Heather Brooke
Heather Brooke
Heather Rose Brookeis a British-American journalist and freedom of information campaigner. Resident since the 1990s in the UK, she helped to expose the 2009 expenses scandal, which culminated in the resignation of House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
CountryUnited States of America
information
For information to be useful, it should be dynamic, searchable, and accessible.
people
Democracy isn't just for people in the Middle East, but Britons, too.
information people
A generation of people are being radicalised by the criminalisation of information sharing.
increasing
You don't make a system more effective by increasing the number of regulators.
family protected public
The royal family are protected from public accountability by law.
I like to write books and cause trouble.
british carving fringe niche press worked
I've always worked on the fringe of the British press establishment, carving out this niche for myself.
gaining several towards
The movement towards radical transparency and accountability has been gaining steam for several decades.
keeps public scrutiny
It is scrutiny by the general public that keeps the powerful honest.
essential good secrecy
Secrecy can be sexy. It's essential to any good mystery novel.
answer claimed enforce reforming simply
When it comes to reforming MPs' expenses, the answer is simply to keep it simple: show us receipts as they're claimed and, where there are abuses, enforce the law.
britain intense passes secrecy serve society
There is a very intense culture of secrecy in Britain that hasn't yet been dismantled. What passes for transparency here would serve any secret society well.
empowered events expecting information people quite similar
People are used to getting a lot of information quickly, and they're used to being quite empowered as consumers, and they go to governments expecting a similar treatment; they want to find data and they want to influence events quickly, and yet they come into this brick wall.
both cops deal delusion exist force ignore major managing police reputation solely top
Many of us are under the delusion that the police exist solely to deal with crime and keep us safe. That is to ignore the major focus of many of today's top cops on managing reputation - both of their force and, by default, their careers.