Heather Brooke

Last updated

Heather Brooke
Heather Brooke, 2012 (cropped).jpg
Heather Brooke in 2012.
Born1970 (age 53–54)
Pennsylvania, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
British
Education University of Washington (Double degree in Journalism and Political Science, 1992)
University of Warwick (Master's degree in English Literature)
Occupation(s)Journalist, writer
Known forRole in exposing the 2009 British MP expenses scandal
Website heatherbrooke.org OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Heather Rose Brooke (born 1970) is 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 Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin, dozens of MPs standing down in the 2010 general election and multiple MPs being jailed. [1]

Contents

Brooke is Professor of Journalism at City University London's Department of Journalism. She is the author of Your Right to Know (2006), The Silent State (2010), and The Revolution Will Be Digitised (2011).

Early life

Education

Brooke was born in Pennsylvania in the United States to parents originally from Liverpool, England, and has dual United States/United Kingdom citizenship. She grew up in Seattle, Washington, where her mother worked for Boeing and graduated from Federal Way High School. [2]

According to The Scotsman , she briefly moved to England as a teenager, but returned to the United States when she was 15. [3] She attended the University of Washington Department of Communication, where she graduated in 1992 with a double major degree in journalism and political science. While there, she wrote for the student newspaper, The Daily , covering news stories and acting as the paper's sex columnist, writing with what she called a "feminist" slant. [2]

Early career

An internship with The Spokesman-Review in Olympia, Washington to cover the state legislature gave her an early exposure to using public records requests to investigate the expenses of politicians, although she found little beyond taking advantage of frequent flyer miles. After graduation, she worked for a year at the Spokesman-Review, but it lacked the funds to keep her on longer. [2] She then became a crime reporter for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal , where she reported on murder cases and uncovered flaws in South Carolina's forensic crime lab.[ citation needed ]

Describing herself as "burnt out" from covering over 300 murders, Brooke took a break from journalism. [4] When her mother died in a car accident in 1996, and her father moved back to England, she no longer had family in America and decided to relocate to the United Kingdom. [2] She enrolled for a master's in English literature at the University of Warwick, [3] then moved to East London with her husband, where she took a job with the BBC as a copywriter. Boyd Tonkin wrote in 2010 that when she arrived in the UK she was immediately introduced to the "British disease": "the overweening haughtiness of bureaucratic jobsworths, and the deference of citizens." [1] She became a neighbourhood activist, describing local public officials as having a surprisingly hostile attitude compared to local governments in the United States. [4]

Freedom of Information writing and activism

With the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Brooke began work on a book explaining how to use the law, which was not scheduled to come into effect for another five years. [2] Originally titled Your Right to Know: How to Use the Freedom of Information Act and Other Access Laws, the book was reissued in October 2004 as Your Right to Know: A Citizen's Guide to Freedom of Information, with a foreword by Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian. In October 2006 it was revised and published in paperback and hardcover editions that included a foreword by satirist Ian Hislop.[ citation needed ]

BBC minutes

In early 2007, Brooke won a landmark legal case that led the BBC to disclose the minutes of its Board of Governors' meeting of 28 January 2004. At that meeting, the governors had decided to dismiss director general Greg Dyke and issue an apology to the government in response to the Hutton Inquiry. Brooke, along with journalists from The Guardian, had requested the minutes shortly after the Freedom of Information Act came into force, but the BBC resisted disclosure for nearly two years. In December 2006, the case came before the Information Tribunal, which the following month ruled that the BBC should disclose the minutes. [5]

MPs expenses

In October 2004, Brooke started to request details of MPs' expenses, via the House of Commons Freedom of Information Officer, Bob Castle. However, the information was in a bulk format, and could not be broken down to individual MPs. [6]

