U.S. Court Dismissed Years-Long NSA Lawsuit on the Grounds of “State Secrets” | Court News

The lawsuit stated that the practice of mass interception and search of citizens’ international communications is unconstitutional.

The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit that challenged the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) practice of mass interception and search of U.S. citizens’ international Internet communications.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, Said in its lawsuit The U.S. National Security Agency’s so-called “upstream” surveillance program captured some of its international communications, which violated the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech and the Fourth Amendment’s right to oppose unreasonable searches and seizures.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said in a divergent ruling on Wednesday that the lawsuit must be dismissed after the government invoked the “private of state secrets,” which means that a full investigation of the issue in court would harm national security.

Judge Albert Diaz wrote in the court’s majority opinion that “the privilege of state secrets requires the termination of this lawsuit”.

At the same time, the judge Diana Greben Motz, who disagreed in the court ruling, warned that the majority opinion “represents a comprehensive proposition: according to the principle of state secrets, even if the government provides the sole defense, The lawsuit can be dismissed after a minimum of judicial review. Regarding far-fetched assumptions.”

The upstream presence is Exposed in a leak Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden filed a lawsuit in 2013 and filed a lawsuit after these disclosures.

The Wikimedia Foundation said it disagrees with Wednesday’s ruling and is considering the option of further review in court.

James Buatti, senior legal manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, said: “Faced with the massive public evidence of NSA surveillance, the court’s reasoning has raised extreme claims about the confidentiality of Internet users’ rights.”

The lawsuit was first dismissed in 2015 after a U.S. district judge found lack of evidence that the NSA was conducting surveillance “at full speed.”

However, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reopened the case in 2017 and sent it back to the lower court, which rejected the case again in 2019.