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OpenAI claims it<\/span> has accomplished what Anthropic couldn\u2019t: securing a Pentagon contract that won\u2019t cross professed red lines against dragnet domestic spying and the use of artificial intelligence to order lethal military strikes. Just don\u2019t expect any proof.<\/p>\n Sam Altman, OpenAI\u2019s CEO, announced the company\u2019s big win with the Defense Department in a post on X on February 27.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,\u201d he wrote. The Pentagon \u201cagrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n The deal came after the very public implosion<\/a> of what was to be a similar contract between the U.S. military and Anthropic, one of OpenAI\u2019s chief rivals. Anthropic had said negotiations collapsed because it could not enshrine prohibitions against killer robots and domestic spying in its contract. The company\u2019s insistence on these two points earned it the wrath of the Pentagon and President Donald Trump, who ordered the government to phase out<\/a> use of Anthropic\u2019s tools within six months.<\/p>\n But if the government booted Anthropic for refusing mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, how could OpenAI take over the contract without having the same problem?<\/p>\n OpenAI has attempted to square this circle through a string of posts to X by company executives and researchers, including Katrina Mulligan, its national security chief, and a claim by Altman that the company negotiated stricter protections around domestic surveillance.<\/p>\n The company and the government, however, are not releasing the only proof that matters: the contract itself.<\/p>\n The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n OpenAI and company personnel contacted by The Intercept did not respond when asked for specific contract language. Company spokesperson Kate Waters did not respond to questions, sending The Intercept only links to prior public statements from Altman.<\/p>\n (In 2024, The Intercept sued OpenAI in federal court over the company\u2019s use of copyrighted articles to train its chatbot ChatGPT. The case is ongoing.)<\/p>\n So far, OpenAI has released only snippets of the deal\u2019s language loaded with PR-speak and national security jargon. Without being able to verify the company\u2019s claims, Altman\u2019s pitch to the world comes down to one premise: Trust me \u2014 along with Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth \u2014 to do the right thing.<\/p>\n Following widespread criticism<\/span> of these vagaries, Altman said earlier this week that the firm was able to quickly negotiate into its contract stricter terms with the Pentagon. These additions, Altman said, include language the company claims will stop domestic spying and collaboration with the National Security Agency.<\/p>\n But the company\u2019s muddled messaging throughout the week only raised more questions about OpenAI\u2019s willingness to do the federal government\u2019s bidding.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been working with the DoW to make some additions in our agreement to make our principles very clear,\u201d Altman posted<\/a> on Monday, using Trump\u2019s preferred name for the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Department also affirmed that our services will not be used by Department of War intelligence agencies (for example, the NSA),\u201d Altman continued. \u201cAny services to those agencies would require a follow-on modification to our contract.\u201d<\/p>\n Since OpenAI has not released the contract, it\u2019s unclear if the Pentagon\u2019s affirmation is actually reflected in binding contract language.<\/p>\n Mulligan at first responded to criticism of the company\u2019s deal with a pledge to release a \u201cclear and more comprehensive explanation\u201d of the relevant terms of the contract. On Tuesday, having failed to deliver such an explanation, she told<\/a> one concerned X user, \u201cI do not agree that I\u2019m obligated to share contract language with you.\u201d<\/p>\n She added<\/a>, \u201cFor the record, I would want to work with NSA if the right safeguards were in place,\u201d but did not specify what these safeguards might be.<\/p>\n Former military officials told The Intercept they had grave concerns about the arrangement based on what\u2019s been made public. \u201cI\u2019m not confident in the language at all. And in some parts I don\u2019t even believe it,\u201d said Brad Carson, who previously served as under secretary of the Army during the Obama administration. Carson noted that blocking Pentagon spy agencies like the NSA or National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency would ostensibly prevent usage of OpenAI\u2019s tools in pressing intelligence analysis contexts, like the ongoing war against Iran. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that provision is in the contract. I say that reluctantly, but I don\u2019t,\u201d Carson added.<\/p>\n A former Pentagon official who worked on military artificial intelligence applications told The Intercept the caveats around \u201cintentional\u201d surveillance are worryingly unclear. \u201cThat\u2019s the get out of jail free card right there,\u201d this source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in an interview. \u201cThe language gives them enough flexibility to still do whatever the fuck they want, more or less, and then say, whoops, sorry, didn\u2019t mean to.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nothing OpenAI can do to clarify this except release the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThere is nothing OpenAI can do to clarify this except release the contract,\u201d former Department of Justice National Security Division attorney Alan Rozenshtein said. Rozenshtein described OpenAI\u2019s attempt to sell its contract to the public without letting the public read the contract as \u201cnot sustainable\u201d and \u201cbizarre.