The man who invented the World Wide Web is calling for a bill of rights that would protect Internet users' freedom of speech. The bill would ensure the web's "open, neutral" system is protected, The Guardian reported.
Tim Berners-Lee said the bill should resemble the centuries old Magna Carta in England that protects the basic rights of the people. Berners-Lee's announcement comes exactly 25 years after he created the World Wide Web.
The bill of rights proposal also comes at a time he says the Internet is being abused by governments as they monitor the public's online activity.
"Unless we have an open, neutral internet we can rely on without worrying about what's happening at the back door, we can't have open government, good democracy, good healthcare, connected communities and diversity of culture," Berners-Lee told The Guardian. "It's not naive to think we can have that, but it is naive to think we can just sit back and get it."
Last year, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked secret documents to The Guardian that revealed the NSA's surveillance of Americans' Internet and phone activities. Other documents revealed the NSA was surveilling the leaders of nations overseas.
Berners-Lee, a supporter of Snowden, has heavily criticized the American government's spying, and argues a bill of rights is a way to protect the future of democracy. The web inventor said citizens all over the world should implement a Magna Carta for the web.
"Are we going to continue on the road and just allow the governments to do more and more and more control- and more and more surveillance?" he said on BBC Radio, according to Reuters.
"Or are we going to set up something like a Magna Carta for the World Wide Web and say, actually, now it's so important, so much part of our lives, that it becomes on a level with human rights?" the London-born computer scientist said.
The web bill of rights is part of a larger initiative titled "the web we want," which encourages people in each country to create an online bill of rights, The Guardian reported.
