I appeared on BBC Newsnight debating Tony Blair’s claim in his memoirs that in introducing the Freedom of Information Act he was a “naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop”.
My opponent was the pugnacious John Prescott.
Newsnight: Tony Blair and FOI
September 3rd, 2010The data revolution: How WikiLeaks is changing journalism
August 12th, 2010A panel discussion at the Frontline Club on how online data and its dissemination is changing journalism and the relationship between public and power.
The panel comprised Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief (via online link up); journalist, academic and freedom of expression activist Heather Brooke, whose successful campaigning led to the full release of MPs’ expenses files; media lawyer Mark Stephens of Finers, Stephens Innocent and Simon Rogers, editor of The Guardian’s Datablog.
Chaired by Paddy O’Connell, the presenter of BBC Radio 4′s Broadcasting House.
New events added
August 11th, 2010I’ve added three new listings to events page. If you were hoping to come along to the Edinburgh International Book Festival I’m afraid it’s already sold out.
Thursday 12 August – 7.00pm – Frontline Club
Saturday 21 August – 12:00-1:00pm – Edinburgh International Book Festival
Monday 13 September – 7:00-8:30pm – Westminster Skeptics, London
Newsnight interview: Wikileaks
July 30th, 2010I took part in a Newsnight interview to discuss the leak of Afghan War intelligence documents to whistleblower site Wikileaks. Adrian Lamo, the journalist who disclosed the source of the leak, also appeared.
A few words on the Times paywall
July 28th, 2010Inevitably since I’ve written for the Times a few readers have questioned why, as the paper’s online content is no longer free. Andrew Denny, for example, wrote: ‘Is there not an irony in the fact that your Times articles are now online behind a paywall and not openly accessible?’
It’s a point I’d like to address.
Firstly this comment is to miss the clear difference between a public body and private industry. The courts are paid for by the public. We have no choice but to pay our taxes – under threat of jail – to support this service which exists for the benefit of the public as a whole. Whether we like what we get is immaterial to the taxes we must pay. Transparency is one of the only ways to ensure this public body is working efficiently for the benefit of all, not just the elite.
The Times is a private company. Its survival depends entirely on whether people feel they get something of value for the money they pay. Newspapers are not free and they never have been. They can appear to be so but someone, somewhere is covering the costs whether that is through advertising, a patron’s largesse or a license fee. Advertising is no longer subsidising the industry and so the cost must fall somewhere – why not on the people who use it?
I actually believe journalism must improve if the Times is asking people to pay for it, as readers are not going to pay for inaccurate rumour or propaganda. They can get that anywhere – for free. What quality journalism can offer is synthesis of a great amount of material which is then verified and put into language everyone can understand.
I believe the experience and skills I’ve gained over 22 years as a journalist and writer have value which is why I don’t give away my work for free. I’ve written for the Times because they have valued what I do enough to pay me. The New Statesman magazine also asked me to write an article but they didn’t want to pay me anything. To me, that shows how much they value quality journalism.
If you don’t think there is any value in the work I, or any other serious journalists do, then don’t spend your money on it. At least you have the choice. You’ll still have to pay your taxes, though.
Article: The courts are open but justice is a closed book
July 28th, 2010The courts are open but justice is a closed book
The Times, 28 July 2010
By Heather Brooke
We are denied even the barest details of what goes on in supposedly public legal proceedings
Last week I had an encounter with open justice. I was attending the Information Tribunal hearing of a friend who is trying to peel back layers of secrecy surrounding allegations that the Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust had a history of silencing whistleblowing staff by offering them public money to sign confidentiality or ‘gagging’ contracts.
I’ve been to the Tribunal before when I was fighting for the release of MPs’ expenses and that’s when I discovered the only record of proceedings of this so-called “open” people’s court (the Tribunals are meant to be a less formal, more accessible form of justice) were my scribbled notes. When it came time to write a script for a dramatised version of the hearing my notes and those of other reporters were all we had to go on. I’d asked at the time if I could tape record the hearing and was told “no”.
