Wikimedia And ACLU File Lawsuits Against NSA Over Mass Surveillance
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), on behalf of organizations including the Wikimedia Foundation, has filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice challenging the government's mass surveillance program.
According to the lawsuit, NSA's mass surveillance violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and association. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Maryland, where the spy agency is based.
"This kind of dragnet surveillance constitutes a massive invasion of privacy, and it undermines the freedoms of expression and inquiry as well," ACLU Staff Attorney Patrick Toomey said in a statement.
"By tapping the backbone of the internet, the NSA is straining the backbone of democracy," Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, wrote in a blog post.
The U.S. Department of Justice said it was reviewing the lawsuit. NSA did not immediately responded.
"We are asking the court to order an end to the NSA's dragnet surveillance of internet traffic," Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Amnesty International USA, PEN American Center, the Nation magazine, Human Rights Watch, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Global Fund for Women, and the Washington Office on Latin America.
"We've been very clear about what constitutes a valid target of electronic surveillance. The act of innocuously updating or reading an online article does not fall into that category," said an Obama administration official, according to Reuters.
