Internet SOS

[Commentary] We recently learned that US and British intelligence agencies have broken the back of digital encryption -- the coded technology hundreds of millions of Internet users rely on to keep their communications private. Government and corporate forces often work together to chip away the two pillars of the open Internet: our ability to control our personal data and our right to connect and communicate without censorship or interference.

Many of the companies that ply this trade are only now being exposed through "Spyfiles," collaboration among WikiLeaks, Corporate Watch and Privacy International designed to shed light on the multibillion-dollar industry. According to the latest documents provided by Edward Snowden, US intelligence agencies alone spend $250 million each year to use these companies' commercial security products for mass surveillance. It's part of a sprawling complex of companies, lobbyists and government officials seeking to rewire the Internet in ways that wrest control over content away from Internet users. The Internet wasn't meant to be like this. Bruce Schneier, an encryption fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, says that the NSA and the companies it works with are "undermining the very fabric of the Internet." It's a business that puts at risk the most integral function of the World Wide Web. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Web's pioneer, saw the network as a "blank canvas" -- upon which anyone could contribute, communicate and innovate without permission. Without safeguards that protect users from surveillance and censorship, the Internet's DNA will change in ways that no longer foster openness, free expression and innovation. We need media policies that protect our privacy and promote access to open networks.