Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pressing the Department of Defense (DOD) and multiple artificial intelligence (AI) companies to disclose more information about agreements that allow AI systems to operate on the DOD’s networks, saying lawmakers and the public need greater transparency into the guardrails governing the military’s use of the technology.
In letters sent on July 6, Warren called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the chief executives of seven technology companies deploying AI capabilities on the department’s classified networks to explain how the agreements limit the use of AI for military operations, surveillance, and autonomous weapons.
The requests follow the DOD’s May announcement that it had reached agreements with SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Reflection, and Oracle to integrate their AI capabilities into the department’s Impact Level 6 (IL6) and Impact Level 7 (IL7) network environments. IL6 supports the storage and processing of information classified up to the secret level; IL7 is used for highly restricted classified data.
In her letter to Hegseth, Warren criticized what she called “the continued lack of transparency” surrounding the department’s AI strategy, saying DOD provided “virtually no details” about the contracts when announcing the agreements.
“Despite prior congressional request[s], DOD has provided no details of the breadth or substance of the contracts beyond that they allow the technology to be used on classified systems for all ‘lawful operational use,’” she wrote.
She added that the language is overly broad and “leaves the door wide open to gross violations of domestic civil liberties and civilian harm.”
Warren also questioned the pace of the department’s AI deployment. In February, Hegseth announced DOD’s AI acceleration strategy, which aims to speed the integration of AI into military operations.
“DOD appears to have forged ahead in expanding AI use throughout the military … while releasing no meaningful information about contractual guardrails to prevent the misuse of these tools or communicating to Congress and the public how these tools are used at all,” Warren wrote.
Warren said the rapid expansion is “alarming given that the department has yet to provide Congress or the public with any meaningful details on how it plans to use these tools and what testing and safeguards have been put in place to prevent mistakes or misuse.”
The Massachusetts senator also raised concerns about Anthropic, citing reports that DOD officials hope agreements with other AI providers will pressure the company into abandoning its restrictions on military use.
“It would appear that DOD is using negotiations with other suppliers to pressure Anthropic into agreeing to remove the usage limitations it seeks,” Warren wrote.
Anthropic’s restrictions have led to an ongoing dispute with the department that began earlier this year. The conflict intensified after President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to sever ties with Anthropic, and Hegseth designated the company a supply chain risk. Anthropic has since filed two lawsuits alleging unlawful retaliation, while the administration has defended the designation as a lawful national security measure.
Warren’s message to tech companies
In her letter to the technology companies, Warren said she supports giving U.S. service members access to advanced technologies but questioned whether the agreements contain sufficient protections against misuse.
Warren noted that neither DOD nor the companies have made the agreements public.
She asked the companies to provide information about the agreements, including “what safeguards are in place to protect the public from government surveillance and prevent civilian harm.”
“I am concerned that your company may have entered into an agreement with Secretary Hegseth that gives him and other Trump administration officials free rein to engage in domestic surveillance – including spying on U.S. citizens exercising their legal rights – or build autonomous weapon systems that have enormous power to make decisions about targeting without human intervention,” she wrote, adding that without access to the full contract it’s “impossible to assess any safeguards and prohibitions that may exist.”
Warren asked both the department and the companies to respond to detailed questions in unclassified form by July 20.
Under the Trump administration, the DOD adopted the War Department as a secondary title following a presidential executive order.