Public inquiry details ‘potentially defamatory’ statements
Aug 28, 2009 FOI in Parliament, Freedom of Information
I received a letter today from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Very nice people but sadly lacking the boldness to stand up to their lawyers. I’ve re-published my statement below along with the requested censoring so you can see exactly how little free speech we have in this country.
All requested ‘redactions’ are [...]
The blacked out bits
Aug 28, 2009 FOI in Parliament, Freedom of Information
The requested redacted (eg censored) version tof my statement which the Committee has asked me to approve. Requested censoring in bold.
What keeps people out of power and out of politics is the lack of access to meaningful and useful information. My experience since 2004 has been that Parliament greedily hoards information as a miser does [...]
A funny thing happened to my parliamentary evidence…
Aug 27, 2009 FOI in Parliament, Freedom of Information
Readers may recall that on 30th June 2009 I gave evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life as part of their inquiry into MPs’ allowances. I gave oral evidence and also submitted an opening statement. I posted this statement on my blog (read it here) and the Committee posted it on their website [...]
Article: Top cops’ pay should not be top secret
Aug 10, 2009 Articles, Campaigns, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information, Law Enforcement
Top cops, come clean
The Guardian, 10 August 2009
By Heather Brooke
Secrecy feeds suspicion of a boys’ club stitch-up. Chief constables need to be open on pay and perks
Secrecy can be sexy. It’s essential to any good mystery novel. But there should be no mystery surrounding the pay of top public officials. In October 2008 I made [...]
