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WMF to NSA: "stop spying on Wikipedia users"

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By The ed17 and Go Phightins!
A slide leaked by Edward Snowden detailing intelligence interest in Wikipedia.
"This dedicated global community of users is united by their passion for knowledge, their commitment to inquiry, and their dedication to the privacy and expression that makes Wikipedia possible. We file today on their behalf."

In an effort to protect and maintain the privacy of Wikipedia's thousands of editors, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has filed a lawsuit against the United States' National Security Agency (NSA), Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Attorney General. This action takes aim at the so-called "upstream surveillance" practiced by the NSA, whose broad scope can include the communications between and edits made by Wikipedia users. The WMF has been joined by eight other organizations, including Amnesty International USA, Global Fund for Women, and Human Rights Watch. They are all being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is supplying much of the lawsuit's financial backing.

The move comes as the latest chapter in the WMF's long-standing opposition to government intrusion on the Internet, including the unprecedented one-day SOPA blackout in 2012 and Jimmy Wales' high-profile Wikimania speech in 2013.

The lawsuit states that "seizing and searching Wikimedia's communications is akin to seizing and searching the patron records of the largest library in the world—except that Wikimedia's communications provide a more comprehensive and detailed picture of its users' interests than any previous set of library records ever could have offered" (clause 67). It asserts that confidential communications among Wikipedia volunteers and staffers are being intercepted, and that "there is a substantial likelihood that the NSA retains, reads, and disseminates Wikimedia's international communications because Wikimedia is communicating with or about persons the government has targeted" (clause 71).

Edward Snowden, from the recently released documentary by Laura Poitras

The upstream surveillance targeted by the WMF includes four different processes, laid out in clause 43 of the lawsuit: copying, filtering, content review, and retention and use. As alleged by the WMF, this means, respectively, that

  1. The NSA is copying nearly all Internet traffic between the US and foreign countries, in addition to its substantial intra-US monitoring;
  2. Automatic filtering and discarding of purely domestic US communication, although much of it is actually kept for various reasons;
  3. A content review program detects instances of an unknown number of key words ("selectors") related to NSA foreign intelligence targets, a broad category that includes far beyond suspected agents or terrorists;
  4. The remaining information is retained and used; the NSA saves any communications it believes are relevant to its mission, as well as any information that was bundled with it.

Moreover, the lawsuit states that there are few restrictions on the use of the information from (4):

The NSA's legal justification for this is in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, 50 U.S.C. § 1881a.

The WMF's standing rests in the Edward Snowden leaks. On a PowerPoint slide detailing the NSA's interest in HTTP, Wikipedia is listed; it also remarks that "nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet uses HTTP." This was a major factor in hurrying the deployment of HTTP Secure (https) by default to all Wikimedia projects. Beyond this solitary slide, the lawsuit declares that Wikimedia communications "are intercepted, copied, and reviewed" by the NSA. Katherine Maher, the WMF's chief communications officer, wrote in an email to the Signpost that this line was "based on what we know about how the NSA has interpreted FAA and the breadth of the surveillance practices the NSA implemented under the authority of the FAA. The slide helped confirm that conclusion. We will present further information as the case moves forward."

The NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade. Due to its massive amounts of data processing, the NSA is the largest electricity consumer in Maryland.
The UK's Menwith Hill facility, which has the largest NSA presence in the country.

The WMF claims that such intelligence gathering is harmful to their mission, such as in countering systemic bias—the tilt of focus when, for instance, a broadly white, educated, middle-to-upper class male group writes an encyclopedia. In the Foundation's view, non-US editors could justifiably fear that their Wikimedia-related contributions, emails, and even page views will be intercepted by the NSA and shared with their own governments. In a related New York Times op-ed, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and WMF executive director Lila Tretikov contend that given the long-standing links between American and Egyptian intelligence, a hypothetical Egyptian editor would "surely be less likely to add her knowledge or have that conversation, for fear of reprisal." Maher echoed these points, writing that these "dragnet mass surveillance practices create a chilling effect on free expression and association."

