In the blog post that Michelle posted it says that both ACLU and Cooley, LLP are working pro bono. (Which is pretty sweet!) Does that answer your question?
Best,
John
From: publicpolicy-request@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Publicpolicy Digest, Vol 40, Issue 19 To: publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2015 12:00:12 +0000
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Today's Topics:
- Wikimedia v. NSA Update - District court grants gov't motion to dismiss (Michelle Paulson)
- Re: Wikimedia v. NSA Update - District court grants gov't motion to dismiss (Fæ)
Message: 1 Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2015 09:31:38 -0400 From: Michelle Paulson mpaulson@wikimedia.org To: publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Publicpolicy] Wikimedia v. NSA Update - District court grants gov't motion to dismiss Message-ID: CAL7R-pvFSgNmZ5pKQu+=GjXhmgh6S9_R3yF2cKA2rax+=TRucA@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hi All,
Yesterday, a federal district court granted the government's motion to dismiss our Wikimedia v. NSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_v._NSA case. For those of you familiar with procedural rules, the Judge T.S. Ellis III dismissed the case on standing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_%28law%29 grounds. What this means is that the court believed that we, along with our co-plaintiffs, were unable to plausibly allege that the NSA is capturing our communications. The ruling *did not* reach the substance and merits of the case.
We respectfully disagree with the decision and plan on appealing. This was not an unexpected outcome at this point in the litigation, and our counsel at ACLU feel that this is a strong posture for appeal.
We continue to feel that the NSA’s mass surveillance poses a serious threat to privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom of association -- rights that are essential to the Wikimedia movement, rights that we will continue to fight for. We thank the community for all of the support you have shown for this effort throughout this process.
Please see our blog post https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/10/23/wikimedia-v-nsa-lawsuit-dismissal/ for more information.
-Michelle
Michelle Paulson Legal Director Wikimedia Foundation 149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 mpaulson@wikimedia.org 415.839.6885 ext. 6608 (Office) 415.882.0495 (Fax)
*NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation and for legal/ethical reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.*
On 25 October 2015 at 16:30, John Andersson john.andersson@wikimedia.se wrote:
In the blog post that Michelle posted it says that both ACLU and Cooley, LLP are working pro bono. (Which is pretty sweet!) Does that answer your question?
The question was "Are the WMF costs for pursuing the case published?"
That it was mentioned that some external lawyers working pro bono is nice to know, but is unrelated to the publication of WMF costs.
Thanks, Fae
Hi All,
As mentioned in the blog post, the ACLU is representing us pro bono. We have also been putting in staff time as needed. We paid Cooley at the beginning of the case to help us support the ACLU. Those costs (in FY14-15) were within our allocated FY14-15 legal budget. In June, Cooley generously offered to continue representing us pro bono going forward. Therefore, in FY15-16, we are not incurring outside counsel costs because both ACLU and Cooley are working pro bono for us.
Hope that clears things up. -Michelle
== Michelle Paulson Legal Director Wikimedia Foundation 149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 mpaulson@wikimedia.org 415.839.6885 ext. 6608 (Office) 415.882.0495 (Fax)
*NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation and for legal/ethical reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.*
On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 25 October 2015 at 16:30, John Andersson john.andersson@wikimedia.se wrote:
In the blog post that Michelle posted it says that both ACLU and Cooley,
LLP
are working pro bono. (Which is pretty sweet!) Does that answer your question?
The question was "Are the WMF costs for pursuing the case published?"
That it was mentioned that some external lawyers working pro bono is nice to know, but is unrelated to the publication of WMF costs.
Thanks, Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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