Surveillance Opponents Ask Court To Reject Government’s Motion To Dismiss Suit Against DOJ, NSA

motion to dismiss Wikimedia Foundation v. National Security Administration, a lawsuit against the NSA, Justice Department and their directors over the government’s mass surveillance programs of all international text-based communications, a news release said Friday. “Government officials argue that any harm to the organizations from the government’s spying program is speculative.” The groups argued in their opposition to the defendant’s motion to dismiss at U.S. District Court in Maryland that the “NSA’s program involves copying and sifting through the contents of international internet traffic,” or “Upstream surveillance,” a program that involves copying Internet traffic -- including emails, chat, Web browsing and other communications -- as the data traverses the fiber backbone of the Internet, EFF Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker wrote in a blog post Thursday. “Upstream surveillance sweeps in readers’ online interactions with libraries and bookstores, including sensitive information like readers’ choice of reading material, which is protected by the First Amendment,” Crocker said. “As the Supreme Court has explained, the constitutional guarantee of free speech also includes protections for the things that go along with free speech: publishing and receiving information anonymously and associating privately.”