Heather Brooke Quotes

Followers of fascism also have their own ‘daddy issues’. Are they drawn to an authoritarian father figure, as replacement for their own? The fascist leader granting a simulacrum of love, acceptance and belonging to men who feel cast out from the fatherly fraternity.

The problem with WikiLeaks is that it’s been taken over by Julian Assange, and that is directly opposed to what the whole movement is meant to be about: decentralized power, collaboration, equality and transparency. Under Julian Assange, WikiLeaks has become exactly the opposite of all of these things: it’s become totally centralized, it’s become a hierarchy, it’s not transparent. And it’s not collaborative, but incredibly divisive in the transparency community, because anybody who dares to challenge or criticize Julian comes under severe fire from him. A person who’s meant to be a leader of a movement, which is what he claims to be, you’re meant to be about building and accruing allies, rather than going into the movement and being divisive. But that’s exactly what he’s been.

So what is the solution? It is, I believe, to embody within the rule of law rights to information. At the moment our rights are incredibly weak. In a lot of countries, we have Official Secrets Acts, including in Britain here. We have an Official Secrets Act with no public interest test. So that means it's a crime, people are punished, quite severely in a lot of cases, for publishing or giving away official information. Now wouldn't it be amazing, and really, this is what I want all of you to think about, if we had an Official Disclosure Act where officials were punished if they were found to have suppressed or hidden information that was in the public interest?

I think with all technology, people have an idea of how it will be used, but then it has a life of its own and people use it in all kinds of ways. In the same way with Facebook. I doubt when people first created Facebook they imagined it was going to help people in Egypt overthrow a dictator. So it does have a life of its own that we can’t predict.

As the saying goes - the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. Politicians have taken advantage of our indifference by imposing ever more draconian and restrictive laws that increase their power while diminishing ours. Asking questions of our public bodies is the best way to ensure they are working for our interests and not those of politicians. Through FOI we can go behind political rhetoric to see the true state of affairs.

We are at an extraordinary moment in human history: never before has the possibility of true democracy been so close to realisation. At the cost of publishing and duplication has dropped to near zero, a truly free press, and a truly informed public, becomes a reality. A new Information Enlightment is dawning where knowledge flows freely, beyond national boundaries. Technology is breaking down traditional social barriers of status, class, power, wealth and geography, replacing them with an ethos of collaboration and transparency. In this new Enlightenment it isn't just scientific truths that are the goal, but discovering truths about the way we live, about politics and power.

Getting information is only the beginning. Transparency in government must be accompanied by the public's right to be heard and to influence government policy. The first objective is to get the facts, for without facts we are powerless to oppose government decisions or bring about change. The next step is to open up the decision-making process so we finally have a government accountable to those it serves. This should be our right and not a privilege.

In elementary school, I loved Show and Tell. I loved to hunt around my house for an object I could bring to school with a story. It’s not hard to see why I was drawn to journalism - being a reporter is the grown-up version of Show and Tell. I also loved to show off and perform bike and roller-skating stunts. Yet somewhere along the way I lost the joy of being seen. Instead, starting in my teenage years, the desire came coupled with shame, dread, anxiety, embarrassment, even outright mortification. I don’t think I’m unusual in this, especially among women.

When a politician claims for example that 'crime is down' since he implemented a certain policy, it is the professional investigative journalist who knows the raw data on which this statement is based (criminal incident reports) and who asks for verification. He or she can then go to other sources to question the veracity of the data. The reason I specialise in the intricate details of bureaucracy isn't because I have a passion for paper-pushers, but rather because I need to know all the types of information collected, by whom and where they are stored so I can get my hands on them. A statement isn't a fact. Even when the person making the statement is an authority he or she still needs to provide evidence or proof that what they say is the truth and a professional journalist should be asking for this proof and supplying it for public scrutiny. All this accumulating of statements, data and information which then has to be verified takes time. But this is the only thing a journalist does that marks him out as a professional. It's the only reason anyone would choose a well-known newspaper's website over an unknown blog. The newspaper as a brand has built up, over time, a reputation for challenging the powerful and giving people meaningful, true information. The press is not like any other business and what it sells shouldn't just be rehashed press releases or celebrity gossip, but the civic information necessary for people to understand their society and participate in it. It is a check on political and financial power, or at least it should be.

Weak power has no vision for a world where beings are free and flourishing. It cannot conceive of a world based on pleasure, diversity and abundance, though that was life on our planet until very recently.

The survival of journalism in the digital age rests on its unique selling point: serving this public interest. Fail or forget to do that, and it has no future.

The definition of power as domination is just one of many and not even the most popular or powerful form of power. In fact, that version of power is WEAK POWER. Weak because it is fragile, easily defeated, and requires constant effort to maintain usually in the form of propaganda, lies and violence. This is because weak power can’t inspire or persuade. It has no vision. It is not true power.

In secrecy, bureaucracies grow large, ungainly and unaccountable to those they are meant to serve. When there is no fierce spotlight of public accountability shining, there is no pressure to ensure systems are streamlined or even working. What you find throughout any bureaucracy protected by secrecy is a cesspit of illogic and waste. And because the state keeps rebranding, shifting responsibility from one set of bureaucrats to another, most of the work being done is for the purpose of keeping other bureaucrats in employment rather than satisfying the needs of the public.

Transparency helps ensure that power is not abused or used to make the powerful, or their immediate families, rich. There is also a genuine public interest in ensuring that the people who make laws and levy tax are following those laws and paying their fair share of tax.

This is the problem with the argument that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear: it ignores the issue of power. If we are not careful, transparency can be used to increase, rather than reduce, the information asymmetry between ruler and ruled.