In January 2005, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force, allowing members of the public to request disclosure of information from public bodies. She started out requesting all 646 MPs' expenses, but the Commons claimed that would be too costly. [4] [7] She then asked for request for travel information (refused); then for the names and salaries of MPs' staff, blocked personally by the Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin. [6] She then asked for information on second homes for the details for all MPs, but this was also refused. [4]

In 2006, Brooke reduced her request to 10 MPs—the leaders of the parties and a few ministers. After again being refused, in July 2006 she made an appeal to the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas. Her request was considered for a year, together with two other similar requests on MPs' expenses which had been appealed to the Commissioner in 2005, from Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas of The Sunday Times. [6] The Information Commissioner ordered the release of some information on 15 June 2007. [8] House of Commons authorities objected to this order in June 2007 and MPs had, in May 2007, voted in favour of the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill which sought to exempt MPs from the 2000 act. The amendment bill was ultimately withdrawn prior to second reading in the House of Lords because peers were unwilling to sponsor the bill. [9] [10]

In February 2008, after referral to an Information Tribunal, it was ruled that Commons authorities had to release information on 14 MPs. [11] The Speaker appealed against the decision on behalf of the House of Commons, challenging the requests for publication of expenses for 11 serving MPs: Gordon Brown, David Cameron, John Prescott, Menzies Campbell, Margaret Beckett, George Osborne, William Hague, Mark Oaten, George Galloway, Barbara Follett and Ann Keen; and three former MPs: Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and John Wilkinson. [4] [12] The appeal was heard at the High Court of Justice, which ruled on 16 May 2008 in favour of releasing the information: [13]

The House of Commons expense system has a shortfall—both in terms of transparency and accountability. We have no doubt that the public interest is at stake. We are not here dealing with idle gossip, or public curiosity about what in truth are trivialities. The expenditure of public money through the payment of MPs' salaries and allowances is a matter of direct and reasonable interest to taxpayers. [6]

No appeal was lodged against the High Court ruling, and the details were made public on 23 May 2008. [14] In January 2009, the Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, tabled a motion to exempt MPs' expenses from being disclosed under a Freedom of Information request. [15] Labour MPs were placed under a three line whip to force the motion through the Commons. However, opposition parties stated they would vote against the proposals, and large scale public opposition emerged. The proposals were ultimately dropped on 21 January 2009. The Commons authorities announced that full disclosure of all MPs' expenses would be published on 1 July 2009, following the 2009 European Elections in early June 2009. [10]

In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph obtained unedited details of all MPs' expenses, including address details which showed the practice of "flipping", that is, changing the registered main address for various tax and expense purposes. The disclosures led to several MP's resignations and a national scandal. [16]

Aftermath and recognition

Heather Brooke in 2010 welcomed home to Washington State for her "Key Award" Heather Brooke, 2010 (cropped).jpg
Heather Brooke in 2010 welcomed home to Washington State for her "Key Award"

On 23 February 2010 BBC Four showed a dramatised account about Heather Brooke's campaign for disclosure of MPs' expenses, titled On Expenses . The role of Heather Brooke was played by Anna Maxwell Martin. [17] Brooke still serves as a visiting professor in the journalism department of City University London and has done since the expenses scandal. [18] She was the first international winner of the FOI award in 2009 at the Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards. In March 2010 she was awarded the Judges' Prize in the British Press Awards, and the Special Commendation Award at the Tenth Annual Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards. [19] [20] She also made the 2010 Happy List for her persistence that "led to the MPs' expenses scandal, introducing us to house flipping, duck houses and other fiddles. The happiness came, first, with the delicious details; second with the moral superiority we can now feel over those who legislate and lecture us on how to live." [21]

The Washington Coalition for Open Government granted Brooke a "Key Award", "in honor of a good deed in advancement of open government." [22] The Coalition also gave her a pre-conference reception and keynote placement in their first Washington State Open Government Conference. [23] The Keynote was a through debriefing of operations conducted to liberate Britain. Brooke included a personal account of her role in the MPs expenses scandal in her second book, The Silent State: How Secrecy and Misinformation are Destroying Democracy (2010).