The lawsuit rhetorically echoes the idea that the NSA "undermines" the plaintiffs:

In the New York Times op-ed, titled "Stop Spying on Wikipedia Users," Wales and Tretikov assert that Wikimedia editors should be free to edit and email without fear of government oversight: "Privacy is an essential right. It makes freedom of expression possible, and sustains freedom of inquiry and association. It empowers us to read, write and communicate in confidence, without fear of persecution. Knowledge flourishes where privacy is protected."

In a similar vein, the WMF published a blog post emphasizing privacy as "the bedrock of individual freedom" and "a universal right that sustains the freedoms of expression and association." The post decried the NSA's activities, which they said "rightfully alarmed" the Wikipedia community when disclosed (see previous Signpost coverage). At the conclusion of the post, the WMF legal team answered many frequently asked questions, which were reproduced on Meta for convenience. Of note, however, is that while the WMF correctly identifies that individuals can register anonymous accounts—"we don't require real names, email addresses, or any other personally identifying information, and we never sell your data"—they do not mention that those who edit without one are publicly identified, in on-wiki records, with their individual IP address.

The ACLU is representing the plaintiffs pro bono, so no Wikimedia donor funds will be devoted to the lawsuit beyond those already budgeted for the legal team and regular staff time. This is significant, given that a similarly scoped case, Clapper v. Amnesty, took years to wind its way through the US legal system before it was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2013. We asked Maher if the WMF was prepared to fight a case that could last just as long:

"The Foundation is prepared and committed for the duration."

Andrew Lih and Tony1 assisted in editing this story.
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11 March 2015 (all comments)
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    Embrace the Horror People: Nothing is Beyond Their Reach :)
    • For the record, I have no problem being eyeballed by the NSA, although I do concede that it is a little upsetting to know that after all the work I do to remain anonymous online someone out there knows who I really am and what I am working on. Having said that, I absolutely ABHOR the idea that I am in any way, shape, or form being represented in a US court by the American Civil Liberties Union, including by proxy in this case as part of the project represent by the WMF. I would rather be represented by Hitler's SS than suffer myself to be associated in any way, shape, or form with the ACLU. There is a reason we have electronic surveillance groups, and every time you log on you accept the fact that you sacrifice your stand alone entity for a complex relationship in which the world tracks you actions. Why then should we take legal action against the NSA? In an age where everyone readily shares every facet of there lives on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and on this sight where users are free to add or subtract information from their user pages for the public to view and read, why should we complain if such information is collected? It was we who elected to go electronic that prompted organizations such as the US NSA to expand there electronic surveillance capabilities, and it users like us who can solve the underlying issue by abandoning the electronic medium for paper medium once more in order to prevent our information from being monitored by the various governments and used against us. Perhaps that is the citizen in me, but as this land was a colony of the British Empire once, and since England Still Expects That Every Man Will Due His Duty, I would rather we publish a story titled "Shut Up and Deal With It" than one titled "We Will Fight Pointlessly to Ensure That Our National Security Will Suffer Additional Compromises And Setbacks". Lastly, before you all crucify me, keep in mind that this is my opinion, NOT a series a facts, therefore what I have posted above can not be right or wrong, it is merely one of many ways to interpret the given information. I am 100% sure that other Wikipedians will have different perspectives on this matter, and I welcome those comments to see where their stand. After all, we either believe in freedom of speech and expression for those whose opinions are polar opposite of ours or we do not believe it in at all. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:53, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you were editing from Egypt or Ethiopia, you might feel a little differently. These are countries that lock people up for criticizing their governments and also have intelligence sharing with the US. MoreTomorrow (talk) 07:46, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • That does seem to form part of the WMF's calculations. From the NYT op-ed:

    During the 2011 Arab uprisings, Wikipedia users collaborated to create articles that helped educate the world about what was happening. Continuing cooperation between American and Egyptian intelligence services is well established; the director of Egypt’s main spy agency under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi boasted in 2013 that he was “in constant contact” with the Central Intelligence Agency.
    So imagine, now, a Wikipedia user in Egypt who wants to edit a page about government opposition or discuss it with fellow editors. If that user knows the N.S.A. is routinely combing through her contributions to Wikipedia, and possibly sharing information with her government, she will surely be less likely to add her knowledge or have that conversation, for fear of reprisal.

