The Wikimedia Foundation is suing the NSA for breaching the first and fourth Amendments

The Wikimedia Foundation is suing the US National Security Agency (NSA) for enacting mass surveillance and penetrating the privacy of its Wikipedia user base, arguing that the practice breaches the first and fourth amendments and that the NSA overstepped the authority granted to it by the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FAA) amendment. The complaint, which can be read here in full, is a joint effort between Wikimedia, Humans Rights Watch, and seven other organizations also represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“We’re 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.”

Wikimedia’s primary point of content lies with the NSA’s practice of large-scale search and seizure of Internet communications, commonly referred to as “upstream” communication. Upstream spying taps into the Internet’s “backbone” and seizures communication engaged by “non-US persons,” citing the FAA grants the NSA authority to apprehend all data that falls under the broad category of “foreign intelligence information.” The problem, however, is that the designation includes any information that may be loosely construed to appear related to national security or foreign affairs.

Unfortunately, such a wide-net approach often results in the collection of a massive amount of information not connected to any target, and often domestic in nature — information such as the communication between Wikimedia users and staff. 

Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation writes, “by tapping the backbone of the Internet, the NSA is straining the backbone of democracy.” Furthermore, “Wikipedia is founded on the freedoms of expression, inquiry, and information. By violating our users’ privacy, the NSA is threatening the intellectual freedom that is central to people’s ability to create and understand knowledge.”

Wikimedia explains that the NSA has essentially taken free reign to define threats, identify targets, and monitor whoever it chooses — people, platforms, and infrastructures — with no regard for probable cause. This practice virtually discounts the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, decreeing freedom of speech and association, and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. What’s more, Wikimedia maintains the NSA’s practices and their accompanying judicial review violate Article III of the U.S. Constitution that states “the power of the federal judiciary to review the constitutionality of a statute or treaty, or to review an administrative regulation for consistency with either a statute, a treaty, or the Constitution itself.”

Naturally, others have previous made these accusations, but few have had the “standing” to engage in such a visible action as taking the NSA to court. “Standing” is a legal concept indicating that a party must demonstrate how they've suffered some kind of harm before they can file a lawsuit. Wikimedia believes it has earned this “standing” through evidence included in a presentation included in Edward Snowden’s 2013 mass surveillance disclosure that explicitly references to Wikipedia, Wikimedia’ global trademark. The organization argues that upstream data collection undermines the anonymity that is Wikipedia’s global driving force, suggesting that identifying information will the deter participation that has established Wikipedia as the single largest collaborative free knowledge resource in human history.

Source: Wikimedia.org