Twenty-five years ago today, on March 12, 1989, a British computer scientist working at CERN submitted a proposal for an information management system based on "hypertext" that would link people, computers, and documents in a connected "web" he called "Mesh." A year later he would rename it the World Wide Web -- I think you've heard of it.

Today, March 12, 2014, that computer scientist and father of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, is calling for the world to come together and help his 25 year-old creation -- now out of its exuberant adolescence and facing serious issues about its future -- to grow into a good, honorable, equitable adulthood.

"At 25," told Berners-Lee to CNN, "[the Web's] more like a young adult. Suddenly it needs its independence; young adults are at the stage when they're looking for freedom, and in terms of what they do they're asserting their rights." Berners-Lee isn't just speaking metaphorically.

He says there needs to be a declaration of human rights for the web, especially in a landmark year after 2013's hack attacks and revelations of massive government surveillance. For example, the same day the Web turns 25, reports surfaced of the NSA using malware to infect thousands, if not millions, of internet-connected computers.

"We need independence of the Web for democracy, we need independence of the Web to be able to support the press, we need independence of the Web in general. It's becoming very important to sort out all that," said Berners-Lee to CNN.

The inventor of the Web, who has been an outspoken critic of the government surveillance outlined by documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, sees the 25th birthday of his baby as a critical time when important decisions about the web's future need to be made. Decisions to be made not by himself, governments, or official organizations, but by the people who have made the Web what it's become over the past quarter-century -- namely, everyone.

"It's time for us to make a big communal decision," he said to the BBC. "In front of us are two roads -- which way are we going to go? Are we going to continue on the road and just allow the governments to do more and more and more control -- more and more surveillance? Or are we going to set up a bunch of values? Are we going to set up something like a Magna Carta for the world wide web and say, actually, now it's so important, so much part of our lives, that it becomes on a level with human rights?"

Berners-Lee said the internet should be a neutral medium that allows freedom of access to information without fear of either surveillance or censorship. That's why on the Web's birthday, and in his birthday message (below), Berners-Lee is launching a movement called the Web We Want, an initiative that calls on "people around the world to stand up to their right to a free, open and truly global Internet."

Greeting from Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee on the Web's 25th anniversary from Web25 on Vimeo.

The initiative calls for an "Internet Users Bill of Rights" applicable for every country, which includes measures against both spying in the developed world and censorship and control of the internet in developing countries, like in Venezuela, where the government reportedly turned off the internet during recent protests.

Looking at the last 25 years of his creation, Berners-Lee is aware of the perils that the expansion of the Web has brought, but remains hopeful for its future, according to his interview with CNN:

"In general the Web enables humanity to be more powerful and that power can be used for good things and to do horrible things -- but on balance when it comes to humanity I'm a tremendous optimist."