(Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a Wikipedia lawsuit that challenges a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) program of mass online surveillance, and claims that the government unconstitutionally invades people’s privacy rights.

A man is silhouetted near logos of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and Wikipedia in this photo illustration taken in Sarajevo March 11, 2015. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo

By a 3-0 vote, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, said the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, had a legal right to challenge the government’s Upstream surveillance program.

The decision could make it easier for people to learn whether authorities have spied on them through Upstream, which involves bulk searches of international communications within the internet’s backbone of cables, switches and routers.

Upstream’s existence was revealed in leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.

Lawyers for the Wikipedia publisher and eight other plaintiffs including Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch, with more than 1 trillion international communications annually, argued that the surveillance violated their rights to privacy, free expression and association.

The U.S. Department of Justice countered that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had authorized Upstream’s review of communications between Americans and foreign “targets.”

In October 2015, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Baltimore dismissed the lawsuit, finding a lack of evidence that the NSA, headquartered in Maryland, was conducting surveillance “at full throttle.”

Writing for the appeals court panel, however, Circuit Judge Albert Diaz found “nothing speculative” about the Wikimedia Foundation’s claims.

Diaz said the NSA interception and copying of communications showed “an invasion of a legally protected interest - the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The foundation could also pursue its First Amendment claim because it had “self-censored” some communications in response to the Upstream surveillance, Diaz said.

By a 2-1 vote, the same panel also ruled the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the NSA’s alleged “dragnet” to intercept “substantially all” text-based communications to and from the United States while conducting Upstream surveillance.

Justice Department spokesman Mark Abueg declined to comment.

Patrick Toomey, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said the ruling means Upstream “will finally face badly needed scrutiny” in the courts.

“This is an important victory for the rule of law,” he said in a statement. “Our government shouldn’t be searching the private communications of innocent people in bulk.”

Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers are working on legislation to curtail parts of Upstream. A section of FISA that authorizes the program expires at year end.

The case is Wikimedia Foundation et al v National Security Agency et al, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 15-2560.</s>Watch out, National Security Agency: Wikipedia is coming after you.

On Tuesday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 to revive a lawsuit brought by the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia — claiming that the NSA’s massive surveillance program is unconstitutional and invades people’s privacy. The case will now head back to Maryland court, and its impact could be enormous.

Not only will it likely reveal more about the secret NSA surveillance program — it could also potentially end such surveillance, explained Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. “This is a chance for a real challenge to the programmatic nature of the surveillance.”

“The NSA has secretly spied on Americans’ internet communications for years, but now this surveillance will finally face badly needed scrutiny in our public courts,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Patrick Toomey said in a statement. The ACLU is representing Wikimedia and the case’s eight other plaintiffs, which include Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA.

“Our government shouldn’t be searching the private communications of innocent people in bulk, examining the contents of Americans’ emails and chats day in and day out,” Toomey said.

In October 2015, a federal District of Maryland judge dismissed the case after ruling that Wikimedia and its fellow plaintiffs couldn’t prove that their communications had been captured by the NSA’s warrantless “Upstream” collection program, which involves vacuuming up people’s communications as they fly through internet cables, switches, and routers.

But the judges of the 4th Circuit found that the NSA has probably seized at least some of Wikimedia’s communications without a warrant, due to both the sheer volume of its communications and the fact that its users span the globe — meaning Wikimedia can continue to sue the NSA for violating the 4th Amendment.

And that’s not all. “Because Wikimedia has self-censored its speech and sometimes forgone electronic communications in response to Upstream surveillance, it also has standing to sue for a violation of the 1st Amendment,” the judges found.

“The idea that when people know that they’re being spied on, that they don’t say what they really think and they don’t read what they’re really curious about,” explained Granick, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of Wikimedia and the other plaintiffs. “They act differently, and the exercise of the freedom of speech and the freedom to read are curtailed or chilled as a result of this feeling that you’re being spied on.”

This is not the only pending legal challenge to the NSA’s warrantless surveillance programs. But in the past, Granick added, groups have struggled to prove that they were spied on under specific NSA programs and statutes because there’s so little information publicly available about them. The reach of NSA’s Upstream collection program on ordinary civilians was revealed thanks to documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to VICE News’ request for comment, but the government has claimed in past court documents that Upstream’s warrantless surveillance is authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the ACLU contends is unconstitutional anyway.