In recognition of her work, the UK Press Gazette ranked Brooke as number 5 in their Top 10 list of journalists in February 2013. [24]

WikiLeaks reporting and The Revolution Will Be Digitised

Brooke has continued to blog about freedom of information issues, as well as writing and speaking at conferences. [25] She was commissioned in 2010 to write her third book, The Revolution Will Be Digitised (2011), exploring "the world of computer hackers, internet whistleblowers and pro-democracy campaigners," and including in-depth research on WikiLeaks. Brooke stated "It was clear to me from my own reporting and campaigning around freedom of information that society is undergoing a radical transformation. The amount of knowledge in the world is now so vast and technology so adept at zero-cost duplication that no government, company or organisation can hope to keep control." She went on to say that, "When I met Julian Assange of Wikileaks he was still a little-known figure but his stories of battles fought to free information and ambitions to free even more in future spurred me to begin writing this book." [26]

While working on The Revolution Will Be Digitised (2011), Heather Brooke received a copy of the documents from a disgruntled WikiLeaks volunteer consisting of the raw material of the United States diplomatic cables leak. Brooke worked with The Guardian to edit and publish the material, while concerned about genuine harm minimisation. [27] In an op-ed published in The Guardian on 29 November 2010, she wrote: "Leaks are not the problem; they are the symptom. They reveal a disconnect between what people want and need to know and what they actually do know. The greater the secrecy, the more likely a leak. The way to move beyond leaks is to ensure a robust regime for the public to access important information." [28]

Brooke also starred in We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks as a pundit giving commentary based on her freedom of information campaigning experience and dealings with Julian Assange. In the film, Brooke said re: Wikileaks' publishing of the US State Department's diplomatic cables, "It was that whole Wizard of Oz moment. We all look at these politicians – oh wow, they're so powerful – and then it was the little dog pulling the curtain away." [29]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Harman</span> British Labour politician

Harriet Ruth Harman is a British politician and solicitor who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Camberwell and Peckham, formerly Peckham, since 1982. A member of the Labour Party, she has served in various Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet positions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony McNulty</span> British Labour politician

Anthony James "Tony" McNulty is a British politician who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Harrow East from 1997 to 2010. During his ministerial career, which began in 2003, he was Minister for London and later Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions. He resigned his position on 5 June 2009 after allegations in the press regarding his expenses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meg Munn</span> British Labour Co-op politician

Margaret Patricia Munn is a British politician and served as a Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley from 2001 to 2015. After leaving Parliament, she has served in a variety of roles across the public sector, academia and international bodies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Ryan (politician)</span> British Independent politician

Joan Marie Ryan is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Enfield North from 1997 to 2010 and from 2015 to 2019. She was first elected as a Labour Party MP but later defected to join Change UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacqui Smith</span> British Labour politician (born 1962)

Jacqueline Jill Smith is a British broadcaster, political commentator and former Labour Party politician. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Redditch from 1997 to 2010. She served as Home Secretary under Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2009 and was the first woman to hold the position.

The Campaign for Freedom of Information is an advocacy group that promotes and defends freedom of information in the UK. It seeks to strengthen the public's rights under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and related laws and opposes attempts to weaken them. It does this through campaigning, the publication of briefings and other reports and research. The Campaign also provides advice to the public, assistance to people challenging unreasonable refusals to disclose information and runs training courses on freedom of information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom of Information Act 2000</span> Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level. Its application is limited in Scotland to UK Government offices located in Scotland. The Act implements a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the 1997 general election, developed by David Clark as a 1997 White Paper. The final version of the Act was criticised by freedom of information campaigners as a diluted form of what had been proposed in the White Paper. The full provisions of the act came into force on 1 January 2005. The Act was the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor's Department. However, freedom of information policy is now the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. The Act led to the renaming of the Data Protection Commissioner, who is now known as the Information Commissioner. The Office of the Information Commissioner oversees the operation of the Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Lewis (journalist)</span> British media executive (born 1969)

