Hello friends,

We are pleased to report that the Wikimedia Foundation has signed on to a coalition letter https://www.aclu.org/letter/coalition-letter-section-702-legislation opposing H.R. 4478, a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would reauthorize and expand some of the U.S. government's illegal mass surveillance activities.

As outlined in the letter, H.R. 4478 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978_Amendments_Act_of_2008#Foreign_surveillance, the law that allegedly permits the government to engage in Upstream mass surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstream_collection. While we are currently challenging Upstream mass surveillance in court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_v._NSA, we have also signed on to a number https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/2017-10-02_coalition_letter_section_702_backdoor_search_reform.pdf of https://www.aclu.org/letter/coalition-letter-aclu-and-other-groups-wont-support-current-version-house-surveillance-bill letters supporting reform on the legislative side.

Unfortunately, H.R. 4478 is not a reform bill. By expanding the U.S. government's ability to collect information about its targets (so-called "about collection") and query government databases without a warrant, It would likely worsen the threat that Upstream mass surveillance poses to the privacy and free expression rights of internet users worldwide. As a result, we decided to join with the American Civil Liberties Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation, and a number of other civil liberties advocates, educational organizations, and civil society groups to oppose the bill.

A committee vote was scheduled today for 21:00 UTC, but has since been postponed. We will continue watching the bill, and will keep you all posted. For those of you currently celebrating, happy holidays!

Cheers, Jim