Tim Berners-Lee calls NSA surveillance an 'intrusion on basic human rights'

by Philippa Warr

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has spoken out about the news that the US National Security Agency has access to user data from some of the world's biggest tech companies, saying such government intrusions threaten "the very foundations of a democratic society".

Berners-Lee made the comments as part of a statement to the Financial Times in response to the NSA's leaked Prism PowerPoint presentation, which outlines data collection programmes involving companies including Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Apple and AOL.

"Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society," said Berners-Lee.

"Over the last two decades, the web has become an integral part of our lives. A trace of our use of it can reveal very intimate personal things. A store of this information about each person is a huge liability: Whom would you trust to decide when to access it, or even to keep it secure?"

The statement also called on web users (i.e. you) to demand better legal protection and privacy safeguards when it comes to online communications, "including their right to be informed when someone requests or stores their data".