City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Brooke, H. (2016). Citizen or subject? Freedom of information and the informed citizen in a democracy. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City, University of London) This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/15961/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] Citizen or Subject? Freedom of Information and the Informed Citizen in a Democracy Heather Brooke A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by prior publication Department of Journalism City University London May 2016 2 3 Contents CONTENTS .............................................................................................................................. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. 5 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 9 PART ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 1. WHAT IS TRANSPARENCY? ................................................................................. 19 CHAPTER 2: THE ORIGINS OF TRANSPARENCY ....................................................................... 29 CHAPTER 3: WHY TRANSPARENCY IS IMPORTANT ................................................................ 39 CHAPTER 4: PRIVACY ............................................................................................................ 51 CHAPTER 5: SURVEILLANCE ................................................................................................... 63 PART 2: MY CONTRIBUTION .................................................................................................. 71 CHAPTER 6: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................. 73 CHAPTER 7: YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW ...................................................................................... 91 CHAPTER 8: THE SILENT STATE ............................................................................................ 105 CHAPTER 9: MPS’ EXPENSES ............................................................................................... 115 CHAPTER 10: THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION ............................................................................. 131 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................... 143 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................... 147 APPENDICES ....................................................................................................................... 161 SUPPLEMENTARY PUBLICATIONS ........................................................................................ 163 4 5 Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr Ben Worthy for his invaluable guidance, suggestions and support during the writing of this dissertation, Professor Howard Tumber for steering me through the process and Professor Michael Schudson for his inspiring scholarship on the people’s right to know. Also thanks to my colleagues at City University who provided advice and support along the way, specifically Associate Professor Barbara Rowlands and Dr Julie Wheelwright. 6 7 Abstract Information is the essence of democracy and the lynchpin of power-ownership. Possession and control of information allows us to demarcate who controls or influences the political system. Freedom of Information (FOI), rooted in Enlightenment values, contains within it a key principle of democracy that there must be access to information (and knowledge) for all equally. My approach in my 25-year journalistic career has been to use FOI as a means of testing the promise and practice of democracy. It serves here as a ‘canary in the coalmine’ to measure how well citizens can access the political system. 8 9 Introduction The purpose of this exegesis is to reflect on my published material resulting from reporting and investigating the public’s right to know. Specifically it uses a lens of power and democratic theory to think about a body of work that includes articles from the author’s 25-year career; three books: Your Right to Know (2004, 2007), The Silent State (2010, 2011) and The Revolution Will Be Digitised (2011, 2012), and a year-long investigation as a member of the Independent Surveillance Review Panel that led to our report, A Democratic Licence to Operate (RUSI, 2015), on state surveillance. The published works I have put forward for this PhD by prior publication detail my investigations into the state, particularly the secret state, and the ways in which access to information impacts power relations between citizens and those entrusted with governance. Additionally I explore the way technology affects information flows between citizen and state both as a means of opening up government but also as a tool for surveillance. This exegesis will examine these issues in two parts. In Part One, I explore the existing academic literature on democratic theory, political science and information theory. Part Two is a summary of my work including detail on the methodologies I used and my unique contribution in the fields of politics and journalism. I demonstrate that access to information is an intrinsic value, essential for the fulfilment of human potential and the proper functioning of democracy, and that investigative journalism plays a crucial role in testing and ensuring that democratic rhetoric is matched in reality. Investigative journalism plays a vital democratic role as a “tribune of the commoner, exerting on her or his behalf the right to know, to examine, and to criticise” (de Burgh, 2000: 315). While there are several themes in my work they all revolve around a central interest: the relationship between citizen and state, specifically looking at the inequality of power between the two. I link democracy, freedom of information, privacy and surveillance through this central organising principle as they all reflect the power dynamic in action. I see transparency as “essentially a power-reducing mechanism”, 10 (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2013: 583), a means for citizens to hold the powerful to account if the powerful are transparent, or to control citizens when they are made transparent. I used mixed methodologies in my work, primarily research and reporting. In particular I made extensive use of the UK's new Freedom of Information Act passed in 2000 but in force only in 2005. From that date until mid-2010, I filed approximately 500 FOIs and wrote more than 60 newspaper and magazine articles (approximately 45,000 words) about democracy and/or FOI. My approach has been to use FOI as a means of testing the promise and practice of democracy. It serves here as a ‘canary in the coalmine’ to test how well citizens can access and participate in the political system. My method has been to focus on those with and exercising power and hold them to account for the power they wield. An important mechanism for this accountability is transparency, but perhaps more accurately described as the ‘right to know’ which holds within it the added aspect of accountable and democratic culture. Information is the essence of democracy and the lynchpin of power-ownership. Possession and control of information allows us to demarcate who controls or influences the political system. Freedom of Information is rooted in Enlightenment values, and contains within it a key principle of democracy that there must be access to information (and knowledge) for all equally. Too often freedom of information is looked upon in a utilitarian way - a means to an end - and the end is defined not by citizens but by those in power. I use and conceptualise FOI in a different way. First, as a research tool it is a symbolic and 'political' act, a form of empowerment, and I used it as such to enlighten both myself and society. It may exist in “the humdrum world of administrative laws” but it is a “foundational element of democratic participation and accountability” (Fenster, 2015). Secondly, FOI is an indicator of democratic reality as opposed to rhetoric. Based on my wide use of FOI and responses, I contend that the UK is an elitist political system that is in need of substantial democratic reform. It is not a government for the people by the people, but rather a government for the elite by the elite. Westminster is