Sir William John Lewis is a British media executive who serves as the publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post. He was formerly chief executive of Dow Jones & Company and publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Earlier in his career, he was known as a journalist and then editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WikiLeaks</span> News leak publishing organisation

WikiLeaks is a media organisation and publisher that operates as a non-profit and is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, an Australian editor, publisher, and activist, who is currently challenging extradition to the United States over his work with WikiLeaks. Since September 2018, Kristinn Hrafnsson has served as its editor-in-chief. Its website states that it has released more than ten million documents and associated analyses. WikiLeaks' most recent publication of original documents was in 2019 and its most recent publication was in 2021. Beginning in November 2022, many of the documents on the organisation's website could not be accessed. In 2023, Assange said that WikiLeaks was no longer able to publish due to his imprisonment and the effect that US government surveillance and WikiLeaks' funding restrictions were having on potential whistleblowers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal</span> 2009 British political scandal

The United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was a major political scandal that emerged in 2009, concerning expenses claims made by members of the British Parliament in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords over the previous years. The disclosure of widespread misuse of allowances and expenses permitted to members of Parliament (MPs) aroused widespread anger among the UK public and resulted in a large number of resignations, sackings, de-selections and retirement announcements together with public apologies and the repayment of expenses. Several members or former members of both the House of Commons, and members of the House of Lords, were prosecuted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julian Assange</span> Australian editor, publisher, and activist, founder of WikiLeaks (born 1971)

Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to wide international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning: footage of a US airstrike in Baghdad, US military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and US diplomatic cables. Assange has won multiple awards for publishing and journalism.

On Expenses is a 2010 British television film directed by Simon Cellan Jones and starring Anna Maxwell Martin as Heather Brooke and Brian Cox as Michael Martin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Modern Media Institute</span>

The International Modern Media Institute (IMMI) is an international institution with the aim of promoting debate about laws good for freedom of information, speech, and expression. The institute does this by offering advice and guidance in relation to legislation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chelsea Manning</span> American activist and whistleblower (born 1987)

Chelsea Elizabeth Manning is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly 750,000 classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents. She was imprisoned from 2010 until 2017 when her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama. A trans woman, Manning said in 2013 that she had a female gender identity since childhood and wanted to be known as Chelsea Manning.

The Afghan War documents leak, also called the Afghan War Diary, is a collection of internal U.S. military logs of the War in Afghanistan, which was published by WikiLeaks on 25 July 2010. The logs consist of over 91,000 Afghan War documents, covering the period between January 2004 and December 2009. Most of the documents are classified secret. As of 28 July 2010, only 75,000 of the documents have been released to the public, a move which WikiLeaks says is "part of a harm minimization process demanded by [the] source". Prior to releasing the initial 75,000 documents, WikiLeaks made the logs available to The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel in its German and English online edition, which published reports in line with an agreement made earlier the same day, 25 July 2010.

The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began on Sunday, 28 November 2010 when WikiLeaks began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. Dated between December 1966 and February 2010, the cables contain diplomatic analysis from world leaders, and the diplomats' assessment of host countries and their officials.

WikiLeaks began publishing the United States diplomatic cables leak on 28 November 2010. The documents included classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. The cables were dated between December 1966 and February 2010, and contained assessments of host countries and their officials. The publication of the cables produced varying responses around the world.

