NordVPN Promotion

Home / News

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Wikimedia Foundation’s Challenge to NSA Surveillance

Protect your privacy:  Get NordVPN  [73% off 2-year plans, 3 extra months]
The U.S. Supreme Court Building

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear the Wikimedia Foundation’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to dismiss their lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA). Wikimedia Foundation, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sued the NSA in 2015 for the NSA’s “Upstream” surveillance of foreign targets through the “suspicionless” collection and searching of internet traffic. Wikimedia argued that this surveillance was an invasion of Americans’ privacy that violated the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. After the NSA asserted its right to state secrets privilege, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of the case, concluding that disclosing details about the surveillance could harm U.S. intelligence operations.

The ACLU’s lawyers urged the Supreme Court to hear the case, arguing that the lawfulness of the NSA’s surveillance has not been considered by any ordinary court in the more than 20 years of its operation. Despite this, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, leaving the lower court’s decision in place.

The big picture: The Wikimedia Foundation lawsuit serves as a reminder of the power of the state secrets privilege and how it can be used to prevent legal challenges to the government and its agencies.

By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

Visit Page

Filed Under

Comments

Comment Title:

  Notify me of follow-up comments

We encourage you to post comments and engage in discussions that advance this post through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can report it using the link at the end of each comment. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of CircleID. For more information on our comment policy, see Codes of Conduct.

CircleID Newsletter The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

Related

Topics

Cybersecurity

Sponsored byVerisign

IPv4 Markets

Sponsored byIPv4.Global

Domain Names

Sponsored byVerisign

Brand Protection

Sponsored byCSC

New TLDs

Sponsored byRadix

Threat Intelligence

Sponsored byWhoisXML API

DNS

Sponsored byDNIB.com

NordVPN Promotion