The parent of Wikipedia has joined liberal and conservative organizations in suing the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice to stop its mass surveillance program exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The Wikimedia Foundation’s lawsuit (pdf) is being supported by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and includes plaintiffs on the left, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The legal challenge also includes the conservative Rutherford Institute, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Pen American Center, the Global Fund for Women, The Nation magazine and the Washington Office on Latin America.

The groups hope to have the federal courts end the NSA’s mass collection of Internet communications, which the agency claims is legal under the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act.

“Our aim in filing this suit is to end this mass surveillance program in order to protect the rights of our users around the world,” the Wikimedia Foundation said in statement. “We’re filing suit today on behalf of our readers and editors everywhere,” Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, added. “Surveillance erodes the original promise of the internet: an open space for collaboration and experimentation, and a place free from fear.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation Files Suit Against NSA To Challenge Upstream Mass Surveillance (by Michelle Paulson and Geoff Brigham, Wikimedia)

Wikimedia Foundation v. National Security Agency (U.S. District Court, Maryland) (pdf)

Why is the DEA Conducting Mass License Plate Tracking and Why was it Allowed to Conduct Mass Surveillance of Americans’ Phones Records? (by Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman, AllGov)

Privacy Board Report on Mass Telephone Surveillance Divides on Party Lines (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

NSA Director Alexander Admits He Lied about Phone Surveillance Stopping 54 Terror Plots (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Left and Right Unite to Sue NSA over Telephone Records Surveillance (by Matt Bewig, AllGov)