Web inventor warns UK on surveillance plans

Associated Press, Apr 18, 2012

LONDON (AP) -- The scientist credited with inventing the World Wide Web says he's warned Britain's government to ditch plans to extend surveillance of Internet activity.

Tim Berners Lee, who developed the Web in 1990, says the proposals to allow intelligence agencies to monitor Internet use and digital communications of British citizens would be a "destruction of human rights."

Berners Lee told The Guardian newspaper in an interview published Wednesday that the proposals would place intimate information at risk of theft.

He says the government has not explained how it could safely store the data, meaning the plan should be scrapped.

Britain's Home Office has insisted that any new surveillance program would be limited and aimed at serious crime and terrorism.

Google's Sergey Brin has hit back at critics of his comments

 about web freedom. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/Associated Press

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