Hello All,
Earlier this month, the Wikimedia Foundation joined a letter
<https://www.aclu.org/letter/broad-coalition-58-organizations-urge-meaningful-reform-section-702-surveillance>
from the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations to the
United States House Judiciary Committee regarding upcoming efforts to
reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978_Amendments_Act_of_2008>,
the statute that allegedly authorizes the mass surveillance we are
challenging in Wikimedia Foundation v. National Security Agency
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_v._NSA>. In the letter,
we urged the lawmakers to close the “backdoor search loophole,” which
allows law enforcement to search through information collected under
Section 702 without a warrant.
Two weeks ago, the USA Liberty Act, a draft bill that would reform Section
702, was introduced. Unfortunately, the current draft of the new bill does
not close the backdoor loophole; it also fails to address numerous serious
constitutional and legal deficiencies in the U.S. government’s reading of
Section 702. WMF and other organizations have therefore written a second
letter
<https://www.aclu.org/letter/coalition-letter-aclu-and-other-groups-wont-support-current-version-house-surveillance-bill>
to the House Judiciary Committee, to voice our opposition to the USA
Liberty Act.
While we certainly encourage lawmakers to require a warrant for searches of
information gathered under Section 702, such reforms are only small steps
in the right direction. We believe that this mass surveillance is
unconstitutional, and that’s why we filed WMF v. NSA. We will continue to
keep you updated on our efforts to oppose surveillance, and you can keep up
with WMF v. NSA on our resources page
<https://policy.wikimedia.org/stopsurveillance/>.
Best,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
*new address (Oct. 2, 2017)*:
1 New Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org