Wikipedia to file lawsuit challenging mass surveillance by NSA

[IDemo]

Source: Reuters

Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that runs free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, will file a lawsuit against the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice, challenging the government's mass surveillance program.

The lawsuit, to be filed on Tuesday, alleges that the NSA's mass surveillance of Internet traffic in the United States — often called Upstream surveillance — violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and association, and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

The NSA's Upstream surveillance program captures communications with "non-U.S. persons" in order to acquire foreign intelligence information.

"By tapping the backbone of the internet, the NSA is straining the backbone of democracy," Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation wrote in a blog post on its website.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/10/us-usa-nsa-wikipedia-idUSKBN0M60YA20150310

[Alkene]

1. wikipedia.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstream_collection

"Wikimedia and eight other organizations filing the lawsuit, including the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA, will be represented by the American Civil Liberties Union".

[Dont call me Shirley]

2. "Upstream surveillance"? Now there's a Lunzian term.

[Cryptoad]

3. The Age of Privacy is Dead and Gone.......

The Digital Age drove a wooden stake thru its heart.......
Quit whining and get use to it..
If you are going to do anything you dont want the world to know about,,,, dont do it digitally!

[Trillo]

4. What are "non-U.S. persons"?

Are global corporations who have offices all over the world including or not including the U.S. considered "non-U.S. persons"?

[closeupready]

5. Corporations are people, my friend.

[Trillo]

6. legal definition of "person"

person

n. 1) a human being. 2) a corporation treated as having the rights and obligations of a person. Counties and cities can be treated as a person in the same manner as a corporation. However, corporations, counties and cities cannot have the emotions of humans such as malice, and therefore are not liable for punitive damages. (See: party, corporation)

I guess it means anyone other than the U.S. government itself, including all government employees and politicians, since each of those are also natural persons separate from the U.S. entity.

[blackspade]

7. Good.

Hopefully this will be a successful suit.