To protect the privacy of Wikipedia users and others, the ACLU has filed a
lawsuit challenging the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance actions on behalf of organizations including Wikimedia Foundation, The Rutherford Institute and Amnesty International USA.
“We’re doing so because a fundamental pillar of democracy is at stake: the free exchange of knowledge and ideas,” Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov wrote in a piece for
The New York Times.
NSA surveillance of Internet use, which includes intercepting and copying private communications in bulk while they are in transit, violates the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and association, the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a
statement.
"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,
according to Reuters.
The ACLU challenged the NSA’s surveillance program in a previous lawsuit, Clapper v. Amnesty, but the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2013, saying the plaintiffs could not prove that they had been spied on. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden later exposed the agency’s surveillance methods.
“Our clients advocate for human and civil rights, unimpeded access to knowledge, and a free press,” the ACLU said in its statement. “Their work is essential to a functioning democracy. When their sensitive and privileged communications are monitored by the U.S. government, they cannot work freely and their effectiveness is curtailed – to the detriment of Americans and others around the world.”
Other plaintiffs in the case are The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Human Rights Watch, PEN American Center, Global Fund for Women, The Nation Magazine, and The Washington Office on Latin America.
Twitter users had mixed reactions.
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