back to article Wikimedia chucks sueball at NSA and DOJ over mass surveillance

Jimmy Wales' Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, has announced its intention to file a lawsuit against the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) challenging dragnet spying programs such as PRISM. In a press release the foundation stated its "aim in filing this suit is to end this mass …

  1. Otto is a bear.

    So now we know

    What the last Wikipedia fund raiser was for.

    I was going to put an icon up for "light the blue touch paper and retire immediately", or at least "I'll get my coat", but for some reason no icons appeared.

    1. ramnosus

      Re: So now we know

      No you don't. Wikimedia is very upfront about it they've announced it. Your previous donation would have been exactly for what they said it was. Keeping Wikipedia going. I for one will donate money to them specifically to fight this mass surveillance as it does nothing to protect us from fascist Islamism. All it does is give orwellian powers to the state and destroy our freedom. I remember the 1980s where the whole point of being in the free West was that we were not spied on and repressed like the USSR where behind the iron curtain they had their media censored and their lives micro-controlled by the state. Now they want that here? Get f*d

      1. Hans 1
        Black Helicopters

        Re: So now we know

        >I remember the 1980s where the whole point of being in the free West was that we were not spied on and repressed like the USSR where behind the iron curtain they had their media censored and their lives micro-controlled by the state. Now they want that here? Get f*d

        I upvoted, however, if you seriously think you were not spied on and that the media were not censured everywhere, Christ! I'd love to be as naive as you! Media is still censured, to this very day, in every country that has media.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So now we know

          "I upvoted, however, if you seriously think you were not spied on and that the media were not censured everywhere, Christ! I'd love to be as naive as you! Media is still censured, to this very day, in every country that has media".

          I am permamently 'censored' by MSN,unable to articulate my right to free expression within the EU,as well as being a 'universal' right in the western world.

          MSN simply block my IP address from making comments on their home pages.

          I complained to them & they feigned ignorance by saying that there was nothing 'wrong' at their end.

          So, yes, it is naive for people to believe that they are 'free',either in the EU,UK or US,particularly when these same people also believe that China or Russia are the worst offenders in that respect.

          The STASI is alive,as well as kicking in the EU,UK & the U.S.A.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: So now we know

        I upvoted you, but 2 points:

        1) The term "fascist Islamism" is either flat wrong (look up the definition of fascism) or very ironic, since its "our" Corporations who co-opt "friendly" (meaning corrupt) Islamist governments to bleed and exploit their own populations.

        2) I agree with the guy who pointed out that our media was already globally controlled in the 80's (when I wasn't aware of it either). The banking cartel that owns the fed had good reason to buy out AP, Reuters, Bloomberg and DPA - the worlds major news aggregators. The internet helped them by breaking the back of independent print media, which was the backbone of any remaining independent investigative reporting. There's very little left now, a fact that may well help erode the number of at least somewhat informed people to below a threshold where it matters to the criminal corporate organizations that sit comfortably atop our "elected" governments.

        In recent years, you will not hear about anything they don't want you to hear about. The prime things they prevent you from hearing about are good, independent politicians you might vote for. Only politicians who have agreed to follow our new flavor of fascism (banksters and industry completely controlling our governments) will ever get enough (positive) press to get sufficient votes. Democracy is a puppet theater. As a well known German politician (Horst Seehofer) recently pointed out in an unexpected display of honesty: "Those who are elected have nothing to decide and those who decide are not elected."

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    All this does...

    All this does is make lawyers richer and the rest of us poorer...

    If there's one thing people with power are afraid of it would be losing their power, and since the people with power are the ones making the laws you can bet those laws will be updated/changed to make everything they want to do perfectly legal.

    1. as2003

      Re: All this does...

      I don't blame you for being cynical, but it sounds like you're suggesting we just give up and hand all our rights and privacy over to the government.

      I'm glad there are people more passionate about their civil rights than you; people who are willing to fight for them. Maybe they will fail, maybe they wont. But at least they are trying. At least they are doing something.

    2. ramnosus

      Re: All this does...

      Yes they have been busy changing the laws across the five-eyes in the last two years to destroy civil rights and liberty including the right to a fair trial. You are spied on from the second you wake up. They know when you catch the bus and they film you on it. They know where you drive your car on the roads, the police cars automatically take photos of your license plate and the data is stored forever. They know when you make a phonecall and when and to whom and if they want to they will listen in. They know every character you type on the internet and if they don't like you they will hack your computer and make something up.

