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Spies, avert eyes! Tim Berners-Lee demands a UK digital bill of rights

Lobbies tetchy MPs 'to end indiscriminate online surveillance'

The UK needs a digital bill of rights to protect citizens against the government's "indiscriminate online surveillance", world wide web inventor Tim Berners-Lee said on Saturday.

The Greatest Living Briton™ was speaking at the Web We Want Festival in London. He lobbied politicos in Blighty to take action in the run up to next May's General Election.

"A trusted Web is crucial to the UK’s future - our tech sector has led the way out of recession, creating more jobs than any other industry in recent years," Berners-Lee said.

"A Britain in which people no longer trust the Web as a safe and private place will be a Britain that is less free, less creative and ultimately less prosperous.

"The 2015 General Election is an opportunity for party leaders to reverse this worrying trend by committing to end indiscriminate online surveillance and enact a new digital bill of rights."

It's not the first time that Berners-Lee has pushed for a web version of the "Magna Carta". In March, when the world wide web reached its 25th anniversary, he made a similar declaration.

He has previously said that the NSA's spying tactics revealed by master blabbermouth Edward Snowden were "appalling and foolish." ®

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