Wikimedia Foundation Files Suit Against NSA and DOJ 103
jrepin sends along the news (excerpted from the Wikimedia Foundation's blog) that Today, the Wikimedia Foundation is filing suit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) of the United States. The lawsuit challenges the NSA's mass surveillance program, and specifically its large-scale search and seizure of internet communications — frequently referred to as "upstream" surveillance. Our aim in filing this suit is to end this mass surveillance program in order to protect the rights of our users around the world. We are joined by eight other organizations and represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
So this is what they use donations for (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So this is what they use donations for (Score:5, Informative)
I think you have a good point, but here's a relevant extract from TFA:
Privacy is the bedrock of individual freedom. It is a universal right that sustains the freedoms of expression and association. These principles enable inquiry, dialogue, and creation and are central to Wikimedia’s vision of empowering everyone to share in the sum of all human knowledge. When they are endangered, our mission is threatened. If people look over their shoulders before searching, pause before contributing to controversial articles, or refrain from sharing verifiable but unpopular information, Wikimedia and the world are poorer for it.
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If people look over their shoulders before searching, pause before contributing to controversial articles, or refrain from sharing verifiable but unpopular information, Wikimedia and the world are poorer for it.
I suspect that the Wikipedia group think suppresses more contributions than any real or imagined fear of the NSA.
Glad they're using my donation for server costs though, which I believe was the headline the last time they pestered me for money. At least when my local PBS station begs me for money they spend it on things that are more than tangentially related to delivering the product that I use and love.
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This.
I *used* to lookup off-the-wall things. But consider this:
What if someone close to me, or not, died, and I was the last person who read information online about the manner in which they died? If someone commits suicide, and I recently looked it up. That could be "evidence" of a murder! Should I become a suspect, based on that alone?
What if, while in the course of designing a videogame, I looked up information about how weapons work? Everything from handguns to atom-bombs - for accuracy's sake? Do
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But don't click that link, or the NSAFBI routine might flag you.
So link to the HTTPS version [wikipedia.org].
Not bullet-proof, but a step in the right direction.
Unrelated: I see Firefox's status-bar now hides whether a hovered-over link is HTTP or HTTPS. Anything in the name of dumbing-down, right Mozilla? Seriously...
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To what end? 'They' can also click on that link to see what it's about. 'They' can also figure out what ip address the click came from, then it's short work to figure who is behind that IP address. HTTPS is not an anonymizer...
On the second point, I agree, that's a silly move from Mozilla.
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'They' can also click on that link to see what it's about. 'They' can also figure out what ip address the click came from, then it's short work to figure who is behind that IP address.
What? If you click the HTTPS link, it's harder for a third-party observer (the NSA) to learn which Wikipedia article you're reading.
HTTPS isn't perfect for this though - as I understand it, it has no protection at all against a traffic-pattern sort of analysis (how many articles are there with exactly that number of bytes?).
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What link?
If you search through wikiedia using https that link should be rencrypted and not known unless either your computer or the server is compromised or they are using a mitm attack yo thwart the https. If you search through google and click on the link, well you know at minimum you are being watched for marketing reasons.
Anyway, other that google or some other sesrch engine, you will not be swept up in automated collection and filtering. Someone will have to spend some real effort on you if you are us
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These are some topics I've always been curious about, just for the sake of knowledge, and not to endorse them in any way, and that I never looked up, not even on wikipedia, for fear of being "flagged" or whatever:
- pipe bomb construction. Is really that easy to build one as they do in movies? Should I be worried that any psychopath could build one?
- mein kampf. What was going on in that man's mind?
I could think of many other ones... And consider that I don't even live in America.
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mein kampf. What was going on in that man's mind?
Mein Kampf can be found in virtually every library in the United States. I had assumed it was the same in every country that values free speech. You should read it; it's a painful slog of atrocious writing but it's an important read nonetheless.
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What if someone close to me, or not, died, and I was the last person who read information online about the manner in which they died? If someone commits suicide, and I recently looked it up. That could be "evidence" of a murder! Should I become a suspect, based on that alone?
This is at best a fundamental misunderstanding of how law enforcement actually works, at worst a total straw man.
1. The NSA doesn't concern itself with murder. The overwhelming majority of murders in the United States are handled at the State level.
2. Local law enforcement isn't going to put you on the radar because of a Wikipedia search. They won't even know about your search history unless you appear on their radar for other reasons and the investigation develops enough for search warrants.
3. If an i
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This is, at best, a failure to understand what I said.
I mentioned parallel construction. Clearly you didn't understand:
http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
The NSA is free to pass that information to other, interested, parties. That includes State/local police/FBI/whomever. It invalidates every single point you just raised.
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And so what if they do flag you? Or me?
