Department of Defense AI contract carry standard “any lawful use” language within 180 days. Your contract carried usage limits instead: no fully autonomous weapons, and no mass surveillance of Americans. In February the Pentagon gave you an ultimatum to accept the unrestricted terms or lose a contract reported at $200 million. You declined. The administration cancelled the contract, designated your company a supply chain risk, which would have forced military contractors to cut ties with you, and floated invoking the Defense Production Act to compel the use of your models over your objection.
You said at the time that “disagreeing with the government is the most American thing in the world.” We agree, and we would go further: it is the thing the First Amendment exists to protect.
On August 27, 2026, Judge Rita Lin of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found the same. She held the supply chain risk designation to be unlawful retaliation for protected speech under the First Amendment, a denial of due process under the Fifth, and arbitrary and capricious. She wrote that the government’s actions were “based on a desire to make a public example out of Anthropic for its ‘arrogance’ in criticizing the government,” and that “the empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics.”
That finding is why we are writing. Our concern here is not which party runs the Pentagon. It is whether a government can punish an American company for saying no in public, and whether the courts still stop it when it tries. This time they did, and the record that made that possible exists because you were willing to absorb the cost of a fight instead of quietly complying.
We know the fight is not over. A separate case is still pending in Washington, D.C., and the government is expected to appeal. We also know that in June the Commerce Department ordered your two newest models suspended under the export regulations, and that you took them offline worldwide rather than try to sort your own users by nationality. Those controls were lifted at the end of that month. Whatever is eventually decided about the merits of that order, a company that had already been made an example of once had every reason to keep its head down, and you did not.
Thank you for demonstrating that a company can serve this country without agreeing to do anything its government asks. When the pressure was highest, Anthropic held its ground.
Sincerely,
[ Your Name ]
[ Your City, State ]
Indivisible Ojai Valley member