This time I decided to press harder. The rhetoric of the English legal system is that justice must be seen to be done so why are the public forbidden – under threat of jail – from recording a verbatim account of proceedings? Not only that, rules are so opaque and obscure that court reporters struggle to report cases with any degree of accuracy or depth. And that is when there is a reporter in court, which these days is a rarity – there used to be 25 reporters covering national courts for the Press Association; by 2009 there were only four.
We are paying nearly £1.5 billion for the court service plus £2.1billion for legal aid and the salaries of nearly 1000 senior judicial officers. It’s a high price, but to be honest not enough to adequately fund the system. However, if we’re going to invest in the judiciary it’s vital we understand where our money is going and receive some benefit for our considerable contribution. The least we might have is an account of proceedings held in open court.
Anisa Dhanji, the judge, said she was concerned with the hearing being recorded. ‘Usually such requests are made in advance so the tribunal can maintain the necessary degree of control over the transcript.’
“Control” is exactly what a court shouldn’t be exerting. Once it is decided that it is open, there should be no restriction on how that open hearing is processed. She went on to say that she’d allow me to record now but I’d have to wait for a future ruling before I could “use” the recording.
The next day in court the Judge announced she’d made her ruling.
“Please turn your tape recorder off,” she said, looking sternly at me over her glasses. I did so.
Read the rest of this entry »
Royal appetite for secrecy can only invite scandal
May 27th, 2010Royal appetite for secrecy can only invite scandal
By Heather Brooke
Guardian, 25 May 2010
The exemption from scrutiny under Freedom of Information shows the status gap between crown and public interest
Where there’s secrecy, there’s scandal. The two certainly go hand in hand in the picture painted by the weekend’s News of the World video that shows Sarah Ferguson accepting a $40,000 briefcase of cash while promising that, for a £500,000 backhander, she would provide an introduction to trade envoy Prince Andrew.
Any claims by the royal family to distance themselves from these shady dealings are undermined by their aversion to transparency. Among the laws rushed through in the “wash-up” of the last government was a change to the Freedom of Information Act granting an absolute ban on all communications with the royal family and royal household. Prior to this such information was still exempt but if there was a public interest in the material, it had to be disclosed.
That exemption meant, for example, one could argue that, as the billpayer, the public has a right to know the detail of how the £7.9m from the civil list is spent, about the additional £15m spent to maintain the royal palaces, and the estimated £50m spent on royal security.
July will see the announcement of a new civil list settlement. There are rumours the royals are asking to double the amount to more than £15m. In the information blackout, facts are few and far between. We will only know the deal when it is done. As Graham Smith, campaign manager of the pressure group Republic, says: “We have no idea if these rumours are true. We aren’t allowed any information about what the palace is lobbying for, or on what grounds.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Silent State manifesto goes mainstream
May 19th, 2010It’s not every day an author gets to hear her manifesto coming from the mouth of the incoming Deputy Prime Minister. That happened today when Nick Clegg virtually read out the conclusion of The Silent State (Manifesto for a New Democracy) as his Big Society speech.
Read the full text of the speech here. If you want to know in detail what’s going to be on the reform agenda clearly you need to read The Silent State!
Of course, what matters is action and we need to see a timetable for specific changes and reform. But if this rhetoric is anything to go by (and believe me I’m ever the sceptic) then action is expected before the summer recess. I am as full of political disillusionment as anyone and I have to say – this speech gave me hope. For the first time in a very long while.
Here are a few of today’s highlights:
Silent State: Trust the people. It is the people who give public servants their power and so it must be the people to whom they are accountable, directly and forthrightly – with no middlemen in between.
Nick Clegg: My starting point is always optimism about people. The view that most people, most of the time, will make the right decisions for themselves and their families. That you know better than I do about how to run your life, your community, the services you use. So this government is going to trust people.Silent State: We should give no more power to the state without the state giving something to us.
