Appeals court OKs Net-snooping suit

RICHMOND, Va. — A challenge to the government’s practice of collecting certain Internet communications can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 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.

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.

The government can ask the full 4th Circuit to hear the 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 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.