Wikipedia's Lawsuit Against NSA Internet Vacuum Has First Day in Court
By Steven Nelson Sept. 25, 2015 | 4:47 p.m. EDT
A lawsuit against the National Security Agency’s dragnet interception of Internet communications had its first day in federal court Friday, with a diverse coalition of organizations asking a judge to rule against the Obama administration’s request that their case be dismissed.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis didn’t rule from the bench or betray a clear leaning during arguments.
The case was filed in March by the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, along with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Amnesty International USA, PEN American Center, Human Rights Watch, The Nation magazine and other human rights and advocacy groups.
The groups are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and say the NSA’s "upstream" collection of Internet communications from the cables, routers and switches that make up the Internet’s backbone is unconstitutional.
[READ: Police Use of Stingrays Unaffected by New Federal Warrant Rule]
The upstream collection is – along with the PRISM program that collects communications directly from companies like Google and Facebook – a major source of Internet records the government says it's authorized to acquire through Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
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