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
family protected public
The royal family are protected from public accountability by law.
keeps public scrutiny
It is scrutiny by the general public that keeps the powerful honest.
commercial good journalism public treated truth
When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.
bad certainly public
Parliamentarians certainly know how to do bad public relations.
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Say what you will about Americans, but one thing they are not is passive. The Bush administration may have pushed through the Patriot Act weeks after 11 September, but, as the American public got to grips with how the law was affecting their individual rights, their protests grew loud and angry.
afford becomes benefit care club community costs cozy entire justice lawyers middle public solely sort system
If the public can't see justice being done, or afford the costs of justice, then the entire system becomes little more than a cozy club solely for the benefit of judges, lawyers and their lackeys, a sort of care in the community for the upper middle classes.
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CCTV is seen either as a symbol of Orwellian dystopia or a technology that will lead to crime-free streets and civil behaviour. While arguments continue, there is very little solid data in the public domain about the costs, quantity and effectiveness of surveillance.
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Public relations is at best promotion or manipulation, at worst evasion and outright deception. What it is never about is a free flow of information.
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The speed with which WikiLeaks went from niche interest to global prominence was a real-time example of the revolutionizing power of the digital age in which information can spread instantly across the globe through networked individuals.
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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?
money serious spend value work
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.
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You can't hope for a better result as a campaigner than to have the prime minister announce a major policy change within 48 hours of your documentary.
courts criminal delayed leads pay
We pay a lot for our court service, but it's not enough. Courts are under-resourced, which leads to delayed justice - particularly in criminal courts.
build consensus free society speak values
We need to codify our values and build consensus around what we want from a free society and a free Internet. We need to put into law protections for our privacy and our right to speak and assemble.