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‘We have proof’: Wikipedia co-founder says NSA targeted organization
:
RT,
11
March, 2015
Wikipedia
co-founder Jimmy Wales says he is confident his organization can
defeat the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance program in
a legal battle – because he has evidence that such spying caused
the foundation harm.
Wales
believes the case may go all the way to the US Supreme Court due to
alleged constitutional violations, Reuters reported.
In
the complaint filed on Tuesday, Wikimedia – which runs the online
encyclopedia Wikipedia – and eight other groups said that one of
the NSA's mass surveillance programs, known as Upstream data
collection, violates privacy rights and forces people worldwide to
think twice before sharing sensitive information.
According
to the complaint, the NSA conducts Upstream data collection by
connecting surveillance devices to multiple major internet cables,
switches, and routers inside the United States. With the assistance
of telecommunications providers, the NSA intercepts a wide variety of
internet communications – including emails, instant messages,
webpages, voice calls, and video chats. The agency copies and reviews
all international emails and other “text” based communications.
"We
have proof that it's actually impacting us from the Snowden
documents. Wikipedia was specifically targeted for upstream
surveillance,"Wales told Reuters on Wednesday during a Q&A
session in Edinburgh.
A
Department of Justice spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a
request for comment about the lawsuit.
In
an op-ed article in The New York Times, Wales said that Wikipedia has
75,000 volunteers who edit and submit content to the site worldwide,
which is visited by 500 million people each month.
“[Whenever]
someone overseas views or edits a Wikipedia page, it’s likely that
the N.S.A. is tracking that activity — including the content of
what was read or typed, as well as other information that can be
linked to the person’s physical
“These
activities are sensitive and private: They can reveal everything from
a person’s political and religious beliefs to sexual orientation
and medical conditions.”
Wales
argues in the complaint that the mass surveillance is a violation of
the foundation's First Amendment right to free speech and of the
Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable search and seizure. He thinks
the case, after appeals, will probably go before the US Supreme
Court. The nation’s highest court previously rejected a challenge
to NSA surveillance in 2013 because the plaintiffs couldn’t prove
they had been spied upon.
What
makes the timing of this lawsuit different, though, is that that
ruling was three months before secret documents were made available
by whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who
revealed the extent of the agency's spying.
Wales
said that one Snowden-released document included in the lawsuit had
the logo of Wikipedia among organizations whose online user data the
spy agency was interested in.
"We
have other evidence that will be presented in court of the harm that
has caused us," Wales told Reuters, without elaborating on the
evidence.
Lawyers with expertise in national security cases, however, have called the lawsuit a long-shot because spy agencies often block litigation by citing the need to protect state secrets.
THE CIA CAMPAIGN TO STEAL APPLE’S SECRETS
RESEARCHERS
WORKING with the Central Intelligence Agency have conducted a
multi-year, sustained effort to break the security of Apple’s
iPhones and iPads, according to top-secret documents obtained by The
Intercept.
The
security researchers presented their latest tactics and achievements
at a secret annual gathering, called the “Jamboree,” where
attendees discussed strategies for exploiting security flaws in
household and commercial electronics. The conferences have spanned
nearly a decade, with the first CIA-sponsored meeting taking place a
year before the first iPhone was released.
By
targeting essential security keys used to encrypt data stored on
Apple’s devices, the researchers have sought to thwart the
company’s attempts to provide mobile security to hundreds of
millions of Apple customers across the globe. Studying both
“physical” and “non-invasive” techniques, U.S.
government-sponsored research has been aimed at discovering ways to
decrypt and ultimately penetrate Apple’s encrypted firmware. This
could enable spies to plant malicious code on Apple devices and seek
out potential vulnerabilities in other parts of the iPhone and iPad
currently masked by encryption.....
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/ispy-cia-campaign-steal-apples-secrets/
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