      They will decide when they interfere with your life and when they won't. What jobs you get and what jobs will be refused to you after a phonecall is made to your prospective employers. Who you will socialise with and who you won't. What rumours about your past get leaked if you should cause them trouble. Welcome to life in the new world of total state control. You don't vote for these people, they tell the politicians what policies they will have.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guess who is now...

    On the US 'No-fly' list....?

    Will 'The Man' make his life hell just to show who's boss.

    Sad really but a sign of the times we live in.

    One where the state seems to think that it has to know everything about everyone all the time.

    Shades of the STASI in some respects.

  4. RyokuMas
    Black Helicopters

    It's who you know...

    The NSA will know who the judge is, and the lawyers, and anyone else involved.

    ... and they will also know where these people and their families live.

    No way is this ever going to stick.

    1. Gray
      Angel

      Re: It's who you know...

      Relax. The Justice Department will block this suit.

    2. ramnosus

      Re: It's who you know...

      YES you've hit the nail on the head. And it doesn't really matter that they know where they live they are not in phyical danger. It's worse than that. They know everything they've done. They've got access to their police spy database files. They know if in 1989 a domestic violence order was taken out on them by someone whether it went to court or not, whether it was a true accusation or not, that can be dragged out and leaked to the press any time, big threat to a judge or magistrate.

      They know if they have any drink driving convictions. And with total spy powers they will know if they ever accessed porn on the internet. And if they are spotless and clean they might hack their computer and make something up. That is legal under the NSA Bill No.1 passed in Australia in October. They have been busy passing laws across the US, UK, NZ, Australia and Canada to make all this interference legal. So the judiciary like the politicians will do what they are told because someone will drop a hint that the NY Times will be told about some moral transgression they or a loved one has made, or one will be made up. That's all it takes. A call and a reputational threat.

      What will the judge/politician do? Risk their job, their standing in the community? Or rule in favour of the NSA.

  5. Velv
    Big Brother

    Question authority...

    ...and the Authorities will question you!

  6. phil dude
    Joke

    allosteric modulation...

    For those in drug design, you might get the joke...

    P.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    U.S. Technology companies need to sue

    The actions of the NSA have undermined the commercial success of U.S. technology corporations. U.S. technology is suspect and comes with NSA strings. Why would any non-U.S. company or government use U.S. technology when they are guaranteed to have their data compromised? Shareholders have been impacted by the willful security violations by the U.S. government. Our agencies have broken trust with our customers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Re: U.S. Technology companies need to sue

      I don't know about the safety of non-U.S. tech products. They seem to have been or are being thoroughly backdoored by various nations of either an openly authoritarian or alledgedly freedom-loving nature...

  8. WonkoTheSane
    Big Brother

    A defendant was missed out

    The suit should also name FISA for "enabling acts of cyber-terrorism".

  9. John Lilburne

    Oh really!!!!!!!!!

    "against the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) challenging dragnet spying programs such as PRISM."

    So says the head of the Stasi department whose army of anonymous teenage spies, rumourmongers, and curtain twitching informers gather and file dirt on anyone and everyone.

  10. ramnosus

    I will donate to Wikipedia and EFF

    I will make sure to donate to these two organisations, good on them. The spy program has gone across the five-eyes alliance: Canada, Australia, the UK and NZ have all passed huge tranches of legislation destroying civil rights, enabling mass spying and exempting spies involved in special intelligence operations from the rule of law. They have destroyed your right to a fair trial or even to tell people what has happened to you, and they have enabled the state to spy on you from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep and even trawl your emails and texts while you are sleeping.

    1. John Lilburne

      Re: I will donate to Wikipedia and EFF

      You are talking about Google right?

  11. Herby

    On "mass surveillance"

    We have had "mass surveillance" in the past, but with it comes massive amount of data. Until recently, this volume of data was so huge that getting any information from it was difficult to say the lease, and the task of gathering it was most likely costly in terms of human activity,

    Now days, we have cameras and storage the allows the saving of this huge amount of data and its direction into minuscule bits of information.

    We are victims of our own technology in this regard. Without the farms of spinning rust (or flash memory), and the ability to sort it all out, we wouldn't be talking about this much, but we have been advancing technology, and now we must deal with it.

    Pogo said it well: We have met the enemy, and it is us!

    Paraphrasing Scott McNealy: You have no privacy, get over it.

    Sorry, that is the way it is.

  12. SomeoneInDelaware

    FBI

    J Edgar Hoover must be really proud (in the afterworld) of how much we've progressed from his index files.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like