However, the news isn’t all good for all the parties involved. Two of the members of the three-judge panel ruled that the case’s other plaintiffs, which include Amnesty international and Human Rights Watch, couldn’t prove that the NSA had also intercepted their communications. In a statement, the Wikimedia Foundation said it would work with its co-plaintiffs and the ACLU to “review the opinion and determine the next steps for our case.</s>Wikipedia is suing the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) for their illegal mass surveillance of the general public, claiming the Obama administration unconstitutionally invaded people’s privacy rights.

A federal appeals court on Thursday revived the lawsuit, agreeing by a 3-0 vote that the Wikimedia Foundation could challenge the government’s “Upstream” surveillance program.

Yahoo News reports: The decision could make it easier for people to learn whether authorities have spied on them through Upstream, which involves bulk searches of international communications within the internet’s “backbone” of cables, switches and routers.

Upstream’s existence was revealed in leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.

Lawyers for the Wikipedia publisher and eight other plaintiffs including Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch, with more than 1 trillion international communications annually, argued the surveillance violated their rights to privacy, free expression and association.

The U.S. Department of Justice countered that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has authorized Upstream and its review of communications between Americans and foreign “targets.”

In October 2015, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Baltimore dismissed the lawsuit, finding a lack of evidence that the NSA, headquartered in Maryland, was conducting surveillance “at full throttle.”

Writing for the appeals court panel, however, Circuit Judge Albert Diaz found “nothing speculative” about the Wikimedia Foundation’s claims.

Diaz said the NSA interception and copying of communications showed “an invasion of a legally protected interest – the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The Wikipedia publisher can also pursue its First Amendment claim because it had “self-censored” some communications in response to the Upstream surveillance, Diaz said.

By a 2-1 vote, the panel also ruled the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the NSA’s alleged “dragnet” to intercept “substantially all” text-based communications to and from the United States while conducting Upstream surveillance.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Patrick Toomey, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said the ruling means Upstream “will finally face badly needed scrutiny” in the courts.

“This is an important victory for the rule of law,” he said in a statement. “Our government shouldn’t be searching the private communications of innocent people in bulk.”

The case is Wikimedia Foundation et al v National Security Agency et al, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 15-2560.</s>Well, well, well, the NSA may not waltz away legally unscathed after spying on Americans’ private communications due to the dogged determination of the Wikimedia Foundation, the ACLU, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and eight other co-plaintiffs.

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to give Wikimedia a chance to legally challenge the NSA’s mass surveillance as being unconstitutional. The government has previously argued that the NSA’s Upstream warrantless spying is authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Thanks to Upstream surveillance, the NSA sucks up and searches through American’s international internet communications.

The ruling yesterday reversed a lower court’s ruling which found Wikimedia, which publishes the internet behemoth Wikipedia, couldn’t prove the NSA’s “Upstream” surveillance program was secretly monitoring its communications, vacuuming the communications right off the internet backbones – even with leaked Snowden documents showing Wikipedia as an NSA target.

Despite Wikimedia’s “99.9999999999%” assertion that at least one of its more than one trillion international text-based internet communications each year had been copied and reviewed by the NSA, the lower court ruled that Wikimedia couldn’t prove it was being surveilled.

Thankfully the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals did not agree. In fact, due to the sheer size of Wikimedia, the judges found that the NSA probably had seized at least some of their communications.

Watch out, NSA, as you are about to be sued for violating the Fourth and First Amendment. It’s about flipping time a lawsuit about such unconstitutional surveillance moved forward, instead of being killed off because the groups can’t prove the NSA was spying on them.

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled:

Wikimedia has plausibly alleged that its communications travel all of the roads that a communication can take, and that the NSA seizes all of the communications along at least one of those roads. Thus, at least at this stage of the litigation, Wikimedia has standing to sue for a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And, because Wikimedia has self-censored its speech and sometimes forgone electronic communications in response to Upstream surveillance, it also has standing to sue for a violation of the First Amendment.

“This is an important victory for the rule of law. The NSA has secretly spied on Americans’ internet communications for years, but now this surveillance will finally face badly needed scrutiny in our public courts. We look forward to arguing this case on the merits,” said ACLU attorney Patrick Toomey.

“Our government shouldn’t be searching the private communications of innocent people in bulk, examining the contents of Americans’ emails and chats day in and day out,” Toomey added. “This mass surveillance threatens the foundations of a free internet.”

The ruling was not all good news as the court determined that the other eight co-plaintiffs did not have standing in the case. The dissenting judge found that all nine plaintiffs had standing: Wikimedia Foundation, The Nation Magazine, Amnesty International USA, PEN America, Human Rights Watch, the Rutherford Institute, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Global Fund for Women and the Washington Office on Latin America.

