Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
- 28,003
- 9,610
- 910
A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a Wikipedia lawsuit that challenges a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) program of mass online surveillance, and claims that the government unconstitutionally invades people's privacy rights.
By a 3-0 vote, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, said the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, had a legal right to challenge the government's Upstream surveillance program.
The decision could make it easier for people to learn whether authorities have spied on them through Upstream, which involves bulk searches of international communications within the internet's backbone of cables, switches and routers.
Upstream's existence was revealed in leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.
Lawyers for the Wikipedia publisher and eight other plaintiffs including Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch, with more than 1 trillion international communications annually, argued that the surveillance violated their rights to privacy, free expression and association.
The U.S. Department of Justice countered that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had authorized Upstream's review of communications between Americans and foreign "targets."
Wikipedia can pursue NSA surveillance lawsuit: U.S. appeals court
Good. Not that it will really change anything.
By a 3-0 vote, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, said the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, had a legal right to challenge the government's Upstream surveillance program.
The decision could make it easier for people to learn whether authorities have spied on them through Upstream, which involves bulk searches of international communications within the internet's backbone of cables, switches and routers.
Upstream's existence was revealed in leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.
Lawyers for the Wikipedia publisher and eight other plaintiffs including Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch, with more than 1 trillion international communications annually, argued that the surveillance violated their rights to privacy, free expression and association.
The U.S. Department of Justice countered that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had authorized Upstream's review of communications between Americans and foreign "targets."
Wikipedia can pursue NSA surveillance lawsuit: U.S. appeals court
Good. Not that it will really change anything.