Nick Clegg: We will repeal all of the intrusive and unnecessary laws that inhibit your freedom.SS: Society has an interest in encouraging the efficient use and enforcement of freedom of information and making official information freely available to the public who paid for its creation and in whose name it is gathered.
NC: We will reform our politics so it is open, transparent, decent.SS: Surveillance doesn’t make us safer. It turns citizens into suspects.
NC: Taking people’s freedom away didn’t make our streets safe.SS: Make voting count
NC: New politics needs fairer votes.
Some other notable points taking up the Silent State philosophy:
‘We will radically redistribute power away from the centre, into your communities, your homes, your hands.’
On Lobbying: ‘that activity needs to be regulated properly and made transparent. Which we’ll do, for example, by introducing a a statutory register of lobbyists.’
All good stuff and a promising start to creating a more efficient and egalitarian democracy. I’m out to celebrate!
A sharp focus on CCTV
May 18th, 2010I wrote an investigative piece about the actual effectiveness of CCTV for the May issue of Wired Magazine (published in April). I have reprinted it below or you can see it in its full glory on the Wired website.
Investigation: A sharp focus on CCTV
By Heather Brooke|01 April 2010
As the major political parties jostle for position in the run-up to the general election, it’s clear that the way the next government monitors and controls information about us will fundamentally shape British society in the next decades.
Both the Blair and Brown administrations have pursued policies of setting up giant, centralised databases, such as the national Automatic Number plate Recognition (ANPR) system, which tracks vehicles through an expanding network of cameras across Britain’s roads, and the massive communications register behind the Interception Modernisation Programme, intended to log all UK telephone and internet traffic.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, have pledged to scrap the National Identity Register — a database that underlies the proposed ID card, which will store 50 items of personal information about every citizen — along with the children’s database, ContactPoint. (This extensive datastore, which was introduced after the Victoria Climbié inquiry in 2005, records every child’s name, gender, date of birth, address and parental contacts, along with educational and health details.) The Tories have also announced a scaling-back of the DNA database, in order to remove individuals who have never been convicted of a crime. Yet for all this maneuvering, the major parties have been uncharacteristically quiet on the most controversial of all the invasions of UK citizens’ privacy — CCTV.
Although it’s widely supposed that over the past decade there has been a significant increase in the number of surveillance cameras in the UK, it wasn’t until last year that hard numbers emerged via a Freedom of Information request. Big Brother Watch (bigbrotherwatch.org.uk), an anti-surveillance campaign group, found that the number of council-owned cameras had risen from 21,000 to 60,000 in less than ten years — equal to one CCTV camera for every 1,000 people in the country. Its report demonstrated a trebling of investment in local CCTV — even though Home Office research published in 2002 suggested that CCTV has a negligible impact on reducing crime.
Nevertheless, as public perception equates CCTV to tackling crime and antisocial behaviour, most MPs are happy to show up to the unveiling of a new surveillance system in their constituencies. The UK has more CCTV cameras per capita than any European country, yet figures released in July 2009 by the European Commission and United Nations showed Britain’s recorded rate of violent crime surpassed any other country in Europe. Does CCTV do anything to make us safer? If so, at what cost?
Read the rest of this entry »
Speaking at Hay Literary Festival May 29th
May 18th, 2010For many years I’ve attended the Hay Literary Festival as an audience member. For the first time this year I am a speaker. Wahay!
I’ll be Event Number 67 on Saturday 29th May at 7.00 pm speaking about my latest book, The Silent State, with the writer and lawyer Philippe Sands. The event is being held in the Guardian Stage and I’ll be vying to pack it out despite some heavy competition from such literary luminaries as Alain de Botton, David Mitchell, Grayson Perry and Jerry Hall (eh?).
You can buy tickets in advance here and there will be a book signing event afterward.