This undated photo made available by Google shows the campus-network room at a data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Routers and switches allow Google’s data centers to talk to each other. The fiber cables run along the yellow cable trays near the ceiling. (AP Photo/Google, Connie Zhou) Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-intelligence-chief-internet-spy.html#jCp
Wikimedia has sued the U.S. National Security Agency and the Department of Justice over the NSA’s Internet spying program.
The lawsuit, filed March 10 by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Wikimedia, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, and eight other organizations, claims that the NSA violated U.S. constitutional protection and the law in its surveillance of foreigners’ and Americans’ international Internet communications, including e-mails, Web-browsing history and search engine queries. Amnesty International USA, the conservative Rutherford Institute and Human Rights Watch are among the other plaintiffs.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said he believes the lawsuit will help protect the rights of their users around the world. “We’re filing suit today on behalf of our readers and editors everywhere,” 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.”
The lawsuit will challenge the “upstream” surveillance program which, according to NBC, was part of a privacy breach revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. Upstream surveillance is used to comb through Internet traffic and intercept communications of non-U.S. individuals who may pose as a threat to national security and of Americans that communicate with them.
The Wikimedia complaint, filed in Maryland where the NSA is headquartered, alleges such warrantless surveillance violates the U.S. Constitution’s First and Fourth Amendment which governs the freedom of free speech and unreasonable search and seizure.
“This kind of dragnet surveillance constitutes a massive invasion of privacy, and it undermines the freedoms of expression and inquiry as well,” said ACLU staff attorney Patrick Toomey in a statement. “Ordinary Americans shouldn’t have to worry that the government is looking over their shoulders when they use the Internet.”
Early last year, NSA was sued over complaints that the organization’s collection of millions of American phone records violated the constitutional rights of Americans. The case was declined by the Supreme Court.