--- title: Wikimedia Is Suing To Shield Users From NSA Surveillance | TIME description: Volunteers produce most Wikipedia entries, and the lawsuit alleges the NSA's potential surveillance will deter those contributors. canonical: https://time.com/video/xabyuF3u/ og:title: Wikimedia Is Suing To Shield Users From NSA Surveillance og:description: Volunteers produce most Wikipedia entries, and the lawsuit alleges the NSA's potential surveillance will deter those contributors. og:url: https://time.com/video/xabyuF3u/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xabyuF3u/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Wikimedia Is Suing To Shield Users From NSA Surveillance twitter:description: Volunteers produce most Wikipedia entries, and the lawsuit alleges the NSA's potential surveillance will deter those contributors. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xabyuF3u/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Wikimedia Is Suing To Shield Users From NSA Surveillance > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Wikimedia Is Suing To Shield Users From NSA Surveillance [Watch (HLS stream): Wikimedia Is Suing To Shield Users From NSA Surveillance](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xabyuF3u.m3u8) (2:04)  _Published 2015-03-10. Volunteers produce most Wikipedia entries, and the lawsuit alleges the NSA's potential surveillance will deter those contributors._ --- Jul 27, 2023 6:01 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [President Obama Outlines Changes To NSA Surveillance](/video/C7iMgATt/) ### President Obama Outlines Changes To NSA Surveillance [VIDEO: The NSA PRISM Surveillance Program in One Minute](/video/HBDdXWkn/) ### VIDEO: The NSA PRISM Surveillance Program in One Minute [NSA's Phone Record Seizures](/video/PoSwxcTd/) ### NSA's Phone Record Seizures --- ## Transcript The company behind everyone's favorite online encyclopedia is part in with the American Liberty Union to sue the National Security Agency and Department of Justice for practices become known as upstream surveillance. The informational upstream surveillance comes from the massive Edward Snowden leaks from almost two years ago. Upstream surveillance is when the NSA collects data on Internet users who communicate with non US persons if it in any way relates to national security or foreign affairs. And Wikimedia says NSA is targeting Wikipedia readers and contributors. To collect such data. The suit filed in the District of Maryland asked the courts to condemn these actions as unlawful. And to force the NSA to delete all information it may have already gathered from any plaintiff involved in the case. There are eight different plaintiffs involved in the suit besides Wikimedia. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said of the lawsuit. We're filing suit today on behalf of our readers and editors everywhere. Surveillance erodes the original promise of the internet: an open space for collaboration and experimentation, and a place free from fear. Wikipedia's enormous library of entries comes mostly from volunteers. More than 75, 000 worth according to the Wikimedia statement. And the lawsuit alleges the potential surveillance by the NSA would deter volunteers from contributing to the site. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the law the NSA leans on to collect this data, and it has been challenged before. The Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that plaintiffs would have to show with near certainty that they had been or will be harmed by the act [ MUSIC ] In order to challenge it in court. It's a catch- 22. It's a secret program that is hard to get information about, and yet, the court is seeming to require plaintiffs to get that absolute absolute certainty before they can challenge the constitutionality of the surveillance. But one of the classified documents released by Snowden includes a slide that features the Wikipedia logo among other popular web pages like Twitter and Facebook. 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