Shoot-to-kill policy
May 31, 2006 Law Enforcement
Back in November 2005, I made an FOI request to the Metropolitan Police asking for their Shoot-to-Kill policy and all correspondence and minutes related to its introduction.
It has been a long battle, but earlier this month, the MPS released quite a bit of new material. I will be posting the full correspondence on [...]
Article: Commissioner gets a grilling
May 31, 2006 Access Laws, Articles
Analysis – What’s up with the information commissioner?
FOIA Centre news, 22 March 2006
As pending FOIA complaints reach 1,500, Heather Brooke explains how the regulator needs to sharpen up its act
MPs subjected the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, to tough questioning at a parliamentary select committee hearing. The constitutional affairs committee is reviewing how [...]
Trading standards and the Enterprise Act
May 26, 2006 Companies
Several people have told me their requests for information are being blocked by Part 9 of the Enterprise Act 2002. This section of the act restricts disclosure of information about individuals and businesses. Councils are citing the law in their refusals to give the public information about rogue traders, fraudulent business and even restaurant inspections. [...]
Article: Denying the law to the public
May 24, 2006 Articles, Justice & Courts
Delays over statute database are not in the public interest
Times Law section, 23 May 2006
By Heather Brooke
Government’s ‘iron grip’ on raw law data is denying public access
In the 14 years that it has taken the Government to launch the first phase of its statute law database, an American university has put online the entire collection [...]
Citizen surveillance: it’s not scary, it’s snuggly
May 23, 2006 Uncategorized
Americans are embroiled in a debate about surveillance and civil liberties that will be familiar to UK residents. The confirmation hearings for Gen. Michael Hayden as director of the Central Intelligence Agency have highlighted the dubious practice of spying on citizens. Here’s a short film that sums up both the US and UK governments’ [...]
FOI nets journalist major award
May 19, 2006 FOI in the news
Tenacious and intellegent use of the Freedom of Information Act helped the Sunday Herald’s Scottish political editor, Paul Hutcheon, win both the Journalist of the Year and Political Journalist of the Year at the 27th Scottish Press Awards.
The awards recognised Hutcheon’s lengthy investigation into MSPs taxi use that led to the resignation of [...]
New BBC FOI website
May 5, 2006 FOI in the news, Useful sites
Nicola Beckford at the BBC’s Freedom of Information Unit wrote to tell me that the BBC now have a dedicated website for all stories they uncover using the Act:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2006/foi/default.stm
This is a good supplement to the Guardian’s FOI page, which is now very extensive.
