Steve Wozniak and Sir Tim Berners-Lee voice support for Edward Snowden's whistleblowing

Two giants of IT hail Snowden as a hero and call for greater privacy regulation

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee have both given their support for CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden, with Wozniak calling him a hero while Berners-Lee said that Snowden and others like him deserved protection for bringing wrongdoing to public attention.

The comments from two such leading luminaries of the technology world came in separate interviews delivered within a day of each other. Berners-Lee was asked whether Snowden was a hero or villain during an online question and answer session on social network Reddit, while Wozniak was interviewed at the CeBIT technology show in Hanover.

Berners-Lee said Snowden had provided an important net overall benefit to the world in disclosing the sheer extent of the snooping activities carried out by the NSA and GCHQ.

"I think he should be protected, and we should have ways of protecting people like him. Because we can try to design perfect systems of government, and they will never be perfect, and when they fail, then the whistleblower may be all that saves society," he wrote.

Meanwhile, when Wozniak was asked whether Snowden was a hero, he gave an unequivocal response. "He's a hero to me, although he might be a traitor to others," he said.

Wozniak also spoke eloquently about how the spying activities by security agencies and internet companies alike were not only against the ideals of the World Wide Web founders, echoing other comments from Berners-Lee, but also against the founding principles of the US constitution.

"When I was young, the Cold War was happening. We had freedom in the US, based on the constitution and the Bill of Rights, while people in other countries could be locked up for saying or doing things, and I believed in that freedom. Now, I see one by one these freedoms crumbling.

"I think Edward Snowden is like me, he wanted to believe in those freedoms, he saw the US government doing illegal things against the constitution, and he had the guts to give up his life for a principle," Wozniak said, sparking applause, before adding, "I wish that had been me."

Wozniak also voiced support for Berners-Lee's proposal for a bill of rights for the internet, and said that the US should have data privacy laws in line with or even stricter than those the European Parliament has just voted in favour of.

"Some people will oppose this and say it is regulation, but it is regulation that controls the people who regulate you. The US constitution, for example, says that you can't have a law that abrogates your right to free speech," he said.