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
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(a)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(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
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>gt;,
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.ht…
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(a)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>.*
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Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266