Wikipedia will sue the NSA over mass surveillance

In a lawsuit to be filed Tuesday, the Wikimedia Foundation is challenging the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice of violating the First and Fourth Amendments. The American Civil Liberties Union will represent the foundation, along with eight other organizations filing the lawsuit.

The NSA's "upstream surveillance" program, a mass monitoring of internet traffic that was revealed by Edward Snowden, is "straining the backbone of democracy," Wikipedia Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov said in a blog post. Upstream surveillance allows the NSA to collect data from internet users communicating with "non U.S. persons" about foreign affairs.

The lawsuit alleges that upstream surveillance violates the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech as well as the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure. "The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures included a slide from a classified NSA presentation that made explicit reference to Wikipedia, using our global trademark," the Wikimedia blog post explains. "Because these disclosures revealed that the government specifically targeted Wikipedia and its users, we believe we have more than sufficient evidence to establish standing."

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"Wikipedia is founded on the freedoms of expression, inquiry, and information," Tretikov said in the blog post. "By violating our users' privacy, the NSA is threatening the intellectual freedom that is central to people's ability to create and understand knowledge."