“Everyone is becoming a potential suspect.”

That’s the claim of more than 500 of the world’s most notable authors who’ve signed an open appeal calling for an end to the surveillance of the NSA spying program as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Five of the authors are Nobel prize winners – and they come from 81 countries.

They include: Margaret Atwood, Gunter Grass, Don DeLillo and Yann Martel.

The writers claim the immense capability that intelligence agencies have in spying on millions of people means that everyone is becoming a potential suspect.

Their petition reads in part : “A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.”

The authors are urging the United Nations to implement an international bill of digital rights – to protect the civil rights of billions in this technological age.

This comes after an open letter published by tech-based giants like Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter, urging U.S. President Barack Obama to change the laws regarding surveillance and spying in the United States.