If the NSA is carrying out a dragnet operation on lookups, it is literally going to bring up millions of people who have looked up these things. Your one lookup would be barely worth the storage space that its taking up in some datacenter.
To even get close to noticed, you need to have significant correlation. The reality is that a wikipedia lookup isn't going to even be close to a membership on a board dedicated to discussing jihadi themes. Look at the people they
A question of standing. (Score:2)
Re:So this is what they use donations for (Score:4, Insightful)
Irony in somebody who effectively is saying privacy shouldn't be allowed posting anonymously?
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Maybe you could set a good example by identifying yourself? I doubt it, though.
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Re:So this is what they use donations for (Score:5, Insightful)
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I voted for him twice, and have openly supported him on far more than half of his major policy decisions. Continuing to let a US military spy agency collect phone and internet records of the entire US population without a warrant or specific probable cause isn't one of the policies I support. You may recall that his original platform included limiting the ability of the US government to engage in broad warrantless domestic surveillance.
Political beliefs can be quite a bit more nuanced than picking your f
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Moreover, I think this issue is one of the most critical ones for the future of the world as we know it.
Re:So this is what they use donations for (Score:5, Informative)
Utterly stupid. The ACLU is picking up the tab. The only reason Wikipedia is doing it is because the last case was thrown out for lack of cause, and the NSA has specifically mentioned Wikipedia, so they can prove damages are specific to them. In short, Wikipedia is the only group that CAN sue them and prove they were singled out, based on the actual words of the NSA themselves. This makes it 10x more likely the case will go the distance.
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This makes it 10x more likely the case will go the distance.
Assuming the Gov't doesn't feel empowered enough to simply throw the suit out 'because screw you, what are you gonna do about it?', they'll win a CoIntelPro victory where 'that' intel program is shut down. Of course it's shut down by re-shuffling it's duties into a slightly different structure with new names. The wholesale warrant-less spying doesn't slow down for a moment. Those with the power to meaningfully reign it in are the biggest beneficiaries of what the NSA is doing.
Re:So this is what they use donations for (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't about money, this isn't about closing down one specific named program. It's about raising awareness, for one, and about fighting for our rights in general. I'm behind that.
What I wish they'd do is make the situation more sorely obvious. They have the eyeballs and the screen real estate, and they used it once, back when the 2nd (I think) SOPA attempt was coming around. For all the times I've seen those slide-in banners talking about "Buy one programmer a cup of coffee," I wonder about the impact if those banners instead said "Your government is watching you read this article right now!"
I'm a middle-aged guy and I wind up on Wikipedia at least once a day, I know the younger generation is probably hitting it more frequently doing research for papers and assignments. Put it right in their face. That big yellow donation banner, but with substituted text for visitors from the US,
"Your government watches everything you do on the internet. Even your religious and church communications! Even your private Snapchats! This is unconstitutional. Complain loudly to your representatives today."
Waste of time and money (Score:4, Interesting)
The court will just decide — as others have before — that they don't have standing to sue. Because the spying programs are secret they cannot prove that they specifically have been spied upon illegally.
</cynicism>
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I was going to post this. Wikimidia can't sue because the NSAIDs spied on the world. They need to show that NSAIDs harmed them before a suit can proceed. This standing issue is in the constitution.
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Re:Waste of time and money (Score:5, Informative)
The article specifically addresses the issue of standing:
"The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures included a slide from a classified NSA presentation that made explicit reference to Wikipedia, using our global trademark. Because these disclosures revealed that the government specifically targeted Wikipedia and its users, we believe we have more than sufficient evidence to establish standing."
Oh in that case... (Score:2)
So instead it will be thrown out as 'fruit of the poisoned tree' (stolen documents).
Same police state, different
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Not quite. That only applies if the government wrongfully acquired the documents, knew they were wrongfully obtained, and used them anyway. It is typically avoided by claiming they didn't realize they were wrongfully obtained and they were acting in good faith.
Wikimedia learned of the violations through legally available public documents.
The violations were more than just eavesdropping. The publicly available leaked documents claim the NSA falsified records and used the Wikipedia trademarks to help claim
thrown out in 3...2... (Score:2, Interesting)
1...
wikimedia foundation cannot prove that they (the organization) has been spied upon (government will not offer evidence to prove it cuz 'national security') and even if they were they can't prove that it has hurt them. cases with more merit have been tossed. this one will be too.
Re:thrown out in 3...2... (Score:5, Informative)
The good news here is that the aclu and eff are participating. These orgs are very savvy and wouldn't waste time on a suit with no chance.
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The good news here is that the aclu and eff are participating. These orgs are very savvy and wouldn't waste time on a suit with no chance.
You forgot the sarcasm tag.