WikiLeaks, a whistleblowing website founded by Julian Assange, has received praise as well as criticism from the public, hacktivists, journalist organisations and government officials. The organisation has revealed human rights abuses and was the target of an alleged "cyber war". Allegations have been made that Wikileaks worked with or was exploited by the Russian government and acted in a partisan manner during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

United States v. Manning was the court-martial of former United States Army Private First Class, Chelsea Manning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indictment and arrest of Julian Assange</span>

In 2012, while on bail, Julian Assange was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden, and what his supporters said was the possibility of subsequent extradition to the US. On 11 April 2019, Ecuador revoked his asylum, he was arrested for failing to appear in court, and carried out of the Embassy by members of the London Metropolitan Police. Following his arrest, the US revealed a previously sealed 2018 US indictment in which Assange was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion related to his involvement with Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks.

References

  1. 1 2 Tonkin, Boyd. "The lives of others: Heather Brooke's new book opens up further fronts in the war to set information free", The Independent, 9 April 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Eric Nalder (21 May 2009). "Former UW student shakes up British government". Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
  3. 1 2 Black, Claire. "Interview: Heather Brooke, journalist and writer", The Scotsman, 10 April 2010.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Barkham, Patrick (29 March 2008). "Show me the money". The Guardian.
  5. ↑ Evans,Rob (10 January 2007). "BBC told to publish Dyke minutes". Guardian News.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Brooke, Heather (15 May 2009). "Unsung hero". The Guardian.
  7. ↑ Griffiths, Emma (7 February 2008). "Expenses details 'intrude' on MPs". The BBC.
  8. ↑ Anil Dawar (7 May 2008). "Timeline: MPs' expenses". The Guardian.
  9. ↑ Hencke, David (14 June 2007). "Lack of Lords sponsor wrecks plan to exempt MPs from FoI Act". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 13 May 2009.
  10. 1 2 "Expenses: How MPs' expenses became a hot topic". The Daily Telegraph. 8 May 2009.
  11. ↑ "'Lax' MP expenses rules condemned". BBC News. 26 February 2008.
  12. ↑ Daniel Bentley (25 March 2008). "Expenses disclosure battle headed for High Court" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022.
  13. ↑ BBC news
  14. ↑ Robert Verkaik (23 May 2008). "Freedom of Information: MPs reach end of road in battle over secret expenses" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022.
  15. ↑ "FoI campaigners condemn MPs' bid to hide expenses". Press Gazette. 15 January 2009. Archived from the original on 18 May 2009.
  16. ↑ Brooke, Heather (15 May 2009). "Public interest or public curiosity?". BBC News.
  17. ↑ "BBC Four - on Expenses".
  18. ↑ "Heather Brooke" Archived 2 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine , City University London. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
  19. ↑ Brook, Stephen. "Daily Telegraph dominates British Press Awards with expenses exposé", The Guardian, 24 March 2010.
  20. ↑ Grice, Elizabeth (8 April 2010). "Heather Brooke, warrior queen of MPs' expenses". Daily Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  21. ↑ James Burgess (25 April 2010). "The IoS Happy List 2010 – the 100" . independent.co.uk. The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
  22. ↑ "Washington Coalition for Open Government 2009 Annual Report" (PDF). Washington Coalition for Open Government. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
  23. ↑ "Washington Coalition for Open Government January 16, 2010 Open Government Conference Program" (PDF). Washington Coalition for Open Government. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
  24. ↑ "Press Gazette's top ten investigative journalists: 'Brave and unstoppable' Nick Davies tops the list". 5 February 2013.
  25. ↑ See her blog at HeatherBrooke.org.
  26. ↑ "TheBookseller.com 27 July 2010 News Brief – TheBookseller.com: Brooke to tackle internet campaigners in new Wm Heinemann book". TheBookseller.com. 27 July 2010. Archived from the original on 14 August 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
  27. ↑ "Assange Opposed Quick Publication of Cables Out of Concern for Manning". Wired. 14 February 2011. Retrieved 4 July 2010.
  28. ↑ "WikiLeaks: the revolution has begun – and it will be digitised". The Guardian. 29 November 2010. Retrieved 4 July 2010.
  29. ↑ "WikiLeaks Annotated Transcript of We Steal Secrets". WikiLeaks. 23 May 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.