Tim Berners-Lee has entered the lists once again this week in defence of the Internet rights of the individual . Not only is he fighting on both sides of the Atlantic but on two fronts – against snooping and against commercial enclosure of the common land of the Internet.
In a recent post, I wrote about some of the hypocrisy around the UK Govt’s position in seeking to legalise snooping by GCHQ and other security organisations. Berners-Lee and his WWW Foundation have joined the debate big time. Those who have not paid attention to others on this issue may now perhaps pay attention to the ‘inventor’ of the World Wide Web and his plea that the coalition Govt stop the bill now. Despite being an unpaid advisor to the same Govt on improving Internet access, he believes the dangers of gathering information on all citizens is highly dangerous , not just to those individuals but to Govt organisations themselves. There is still time for public opposition ( ie you and me) to prevent or change the legislation.
However, at the same time, across the pond, he and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are also opposing the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which is due for consideration by the full US Congress as soon as this Monday, 23rd April. In some ways this will have a similar impact to the UK legislation in that it achieves snooping rights for US Govt agencies by requiring commercial organisations to give up their consumer data.
As Berners –Lee says, this legislation, although national in origin, is international in scope.
“[It] is threatening the rights of people in America, and effectively rights everywhere, because what happens in America tends to affect people all over the world. Even though the Sopa and Pipa acts were stopped by huge public outcry, it’s staggering how quickly the US government has come back with a new, different, threat to the rights of its citizen
But in the same week, a more fundamental threat has also attracted Berners-Lee’s attention, namely the continuing encroachment on the open Internet he created, not by governments but by commerce. As in in the enclosures of public land in Europe in the 18th century, the ‘common land’ of the Internet created by hypertext links is being encroached on by closed networks and walled gardens and an online world driven by apps. Google, unsurprisingly, has joined in this protest – its own search paradigm is threatened. But Berners-Lee , typically, has also criticized Google , Facebook and others for the data they gather on consumers and then do not make available to them on request.
While the rest of us just get on with our lives, we should be grateful for champions of freedom like Berners-Lee and the Electronic Frontier Foundation who watch our backs.
Thank the Internet for Tim.
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