10/12/2013 18:27
500 writers sign petition calling for end to the NSA spying
More than 500 of the world’s most prominent writers and authors, including five Nobel literature laureates, have added their signatures to an open appeal calling for an end to the NSA spying program. The authors, including five Nobel Prize winners, are from 81 different countries. The appeal - A Stand For Democracy In The Digital Age - is against all widespread ‘mass surveillance’ by governments and corporations and comes hot on the heels of eight of the world’s largest technology companies, including Facebook and Google, urging Barack Obama and other leaders to rein in internet surveillance, the Voice of Russia said.
The signatories, who come from 81 different countries and include Margaret Atwood, Don DeLillo, Orhan Pamuk, Günter Grass and Arundhati Roy, say the capacity of intelligence agencies to spy on millions of people's digital communications is turning everyone into potential suspects, with worrying implications for the way societies work.
They have urged the United Nations to create an international bill of digital rights that would enshrine the protection of civil rights in the internet age.
The call comes a day after US-based technology giants called for sweeping changes to controversial surveillance laws in the United States.
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and AOL published an open letter on Monday to US President Barack Obama and Congress, criticizing the current laws that they said have hurt public’s “trust” and their business.
Their call comes a day after the heads of the world's leading technology companies demanded sweeping changes to surveillance laws to help preserve the public's trust in the internet – reflecting the growing global momentum for a proper review of mass snooping capabilities in countries such as the US and UK, which have been the pioneers in the field.
The open letter to the US president, Barack Obama, from firms including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook, will be followed by the petition, which has drawn together a remarkable list of the world's most respected and widely-read authors, who have accused states of systematically abusing their powers by conducting intrusive mass surveillance.
One of the petition's creators German-Bulgarian writer and activist Ilija Trojanow, who has previously been denied entry into the United States, told The Australian from Vienna that only about 20 writers who were approached to sign the petition declined.
"The vast majority agreed, and 90 per cent agreed with great flourish and solidarity," he said.
"International moral pressure is what's needed to ensure politicians address the mass invasion of our privacy by the intelligence services in the UK and US," said Jo Glanville, from English Pen, which along with its sister organisations around the world has supported the Writers Against Mass Surveillance campaign. "The signatories to the appeal are a measure of the level of outrage and concern."