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