\u201d If OpenAI will restrict its tools from the NSA, with its long-documented history of extra-constitutional dragnet domestic surveillance, this would be memorialized in the contract, not a tweet, he said. But if OpenAI has indeed come to any such agreement with the government, it is asking the world to take it as an article of faith.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s quite possible that OpenAI understands that these red lines are fake, but has written a contract to give them some PR coverage. That would be bad because that feels pretty dishonest,\u201d Rozenshtein added. \u201cOr it\u2019s possible that OpenAI has a different understanding of its own contract than what DOD understands the contract to be. Which is a bad position to be in, and suggests that this contract negotiation has not been done skillfully.\u201d<\/p>\n Potentially undermining OpenAI\u2019s credibility is that some of its public outreach has been simply untrue. Asked by an X user whether the contract would permit the Pentagon \u201c[g]etting and\/or analyzing commercially available data at scale,\u201d Mulligan replied<\/a>, \u201cThe Pentagon has no legal authority to do this.\u201d This is false, at least according to the Pentagon. A declassified 2022 report<\/a> by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence provided an overview of the collection of commercially available data by the government, including the Department of Defense \u2014 exactly the activity Mulligan was asked about.<\/p>\n The Pentagon\u2019s domestic surveillance has been further established in news reports. In 2021, Motherboard reported<\/a> a letter sent from Sen. Ron Wyden to the Department of Defense in which he urged then-Secretary Lloyd Austin \u201cto release to the public information about the Department of Defense\u2019s (DoD) warrantless surveillance of Americans.\u201d A New York Times report on a related investigation by Wyden\u2019s office that same year showed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had spied on Americans\u2019 precise movements and locations<\/a> without a warrant by simply buying access<\/a> to their GPS coordinates. In a letter responding to Wyden, the Pentagon said the DIA\u2019s lawyers had blessed the surveillance.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a fact that the Pentagon has both purchased and analyzed vast amounts of Americans\u2019 location, web browsing, and other data, for years,\u201d Wyden wrote in a statement to The Intercept. \u201cI\u2019ve personally revealed<\/a> several of those programs, with the help of brave whistleblowers. Anyone who claims that isn\u2019t happening simply doesn\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s rhetoric fails<\/span> to reckon with the way the national security state has secured both secrecy and operational latitude through relying on misleading interpretation or radical ambiguity of words.<\/p>\n For instance, Altman shared on Monday evening a purportedly updated clause stating<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cConsistent with applicable laws, including the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, National Security Act of 1947, FISA Act of 1978, the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.\u201d<\/p>\n The phrase \u201cConsistent with applicable laws\u201d sounds promising until one reflects on the fact that the government claims consistency with applicable laws in every dragnet surveillance program, drone strike<\/a>, kidnapping, assassination, or invasion. \u201cI\u2019m saying that the programs are legal, obviously,\u201d White House spokesperson Jay Carney told<\/a> reporters in the early days after whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the existence of the NSA. (Ironically, Mulligan was part of this public relations deflection effort during her stint in the Obama National Security Council.)<\/p>\n The word \u201cintentionally\u201d provides a miles-wide wall of plausible deniability that has helped cover for decades of domestic spying. In a March 2013 Senate hearing, Wyden asked then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, under oath, \u201cDoes the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?\u201d Clapper replied \u201cNo, sir.\u201d When pressed, he added \u201cNot wittingly.\u201d A few months later, NSA materials disclosed by Snowden would reveal this was entirely false: The agency routinely collected vast quantities of information on Americans as a routine practice.<\/p>\n The Clapper episode revealed the peril of public reliance on commonsense words like \u201cwittingly\u201d or \u201cintentionally\u201d in the context of national security. Offices like the NSA or ODNI are staffed by sharp legal minds, brilliant mathematicians, accomplished engineers, and funded with billions of dollars. They do little by accident. Altman\u2019s invocation of \u201cintentionally\u201d spying on Americans, like Clapper\u2019s dodge behind the term \u201cwittingly,\u201d reflects what\u2019s known in the intelligence field as \u201cincidental collection\u201d: a euphemism that camouflages the fact that the government historically asserts spying on Americans is legal. In this case, incidental doesn\u2019t mean by mistake, but rather secondary; while vacuuming up unfathomably large quantities of data to surveil foreigners, for whatever reasons deemed necessary, the government has asserted its legal right to catch Americans in the process, even if they are not the actual the target.<\/p>\n\n