Wikimedia said, “We, our co-plaintiffs, and our counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), will carefully review the opinion and determine the next steps for our case.”

No trial date has been set and Wikimedia still has to prove the NSA’s surveillance is unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the Wikimedia Foundation added:</s>A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court ruled the Wikimedia Foundation has standing to sue the National Security Agency over its "upstream" surveillance practice, reversing a lower-court decision tossing the group's case.

An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, called the decision an "important victory for the rule of law."

"The NSA has secretly spied on Americans' internet communications for years, but now this surveillance will finally face badly needed scrutiny in our public courts," Patrick Toomey said in a statement. "We look forward to arguing this case on the merits," he said.

This ACLU argues that the "upstream" surveillance of the internet's "backbone" of digital networks violates constitutional protections of free speech and privacy.

The NSA recently announced it will no longer permit intelligence officials to collect emails, texts and other communications between two people who mention a target by name, but are not themselves targets of surveillance. The agency said it will limit such collection to internet communications sent directly to or from a foreign target.

But Toomey said he doesn't believe the agency's decision to scale back its surveillance will have an impact on the case.

While the NSA has suspended a controversial piece of its "upstream" surveillance, it still continues, Toomey said. Furthermore, the NSA hasn't said it won't go back to its broader collection practice in the future, he said.

"That makes it very important that we continue to press ahead with this challenge," Toomey said.

The 4th Circuit's decision only revives Wikimedia's claim; the court said other groups that brought the initial lawsuit in 2015—including Amnesty International USA and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers—don't have legal standing.

The 4th Circuit said Wikimedia's allegations are enough to "make the plausible conclusion" that NSA has intercepted and reviewed some of its communications. Wikimedia can sue under the First Amendment because it has "self-censored its speech and sometimes forgone electronic communications" because of the NSA's surveillance, the court said.

"Indeed, there's nothing speculative about it—the interception of Wikimedia's communications is an actual injury that has already occurred," Judge Albert Diaz wrote.

The government can ask the full 4th Circuit to hear the case.</s>A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived part of a lawsuit in which the publisher of Wikipedia and other groups said mass online surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency violated the U.S. Constitution.

By a 3-0 vote, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, said the Wikimedia Foundation could pursue claims challenging the so-called Upstream surveillance, involving the bulk searching of Internet communications.

The appeals court said a lower court judge erred in dismissing that claim because the main allegations were "not speculative," giving the group standing to sue for violations of the U.S. Constitution's First and Fourth Amendments.

"The allegation that the NSA is intercepting and copying communications suffices to show an invasion of a legally protected interest," Circuit Judge Albert Diaz wrote. "Indeed, there's nothing speculative about it."

Tuesday's decision also upheld the dismissal of related claims by eight other groups, including Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch, saying they could not plausibly show the NSA was intercepting their communications through what it called a "dragnet."

Circuit Judge Andre Davis dissented from that part of the decision, saying he would have found the other plaintiffs had standing.

A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the appeal for the plaintiffs and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</s>The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, in a unanimous 3-0 vote, will allow the Wikipedia online encyclopedia parent organization, Wikimedia Foundation, to proceed with a legal challenge to the NSA's "Upstream" global surveillance arm.

NSA's Upstream, whose existence was made public following leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, is a US global spy program that accesses the cables, switches and routers comprising the principal data routes of the internet to conduct universal international communications surveillance.

At least nine organizations, including Wikimedia Foundation, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch previously argued that, as their representatives source or receive over one trillion international communications every year, Upstream presented a violation of the right to privacy, free expression and association.

In 2013 a US District Judge in Baltimore had dismissed the lawsuit, citing a lack of evidence that the NSA conducted global surveillance "at full throttle."

But in the new appeal to allow the lawsuit to proceed, Circuit Judge Albert Diaz suggested that there was "nothing speculative" about the claims made by Wikimedia Foundation and the other plaintiffs.

Diaz, Reuters reported, stated that the NSA interception and copying of international internet communications revealed "an invasion of a legally protected interest — the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures."

Rights organizations across the US hailed the move.

"This is a wonderful example of how transparency creates a more just society," said Garland Nixon, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) board member and host of Radio Sputnik's "Fault Lines."

"The Snowden leaks created the dynamic in which these public information and social justice organizations, who were made aware of otherwise unknowable government programs, are able to petition the judicial system and fight for the privacy protections that they have a right to expect."

ACLU lawyer Patrick Toomey, representing the plaintiffs in the case, observed that Upstream "will finally face badly needed scrutiny."