    • That is a legitimate concern. What the NSA snoops here and shares here I have no problem with, but if they are sharing it with other nations in an attempt to subvert anti-government movements I'd be more incline to back the WMF on their lawsuit. We have no business sharing our intelligence with nations that will use it in the above example you've given, and it is appalling (though sadly, true) to think that the NSA would have any hand in retaining a dictatorship. That is not right, and from that stand point the WMF should be lauded for taking a standing against such actions undertaken the NSA (or any other the other major or minor intelligence agencies in the United States). TomStar81 (Talk) 19:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I sure hope all that money we send to MediaWiki isn't being used for political adventures. Furthermore it creates a divide since Wikipedia may be seen as a political activist organization, exactly the opposite of a neutral source of information. -- GreenC 01:36, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Your concern is understandable; but I note that the ACLU "is supplying much of the lawsuit's financial backing". The WMF's mission to make knowledge freely available gets a good public profile, while it pays only modestly. Don't we owe it to our readers? Sounds like a good bet to me. Tony (talk) 02:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • In this case I think that the ulterior motive of publicity on the cheap has goaded the Foundation into striking this pose (and if it isn't a pose; never thought I'd see the day when we're the ones throwing pointless lawsuits) above its concerns about people claiming a divide between its stated mission and its sudden litigiousness. Does one exist? Certainly I do think that it's an issue that ought to be discussed, and isn't as bright-line as the Foundation probably believes—remember, they're a closed shop of extraordinarily mission-committed people, I sense organizational blindness to the fact that not everyone agrees with them that this is a good idea.
    SOPA was just four years ago and it all went about so differently. ResMar 03:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Still, while in the same category, I question whether they would be able to be treated similarly. NSA surveillance is global, while SOPA was almost exclusively confined to the US. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:36, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the broad strokes are the same although the precise source of it is somewhat different. See my reply to Bawolff below. ResMar 15:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    In terms of owing things to our readers, in the short-medium term, inter-data center IPSec and rel="canonical" https (yeah yeah I know, wikipedia is the ideal target for a traffic correlation attack, but https for everyone increases the effort and prevents keyword scanning) would be probably much more effective. However, in the long term this sort of legal action is probably necessary to ensure that users feel free to say what they think instead of what they think its expected that they should say. Bawolff (talk) 15:32, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am very grateful to the WFM for having taking this courageous initiative. In my home project, Wikipedia in Spanish, the overwhelming majority of readers and editors is not based in the USA. Having all of our edits and intra-wiki emails systematically scanned by a foreign spy agency like the NSA is intimidating and irritating. --Hispalois (talk) 04:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Germany, France and Spain 'were all spying on citizens'. It is a global phenomenon, NSA is best known due to Snowden. Every country has a spy agency and will of course want to monitor Internet traffic. -- GreenC 12:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Though might not be a direct financial costs there will be a (probably significant) non-financial one, to borrow a term the Foundation has used before in its financial statements. Drafting this took Foundation lawyers' time, time that could have been applied elsewhere, and the effort will definitely incur further time costs that, while probably not directly measurable, are nonetheless a thing. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. ResMar 01:11, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • TomStar81, I suggest that you actually read the article on the SS, you might learn a thing or two. To the best of my knowledge, the ACLU has not been involved in genocide, for example, nor do they run Sonderkommandos. Your comparison is repugnant. --Randykitty (talk) 10:56, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • From where I sit, the SS had a code and a duty charged to them by the Fuhrer - albeit one based in the precept that only white people of a certain background and between certain ages were to be considered worthy enough for the state to give a damn about. The ACLU, by my comparison, is a diseased prostitute willing to sleep with any person or group for there 15 minutes of fame and to further the cause of strictly defining civil liberties which, in so doing, inadvertently restrict a lot of very liberties they claim to be working for. That said, I am glad that someone posted a position opposite of mine since as I noted this exercise becomes meaningless if no one speaks up. Thank you for your reply. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well then... Bawolff (talk) 14:47, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • It's clear this editor is relishing the opportunity to air their fringe viewpoints in a prominent forum. I suggest we follow this excellent advice. Gamaliel (talk) 15:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • Wow. Just... Wow. Good advice, Gamaliel, were it not that this is not just a troll, but an admin... But I will indeed not pursue this conversation, as anybody with this kind of ideas about the SS is somebody I will not interact with. --Randykitty (talk) 15:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • Well, the ACLU supports abortion rights and defended Nazi supporters. I think that it's controversial enough for Wikimedia members to oppose them. --NaBUru38 (talk) 00:14, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
              • @TomStar81: Jeez Tom, you're going to defend that viewpoint? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
                • I feel that I explained myself poorly in the above post. That is my fault, I should know better than to edit under the influence of my emotions, so let me try this again and see if a calmer, clearer mind can find the words that my more irate self could not and relay them to you in a way that better conveys what I was trying to say. Lets start with the idea of defense of the view point of Godwin's Law. I'm not defending the 3rd reich here. Never had, never will. I will not defend the ACLU either, though. To me, they are both despicable organizations. Neither one deserves praise for the work they've done, although I do concede that today's ACLU is not the same ACLU I read about that operated in the 1950s and 1960s. On the matter of the NSA surveillance: In this case, since the US is in a declared state of war, and since the US constitution does not include any explicitly guaranteed right to privacy (you can check if you like to confirm), I feel the state to be in the right for now as opposed to the ACLU/WMF. We are at war, and civil liberties have always taken a back seat to the needs of the state in a time of war. For as much as we criticize the Nazi regime and its war crimes we overlook our own equally atrocious acts in times of war. Right now, its the NSA surveillance and the subversion of pro democracy forces in the middle east through the sharing of intelligence with other countries. In Vietnam, it was the mass surveillance of the people by the FBI, which included illegal operations against groups like the KKK to undermine their ability to operate effectively. For this, Nixon become the only President to resign his office due to the Watergate scandal. In World War II, the US forcibly relocated hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans wit full citizenship status into what were essentially concentration camps on grounds that as Americans with Japanese ancestry they were potentially enemies of the state. In the Indian Wars, the US stripped virtually every track of land upon which the Native Americans had long lived and forced most of the tribes into marches onto reservations to which we still insist on maintaining even though there is no justifiable reason. In the civil war, Lincoln virtually transformed the US into a totalitarian state, suppressing the media and the courts to help ensure that the North won the war. There is no high ground to be had here. The truth and our liberties are always the first casualties in any war. Which brings me to my point: since we are still in a declared state of war the war powers act(s) comes into effect here. The state therefore is operating at the moment as the 3rd riech did - to state it simply, the first nation to fall to the US in the war on terror was the US, because our own government passed legislation such as the patriot act to expand its power and curtail our civil liberties. As long as we are at war (and we are still at war) then any attempt to protest here is unlikely to meet with much success because the state suppresses efforts made to interfere with its ability to fight. In the long run though, this system can not and will not permanently endure. Sooner or later, the US Congress will vote to end the war, and that is when this move should be made since at that time there will be no conceivable reason for the state to continue such a massive internal surveillance program. Once the legislature declares the war to be over, I am going to be first one demanding the end of the electronic observation and the repeal of the patriot act since neither will serve the best interest of the citizens, who in the end were the ones who stood by and allowed this to happen in the first place. I therefore feel that if I am responsible for the NSA's actions by having failed to ride my Senator and/or Congressman/woman to not pass the legislation that allowed for the electronic surveillance the WMF is now protesting against then I have a responsibility as a citizen to be the one to fix it rather than passing it off to some other group or organization to lobby for the repeal of such action on my behalf. I am We The People, and if this is a result of our inaction, then the onus is ours to bear, not the ACLU's. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:09, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Godwin's law and some unfortunate metaphors aside, your expanded analysis is quite interesting, Tom. I however fear you are too optimistic that this state of war cannot endure. This is not a war that has public "hurting" - there are only a few US casualties, and more less than before. However, the terror boogeyman is still being waved by a number of power powerful vested interests, which are making profit - both capital wise, and power wise - from the current situation. I don't see it as beyond the realm of likely possibility that US will continue to be in a state of war against some Third World statelets and/or the impossible-to-ever-eradicate stateless organziations like Al-Qaeda for decades, and that this will be used to justify continued and graduated curtailing of liberties. People dislike drastic change, but a law this year, a law next year, gradual change is another thing. The more this continues, the more drastic and painful of a remedy will have to be applied to reverse this effect - and this can include massive loss of life and even the end of a statehood (albeit this is a pretty far reaching, darkest scenario, yes). Second, the current governance system in US makes individuals, except the richest 0.01%, powerless. Lobbies like ACLU are a necessary evil for individuals to be able to effect change. I fully support transformation of current non-really democratic system into something that will give individuals more power (liquid democracy being my favorite ATM), but in the state of things we are, I will support ACLU, with all its imperfections, as the lesser evil, because I don't see a better option (for the record I discount "I ignore politics" and such as hiding one's hand in the sand and pretending the real world doesn't exist - it's not lesser evil, it's simple ignorance, and the very passivity of the masses that allows the current system to exist). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:34, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
                    • I suppose its in my nature to assume the best with regards to the people that run the US, but I see what your saying: in order to fight the machine, you need an equally large machine that runs the other way. Sad as I am to say this then, perhaps it is best the ACLU take up the case, although I remain concerned about how this will play out for us. What then does it say about us when we are reduced to choosing the lesser of two evils rather than best option available? I recall a line from Benjamin Franklin about how any nation that would sacrifice liberty for security deserved neither, and I fear that this is officially where we have arrived. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:44, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I find it difficult to imagine a larger waste of effort (and money?) than this. The Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an advocacy group. I am highly critical of this effort and don't understand how this wasn't put to some sort of widespread vote before proceeding on "our" behalf. Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Before passing judgement on this, see chilling effect. Widefox; talk 12:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    sopa

    What does sopa have to do with mass surveliance. Bawolff (talk) 12:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    • I should think nothing, but we were one a great many sites that protested loudly and proudly about the idea of congress adopting the bill. Incidentally, it wasn't just SOPA, if we are being fair to this line of discussion, the PIPA act was also included in our protest. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that they are unrelated, which makes me confused about the sentence "The move comes as the latest chapter in the WMF's long-standing opposition to mass surveillance on the Internet, including the unprecedented one-day SOPA blackout in 2012..." in this article. Bawolff (talk) 14:46, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    The SOPA/PIPA blackout was the last time that we as a community have aggressively pursued a stance against developments in governance AFAIK. The broad strokes of our involvement with both issues is the same, ae., governments, stop meddling in or degrading (word choice dependent on how you feel about this issue) the Internet. ResMar 15:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, Resident Mario is correct. I'll try to clarify this in the text. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have contributed to Wikipedia since 2004, I do so because it is fun and I keep on learning much along the way. Why there is a lawsuit "on my behalf" I do not understand, I have not asked for it and I would say no if anyone asked me. I am not a big fan of various parts of US internal and external policy, but I am simply not interested in that the WMF try to claim they represent me, they do not. Ulflarsen (talk) 08:09, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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