Wikimedia Sues NSA Over 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