Category Archives: NSA

Wikipedia's parent group, Wikimedia Foundation, is suing the US National Security Agency (NSA) for what it dubs the "suspicionless seizure and searching of internet traffic by the agency on US soil".

The legal action has been filed by Wikimedia and eight other groups against the NSA and the Department of Justice (DoJ), in a federal court in Maryland, where the spy agency is based.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, said that Wikimedia is filing the suit on behalf of Wikipedia's readers and editors everywhere.

"Surveillance erodes the original promise of the internet: an open space for collaboration and experimentation, and a place free from fear," he said.

In its official complaint, Wikimedia said that the NSA conducts its "upstream" surveillance by tapping directly into the internet backbone inside the US.

It described this backbone as "the network of high-capacity cables, switches, and routers that today carry vast numbers of Americans' communications with each other and with the rest of the world".

By intercepting traffic, the NSA is seizing Americans' communications en masse while they are in transit, said Wikimedia, and this surveillance "exceeds the scope of the authority that congress provided in the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008 and violates the First and Fourth Amendments".

In a blog post, the foundation's legal counsel said that the FAA authorises the collection of these communications if they fall into the broad category of "foreign intelligence information", which includes any data that could be construed as relating to national security or foreign affairs.

"The programme casts a vast net, and as a result, captures communications that are not connected to any target', or may be entirely domestic. This includes communications by our users and staff," the organisation added.

Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said that "by tapping the backbone of the internet, the NSA is straining the backbone of democracy".

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NSA sued by Wikipedia parent group over mass surveillance

March 11, 2015

In America, the Internet browses you. (Credit: Flickr/Light Brigading)

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com @BednarChuck

The Wikimedia Foundation, owners and operators of the popular crowd-edited reference website Wikipedia, has filed a lawsuit against the US National Security Agency (NSA) in response to the organizations surveillance program.

According to BBC News, the lawsuit also names the US Department of Justice and accuses the two groups of violating the Constitutions right to free speech, as well as laws protecting citizens of the United States from unreasonable search and seizure.

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In a blog entry posted Tuesday, Wikimedias Michelle Paulson and Geoff Brigham wrote that the lawsuit challenges the NSAs large-scale search and seizure of internet communications frequently referred to as upstream surveillance. Our aim in filing this suit is to end this mass surveillance program in order to protect the rights of our users around the world.

The Foundation has been joined by eight other organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, The Global Fund for Women, and The Rutherford Institute and the Washington Office on Latin America. Their case will be handled by attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

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Were filing suit today on behalf of our readers and editors everywhere, said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. Surveillance erodes the original promise of the internet: an open space for collaboration and experimentation, and a place free from fear.

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Wikipedia suing NSA over spy program

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The Wikimedia Foundation argues that the NSA's full-scale seizure of Internet communications is a violation of its First and Fourth Amendment rights.

The NSA is in hot water yet again. Declan McCullagh/CNET

The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that operates the wildly popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, says user privacy has been violated and that it's going to court to try to fix it.

Wikimedia filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in the US District Court for the District of Maryland against the National Security Agency and the US Department of Justice for allegedly violating its constitutional rights on Wikipedia. The organization argues that an NSA program collecting information wholesale across the Internet, known as upstream surveillance, is a violation of its First Amendment right of free speech and a violation of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable search and seizure.

Wikimedia said it is joined by eight other organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and represented by The American Civil Liberties Union. Wikimedia has been working on the lawsuit for "approximately one year," said its general counsel, Geoff Brigham.

"Privacy is the bedrock of individual freedom. It is a universal right that sustains the freedoms of expression and association," Wikimedia wrote Tuesday on its blog. "These principles enable inquiry, dialogue, and creation and are central to Wikimedia's vision of empowering everyone to share in the sum of all human knowledge. ... If people look over their shoulders before searching, pause before contributing to controversial articles, or refrain from sharing verifiable but unpopular information, Wikimedia and the world are poorer for it."

Wikipedia is the world's most comprehensive online encyclopedia. The service comprises editable wikis that allow users to correct misinformation and add details on individuals, events, organizations and ideas. More than 500 million people worldwide visit Wikipedia each month, and at least 75,000 people around the globe add or edit the content.

In 2013, one-time NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked information revealing Wikipedia was a target of government surveillance. According to Snowden, the US government taps the Internet's "backbone" (the core data routes between large, interconnected network centers) to capture communication with "non-U.S. persons." Part of that surveillance is authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that Congress amended in 2008, which supports US spy agencies to collect Internet information at will. (A large component in the NSA's mission stems from a 1981 executive order that legalized surveillance of foreigners living outside the US.)

Since Snowden's leaks began, the US government has shied away from claims that it may be intercepting communications and information from Americans. FISA does not authorize spying on US citizens. The ACLU and Wikimedia believe surveillance agencies are violating that regulation.

"In the course of its surveillance, the NSA copies and combs through vast amounts of Internet traffic, which it intercepts inside the United States with the help of major telecommunications companies," the ACLU said in a statement on Tuesday. "It searches that traffic for keywords called 'selectors' that are associated with its targets. The surveillance involves the NSA's warrantless review of the emails and Internet activities of millions of ordinary Americans."

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Wikipedia parent sues to stop NSA's massive surveillance ...

A coalition of groups, led by Wikimedia, wants an end to the NSA's mass surveillance programs.

The Wikimedia Foundation today filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency and Department of Justice, in an effort to end the NSA's mass surveillance programs.

Wikimedia and eight other organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, filed suit in Maryland district court on Tuesday "on behalf of our readers and editors everywhere," Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in a statement. "Surveillance erodes the original promise of the Internet: an open space for collaboration and experimentation, and a place free from fear."

In a blog post written by Wikimedia legal counselors Michelle Paulson and Geoff Brigham, the foundation outlined the importance of privacy ("the bedrock of individual freedom") to the world and Wikipedia.

The NSA, according to Wikimedia, has misinterpreted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) to provide free rein to define threats, identify targets, and monitor people, platforms, and infrastructure, "with little regard for probably cause or proportionality," Paulson and Brigham said.

It violates the Constitution's First and Fourth Amendments, and unfairly allows the government agency to cast a wide net, often capturing communication unconnected to a real targetincluding transmissions by Wikipedia users and staff, the Foundation said.

"By tapping the backbone of the Internet, the NSA is straining the backbone of democracy," added Lila Tretikov, executive director of Wikimedia.

That network of high-capacity cables, switches, and routers transferring Web traffic is facilitated by devices installed by Verizon, AT&T, and other organizations, the ACLU said.

In a separate blog post, the ACLU, which is representing Wikimedia, said the NSA intercepts and copies private communications in bulk, then searches the content using keywords associated with agency "targets." Those marks often include aliens believed to communicate "foreign intelligence information," or journalists, academic researchers, corporations, aid workers, business personnel, and other innocent people.

"Wikipedia is founded on the freedoms of expression, inquiry, and information," Tretikov said. "By violating our users' privacy, the NSA is threatening the intellectual freedom that is central to people's ability to create and understand knowledge."

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Wikimedia Sues NSA Over Surveillance