"This is an important victory for the rule of law," he said in a statement cited by Reuters. "Our government shouldn't be searching the private communications of innocent people in bulk."

The US Justice Department has not responded to requests for comment on the go-ahead vote.</s>The Wikimedia Foundation has the right to sue the National Security Agency over its use of warrantless surveillance tools, a federal appeals court ruled. "A district judge shot down Wikimedia's case in 2015 , saying the group hadn't proved the NSA was actually illegally spying on its communications," reports Engadget. "In this case, proof was a tall order, considering information about the targeted surveillance system, Upstream, remains classified." From the report:</s>A legal challenge to a controversial NSA program called is getting a second chance. A US appeals court reversed a lower court decision and ruled today that the , the non-profit that runs Wikipedia, has legal standing to object to Upstream in court.

The 's Upstream program is authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is up for reauthorization by Congress this year. The NSA says Section 702 and the Upstream collection it allows are crucial for intercepting the communications of foreign terrorists. But critics of the program-Wikimedia among them-say that Upstream collection gathers virtually all international internet traffic and combs through it, violating the rights of American citizens who are caught up in the surveillance dragnet.

But challenging Upstream in court has proved difficult because companies and individuals have to prove that they've been directly surveilled in order to establish standing. Due to the secretive nature of NSA surveillance, it's tough for anyone to prove they were a target-so these cases are often dismissed. To wit: A district court previously dismissed the lawsuit brought by Wikimedia and eight other organizations in October 2015, saying its claims of surveillance were too speculative.

But the Wikimedia Foundation's global reach-it says it engages in one trillion international communications per year-convinced the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that the organization's data has likely been collected by the NSA. The court ruled today that Wikimedia could challenge the surveillance based on its First and Fourth Amendment rights. (Wikimedia argued that upstream collection is an unreasonable search and has a chilling affect on its speech.)

"Wikimedia has plausibly alleged that its communications travel all of the roads that a communication can take, and that the NSA seizes all of the communications along at least one of those roads," the court ruled. "And, because Wikimedia has self-censored its speech and sometimes forgone electronic communications in response to Upstream surveillance, it also has standing to sue for a violation of the First Amendment."

Now that Wikimedia has cleared this hurdle, the case will be an interesting test of the legality of dragnet surveillance, and it may put pressure on Congress as it considers Section 702 reform.

"This is an important victory for the rule of law. The NSA has secretly spied on Americans' internet communications for years, but now this surveillance will finally face badly needed scrutiny in our public courts," attorney Patrick Toomey, who represents Wikimedia, said in a statement emailed to Gizmodo. "This mass surveillance threatens the foundations of a free internet."

As Congress weighs wether or not to reauthorize Section 702 this year, the NSA is tweaking its surveillance programs to make them more palatable. The agency recently announced that it is ending "about" collection , which gathers digital communications that reference a surveillance target. The NSA said it was ending the collection due to privacy concerns and admitted that Americans' data had not been handled correctly. However, the Upstream collection at issue in Wikimedia's case continues.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling. We've reached out to the Wikimedia Foundation for comment, and we'll update if we hear back.</s>In a rare bit of good news for privacy activists in the United States, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday thatThe 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, in a unanimous 3-0 vote, will allow theNSA's Upstream, whose existence was made public following leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, isAt least nine organizations, including Wikimedia Foundation, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch previously argued that, as their representatives source or receive over one trillion international communications every year, Upstream presented a violation of the right to privacy, free expression and association.In 2013 a US District Judge in Baltimorethat the NSA conducted global surveillance "at full throttle." But in the new appeal to allow the lawsuit to proceed, Circuit Judge Albert Diaz suggested thatDiaz, Reuters reported, stated that the NSA interception and copying of international internet communications revealedRights organizations across the US hailed the move. "This is a wonderful example of how transparency creates a more just society ," said Garland Nixon, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) board member and host of Radio Sputnik's Fault Lines.ACLU lawyer Patrick Toomey, representing the plaintiffs in the case, observed that Upstream "will finally face badly needed scrutiny. This is an important victory for the rule of law," he said in a statement cited by Reuters. "Our government shouldn't be searching the private communications of innocent people in bulk."The US Justice Department has not responded to requests for comment on the go-ahead vote.
The United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that Wikimedia Foundation has the legal right to challenge the National Security Agency Upstream program of mass online surveillance. This decision reinstates the suit that had been dismissed by a Federal district judge in Baltimore, Maryland. Eight other organizations, including Amnesty International USA and the Global Fund for Women, are also plaintiffs in this case.