'Way out of line': The US government is being sued for executive order restricting foreign access to Project Glasswing

Lawsuit Challenges US Government Order Restricting Foreign Access to Anthropic's Frontier Models

US government order caused Anthropic to pull Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users amid security concerns.

"Way out of line": The US government is being sued for executive order restricting foreign access to Project Glasswing. Anthropic has pulled Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users.

• US government ordered Anthropic to pull frontier models for foreign nationals
• Legal AI startup claims it had contractual access to those models
• Anthropic doesn't agree with the White House – but complies

Legal AI startup Legion LegalTech Corp has filed a lawsuit challenging a June 12 government order that forced Anthropic to restrict access to its most advanced AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for foreign citizens (via Reuters).

According to the complaint, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) gave Anthropic around 90 minutes to comply with the order, or face civil and criminal penalties. All foreign nationals, including those living inside and outside of the US, and even Anthropic's own employees, are said to be affected by the order.

Government Order to Ban Anthropic Models Internationally Legally Challenged

Legion LegalTech Corp acknowledges that the order was triggered because of concerns that users could jailbreak models into reviewing software code and identifying vulnerabilities, but the startup argues this is a common capability of all frontier models and doesn't just affect Anthropic's models.

The company says it had contractual access to Anthropic's Fable 5 model, and was actively integrating it into its products that draft and manage cases. Because the company employs Canadian developers working remotely from Canada, it lost access to the model once restrictions took effect.

"Anthropic took no independent action to restrict Legion’s access; it complied with the government’s command under threat of enforcement consequences," the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit argues that no current export control classifications cover access to cloud-hosted AI models. It also references an independent reviewer, who sees the government's action as disproportionate and "way out of line."

Anthropic's Response

Anthropic announced the frontier models on June 9. By June 12, it had released a statement in response to the government directive, criticizing the government for "not provid[ing] specific details of its national security concern."

"We are complying with the government’s legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users."