ACLU: Snowden proved NSA Internet spying harms Americans

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

ACLU: Snowden proved NSA Internet spying harms Americans
By JULIET LINDERMAN, Associated Press | March 10, 2015 | Updated: March 10, 2015 6:36pm

BALTIMORE (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups sued the National Security Agency and the Justice Department on Tuesday, challenging the government's practice of collecting personal information from vast amounts of data harvested directly from the Internet's infrastructure.

The suit filed in federal court in Maryland accuses the NSA of scooping up virtually everything sent via the Internet between Americans and people outside the United States, and then scouring it to identify and monitor foreign intelligence targets.

A similar challenge was turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said the plaintiffs couldn't prove they'd been harmed. This lawsuit says that's changed since the government confirmed the surveillance after its scope and details were leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.

This "upstream" surveillance of the Internet's "backbone" of digital networks reaches far beyond any individuals the government is targeting to combat terror attacks, and violates constitutional protections of free speech and privacy, the plaintiffs say.




Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Human-rights-media-groups-sue-NSA-over-web-6125978.php

[Thinkingabout]

1. How is it "harming" anyone?

[Joe Turner]

2. It doesn't

Now if you don't mind, let's examine every call, email, post, transaction, internet site you have ever made to see if you have anything to hide. Hey maybe we can find something that would be of interest to the authorities if you get too big for your britches at some juncture. Nothing to worry about.

[midnight]

3. Ha Ha Ha. Nice that your able to keep your sense of humor...

[elias49]

4. Great! Now we'll be hearing that the ACLU is a bunch of

Greenwald libertarian Snowdenistas!

[JonLP24]

5. If Snowden did this during Bush

all 3 would universally be treated as heroes, anyone who disagreed would quickly be ganged up on in threads.

This is what I hate about partisanship, now they defend something Bush started, enacted, etc

[SoapBox]

6. It'll be thrown out...

It's too broad and they will have to show harm.

[JonLP24]

8. There is plenty to look through

https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/greenstone/cgi-bin/library.cgi

I'm sure there is a 4th amendment violation in there somewhere.

[cstanleytech]

7. Just to bad he released more than just that information though because if he had

just limited it to what the NSA was doing as far as wiretapping inside the US then he would have been a true whistleblower *shrug*
Hopefully he is starting some Russian language courses because I think he is going to be needing them.

[JonLP24]

9. The NSA Has Taken Over the Internet Backbone. We're Suing to Get it Back.

Every time you email someone overseas, the NSA copies and searches your message. It makes no difference if you or the person you're communicating with has done anything wrong. If the NSA believes your message could contain information relating to the foreign affairs of the United States – because of whom you're talking to, or whom you're talking about – it may hold on to it for as long as three years and sometimes much longer.

A new ACLU lawsuit filed today challenges this dragnet spying, called "upstream" surveillance, on behalf of Wikimedia and a broad coalition of educational, human rights, legal, and media organizations whose work depends on the privacy of their communications. The plaintiffs include Amnesty International USA, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and The Nation magazine, and many other organizations whose work is critical to the functioning of our democracy.

But the effect of the surveillance we're challenging goes far beyond these organizations. The surveillance affects virtually every American who uses the Internet to connect with people overseas – and many who do little more than email their friends or family or browse the web. And it should be disturbing to all of us, because free expression and intellectual inquiry will wither away if the NSA is looking over our shoulders while we're online.

The world first learned of the existence of upstream surveillance from whistleblower Edward Snowden's spying revelations in June 2013. Since then, official disclosures and media reports have shown that the NSA is routinely seizing and copying the communications of millions of ordinary Americans while they are traveling over the Internet. The NSA conducts this surveillance by tapping directly into the Internet backbone inside the United States – the network of high-capacity cables and switches that carry vast numbers of Americans' communications with each other and with the rest of the world. Once the NSA copies the communications, it searches the contents of almost all international text-based communications – and many domestic ones as well – for search terms relating to its "targets."

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/nsa-has-taken-over-internet-backbone-were-suing-get-it-back

[stonecutter357]

10. Snowden