Clockwise from top left, eight of the
people who have signed the petition: Hanif Kureishi, Björk, Arundhati Roy, Don
DeLillo, Ian McEwan, Tom Stoppard, Margaret Atwood and Martin Amis
More than 500 of the
world's leading authors, including five Nobel prize winners, have condemned the
scale of state surveillance revealed
by the whistleblower Edward Snowden and warned that spy agencies are undermining
democracy and must be curbed by a new international charter.
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.
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.
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