Michelle and Geoff - thank you. This is a big step; I am glad that WMF can help move this case forward.
Chris Keating writes:
I'm not American, but the other co-plaintiffs seem to be civil rights / human rights organisations who are firmly at the left-wing/progressive end of US politics, some of them probably take the US government to court fairly often. So being seen in this company might identify the WMF a
little
with that part of the US political spectrum.
More likely identified with the 'free speech + freedom from surveillance' part of the spectrum, I would think. Which includes both conservative & progressive views.
Equally, the fact that WMF isn't a political organisation and isn't in the habit of suing the US Government probably adds a lot of weight to the campaign!
Let's hope so. A key point is that the extraordinary overreach of this surveillance affects everyone.
Sam
On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 4:27 AM, Yann Forget yannfo@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Wow! I am proud to be a volunteer working with an organisation daring to take such steps.
I hope that this will bring concrete results.
Best regards,
Yann
2015-03-10 8:53 GMT+01:00 Michelle Paulson mpaulson@wikimedia.org:
Hi All,
I’m writing to let you know that today the Wikimedia Foundation[1] is filing suit against the National Security Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency, the
Department of
Justice <
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Justice%3E,
and the U.S. Attorney General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney_General[2] in
order
to challenge certain mass surveillance practices carried out by the U.S. government. We believe these practices are impinging the freedom to
learn,
inquire, and explore on Wikimedia sites.
Since the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures, we’ve heard concerns from
the
community about privacy on Wikipedia. This lawsuit is a step towards addressing the community's justified concerns. We believe that the surveillance methods being employed by the NSA under the authority of
the FISA
Amendments Act <
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978_...
negatively impact our users' ability and willingness to participate in
our
projects. Today, we fight back.
An op-ed <
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/opinion/stop-spying-on-wikipedia-users.htm...
by Lila and Jimmy about the lawsuit, and Wikimedia's stance on government surveillance, appeared in The New York Times this morning. Additionally,
we
just published a blog post https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/10/wikimedia-v-nsa/ with more information about the suit. (The post will also up on Meta for
translation).
Best,
Michelle Paulson
Senior Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
mpaulson@wikimedia.org
[1] We are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union (ACLU). Other plaintiffs include The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers http://www.nacdl.org/, Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/, Amnesty International USA http://www.amnestyusa.org/, Pen American Center https://www.pen.org/, Global Fund for Women http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/, The Nation Magazine http://www.thenation.com/, The Rutherford Institute https://www.rutherford.org/, and Washington Office on Latin America http://www.wola.org/.
[2] Other named defendants include: Michael Rogers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Rogers, in his official
capacity
as Director of the National Security Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_the_National_Security_Agency and Chief of the Central Security Service; Office of the Director of National Intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_National_Intelligence; James Clapper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Clapper, in his
official
capacity as Director of National Intelligence; and Eric Holder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder, in his official capacity as Attorney General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney_General
of
the United States.
*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.* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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