Heather Brooke's 'The Silent State' will leave an indelible mark on your mind. Those questions that rise to the surface ordinarily will resurface during your reading session. This time, though, they will refuse to budge.
Heather makes so many brilliant points in this book you will be educated, entertained and aghast at the same time regardless of where you stand politically.
The story of 'My Society' is of particular interest to those who partake in online politics and research. It's fascinating how the idea for 'They work for you' came from an ordinary guy wanting to find out how his MP voted in the Iraq war debate. The amount of criticism and vengeance the team have received for simply putting the truth online is shocking.
I now realise why the Planning Alerts service suddenly disappeared, why the Ordnance Survey mapping guard their copyright with the ferocity of a drooling bulldog, why the postcode system is so controversial and cloaked in secrecy even though taxpayers fund these services.
Also of interest was how freedom of information works in America where Heather grew up. In America the public are given free online access to public sector or taxpayer funded organisation staff directories. It isn’t seen as a major issue. When she compares this to how much money the government has spent on council call centres to redirect the public to the correct person it's simply outrageous. Only the other day she was musing on twitter (as @newsbrooke) that we should have a staff directory for the Royal Family's employees and I can't see a reason why we shouldn't.
This book is like shadowing an investigative reporter. She takes you into the Old Bailey (by the scabby litter-strewn member-of-the-public entrance of course). She sits you down with the police officer who was bugged mercilessly for whistle blowing and having a relationship with a journalist who was arrested for using information thought to have been leaked to her by the officer. When you see the transcript of the interview with the female journalist on her arrest with all the vital comments which were left out in court you feel her anger.
Heather rose to prominence in 2008 when exposing the state of MPs expenses. This book is published 2 years after that and it's great to see her fight for freedom of information continues unabated.
You won't regret reading this.
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