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Monitoring the internet

Summary

20 April 2012

World Wide Web founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said people should protest in the streets against current plans to increase internet monitoring.

"People should get out there in the streets waving banners," he told the BBC. Sir Berners-Lee was in Lyon for the World Wide Web 2012 international conference.

Report

"The worry is that this information is very powerful information because it's such intimate information. People actually tell to the web, in a way, sometimes more intimate than they tell to the people in their own family. So the worry is that this powerful information will be recorded and will be sitting there and there won't be much control on how it is used. Whereas in the past if the government had wanted to go and search somebody's house then they would have to go and get a court order to go and do that."

"This is critical infrastructure. This is something we have to keep open; we have to keep it neutral. It's like, interfering with Her Majesty's mails. It's a no-no. For the country to work the mail has got to work, you've got to send a letter from A to B. Similarly if I connect to the internet at A and you connect at B we've got to be able to talk without either large companies or governments intervening and that's going to be a battle and I think it's going to be a battle until we establish some very strong rules of behaviour from governments and agreements about how the internet will be used."

"Talk to your friends; make sure they are aware of this concern. And if necessary get out there in the streets waving banners. Unless it is significantly altered to preserve the rights of the citizen then I think it will be necessary to protest."