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Nah.. it can be dismissed on a denial of standing alone. Sure wikipedia can say X but the key is whether there was harm because of it or not and whether a court will recognize that harm.
But in the end, it doesn't matter. The FCC used the interstate commerce clause to movr the internet to title 2 regulation and the courts have long supported searches under the guise of interstate commerce. Even if the NSA is struck down, it can easily, and likely under existing search standards (boarder searches and the abil
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As i said, standing neefs to show harm. The court can not accept any harm was done and deny standing. Notice their claim id that they believe? They still need to get the court to believe too.
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Fuck you.
Lawyers like you take the rest of us down with you.
Get a job more suited to your mental ineptitude.
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It sucks much harder with you here.
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Ah, you're just jealous is all and stuff.
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I don't need tough guy bullshit as much as I need authoritative street cred and stuff.
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The good news here is that the aclu and eff are participating. These orgs are very savvy and wouldn't waste time on a suit with no chance.
The bad news is that, even if the court allows the case to proceed, and they win, the NSA will simply ignore the court's decision and continue their work. They're above (or beside or in a parallel universe to) the legal system.
The only real way to fight them is to find ways to expose their activities to the rest of the world. There are some technical problems with doing this effectively, such as jailing or assassination of outside investigators.
(Is there a documented, verifiable case of any "secret"
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the justice system moves slow, but when it gets moving in a direction it can sweep over a topic like a tsunami (eg a strong tide). think of gay marriage. There was no single block buster case. Instead, it was a progression, where in some states it was legalized, in other states it was illegalized. Everywhere it went to district courts, and some won and some lost. These filtered up to state supreme courts, again with a variety of rulings and justifications. Then, federal district courts ruled different ways.
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Don't you think that the ACLU and other plaintiffs are well aware of the arguments that the government has used in previous cases?
I'm not saying that they'll win, but they've obviously got something more than what they had with ACLU v. NSA or Amnesty v. Clapper.
This was somewhat expected (Score:2)
but to see them actually go for it? ... the poor bastards...
Still won't fly (Score:2)
The slide they reference contains a random collection of corporate logos (which bizarrely includes MySpace, CNN, and Google Earth). It doesn't say anything about actual
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I'm certainly cheering for Wikimedia, et al. Of course the odds are against them when you have the government deciding how much power the government has.
The ACLU lawyers are no dummies however. This time around they must have something that they believe can be used to demonstrate legal standing. They're not going to file a new case that the government will be able to shut down using the exact same strategies used to kill the previous cases. Remember also that none of the Snowden revelations had come out
Well intentioned, but misguided (Score:3)
If the lawsuit were successful, and if the organizations named as defendants in the suit ceased and desisted surveillance operations, all that would occur is a de facto victory in the surveillance arms race for America's opponents.
It's fairly sad, but very true to say this genie is out of the bottle.
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Ah, yes, the good ol' they-do-it-so-we-have-to.
Totally ignoring the facts that you have to start somewhere, that it is best to start where you have at lease some chance at success (as slim as it may be in reality), and that this suit will likely not stop the NSA from spying outside of America so they will only lose the 'surveillance arms race' of spying on Americans.
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Yes.
The "awareness" part of this will require popcorn.
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Also ignoring that America is still an influential force in the world. Unfortunately, much of our influence has been directed in a negative manner (e.g. copyright expansion). Imagine if the US government used its influence to put rational limits on spying. Would everyone immediately stop? Of course not, but it would push a lot of countries in the right direction and give some us good momentum.
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"Jimmy steals from the shops, Ma, so it's okay for me to do it, too."
And the evidence for mass surveillance (Score:1)
by other countries is WHERE? I mean, except for the five eyes, that was coordinated by US.
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Go Wikimedia (Score:3)
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Close, but ..."Intelligence operations that are discovered reveal incompetence."
Good luck with that! (Score:2)
"I fight authority, authority always wins."
I fight Neil Diamond, Neil Diamond always wins (Score:2)
Did John "Cougar" Mellencamp write "Authority Song" [youtube.com]? I seem to remember it being released first by Neil Diamond with different lyrics as "Cherry, Cherry" [youtube.com].
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Start at 1:08 in the "Cherry, Cherry" video, and take down about the next 16 measures. True, they're in different keys, but if you transpose this passage from "Cherry, Cherry" up about a fifth, it starts to sound very similar.
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"Cherry, Cherry" sounds more like "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A."
The A part of "Cherry, Cherry" sounds like "R.O.C.K.", I'll agree. The B part is what sounds like "Authority". And I'm going based more on the melodic shape than the chord progression.
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Yet the jury found for Marvin Gaye's estate in the "Blurred Lines" case.
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And Neil Diamond
from the good-luck-with-that dept. (Score:3)
3... 2... 1... (Score:2)
... No standing.