The US government has betrayed the Internet. We need to take it back

[Commentary] Government and industry have betrayed the Internet, and us. By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance platform, the National Security Agency has undermined a fundamental social contract.

The companies that build and manage our Internet infrastructure, the companies that create and sell us our hardware and software, or the companies that host our data: we can no longer trust them to be ethical Internet stewards. This is not the Internet the world needs, or the Internet its creators envisioned. We need to take it back. And by we, I mean the engineering community. Yes, this is primarily a political problem, a policy matter that requires political intervention. But this is also an engineering problem, and there are several things engineers can – and should – do. To the engineers, I say this: we built the internet, and some of us have helped to subvert it. Now, those of us who love liberty have to fix it.