Dec 19, 2019 19:00:00

Wikipedia management group's complaint that 'monitoring by intelligence agencies is a violation of the constitution' is rejected twice

`` The

US National Security Agency (NSA) infringed privacy rights and freedom of expression by monitoring on the Internet, '' said the Wikimedia Foundation that operates the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, the American Free Human Rights Association (ACLA), etc. The United States District Court dismissed the plaintiff's complaint on December 16, 2019 for lack of evidence on alleged complaints with eight groups.

District Court rules for government in Wikimedia Foundation's mass surveillance case against the NSA – Wikimedia Foundation
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/12/17/district-court-rules-for-government-in-wikimedia-foundations-mass-surveillance-case-against-the-nsa/

Judge dismisses Wikimedia case against NSA over Upstream surveillance-DCD
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/judge-dismisses-wikimedia-case-against-nsa-over-upstream-surveillance/

Former NSA employee Edward Snowden disclosed in 2013 that the NSA operated a system called PRISM, which allowed direct access to the central servers of Internet companies and access to personal information.

What is PRISM, a top-secret system that allows you to peek directly at personal information on servers such as Google, Apple, and Yahoo !? -GIGAZINE

Snowden also accused the NSA of collecting information confidentially using a network of telecom companies in the US, and accusing the upstream monitoring program. The Wikimedia Foundation has accused the district court in Maryland, where the NSA is based, that the upstream surveillance program violates the freedom of expression and privacy rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.

Wikipedia finally sued NSA for violation of constitution-GIGAZINE

However, the district court dismissed the complaint by the Wikimedia Foundation, saying that the plaintiff is not eligible for the party . The Wikimedia Foundation, disapproved of this decision, appealed to the Court of Appeals in February 2016.

And in May 2017, the Court of Appeals ruled that 'the Wikimedia Foundation has the legal right to sue the government's upstream surveillance program,' reversing the decision made by the district court in 2015.

Wikipedia can continue litigation against NSA = US appellate decision-Reuters
https://jp.reuters.com/article/wikipedia-nsa-idJPKBN18K0QB

In the re-run trial, plaintiffs stated that 'communications centered on the Wikimedia Foundation are very vast and will almost certainly go through the international backbone network. ' `` We are monitoring upstream at one point '' `` The NSA is copying and censoring text-based communication passing through that monitoring point '' and developed three claims, and the NSA's upstream monitoring program is in violation of the constitution I insisted that there was.

Meanwhile, NSA witness and network expert Dr. Henning Schulzlin said, 'I do not know the specific function of NSA upstream monitoring,' and upstream monitoring interferes with Wikimedia related traffic He argued that it was possible to do so without having to be monitored, by blacklisting Wikimedia related static IP addresses.

Judge T.S.Ellis, who was in charge of the trial, acknowledged the possibility of Wikimedia-related traffic being trapped in the NSA surveillance network, but “NSA originally copied information about the Wikimedia Foundation from the backbone network and monitored and censored it. There is no evidence that it was. ' `` There is no technical necessity to copy all text-based communications passing through the networks monitored by the NSA, '' judging that 'Dr. Schultzlin's claim is consistent with information disclosed by the government.' It was considered.

by Photon ™

Judge Ellis said, 'In order for the Wikimedia Foundation to appeal the issue again and to properly argue, it must seek details about the operation of the upstream surveillance program, that is, the disclosure of protected state secrets. Even if the case is proceeded without disclosure, the result will be invalidated by the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ”he said.“ Therefore, this case still has to be dismissed and favors the defendant. ” Judgment must be made. '

The Wikimedia Foundation responded to the ruling by saying, 'It is very unfortunate that the court accepted the government's claim. This ruling indicates that the government's invasive and extensive surveillance program exists beyond the constitution. “We have been recognized,” he commented, “we are consulting with a lawyer about the next step.”