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Once upon a time, the world was a big, dysfunctional family.

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It was run by the great and powerful parents,

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and the people were helpless

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and hopeless naughty children.

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If any of the more rowdier children questioned

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the authority of the parents, they were scolded.

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If they went exploring into the parents' rooms,

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or even into the secret filing cabinets, they were punished,

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and told that for their own good

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they must never go in there again.

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Then one day, a man came to town

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with boxes and boxes of secret documents

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stolen from the parents' rooms.

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"Look what they've been hiding from you," he said.

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The children looked and were amazed.

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There were maps and minutes from meetings

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where the parents were slagging each other off.

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They behaved just like the children.

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And they made mistakes, too, just like the children.

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The only difference was, their mistakes

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were in the secret filing cabinets.

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Well, there was a girl in the town, and she didn't think

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they should be in the secret filing cabinets,

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or if they were, there ought to be a law

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to allow the children access.

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And so she set about to make it so.

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Well, I'm the girl in that story, and the secret documents

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that I was interested in were located in this building,

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the British Parliament, and the data that I wanted

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to get my hands on were the expense receipts

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of members of Parliament.

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I thought this was a basic question to ask in a democracy. (Applause)

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It wasn't like I was asking for the code to a nuclear bunker,

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or anything like that, but the amount of resistance I got

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from this Freedom of Information request,

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you would have thought I'd asked something like this.

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So I fought for about five years doing this,

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and it was one of many hundreds of requests that I made,

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not -- I didn't -- Hey, look, I didn't set out, honestly,

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to revolutionize the British Parliament.

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That was not my intention. I was just making these requests

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as part of research for my first book.

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But it ended up in this very long, protracted legal battle

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and there I was after five years fighting against Parliament

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in front of three of Britain's most eminent High Court judges

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waiting for their ruling about whether or not Parliament had to release this data.

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And I've got to tell you, I wasn't that hopeful,

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because I'd seen the establishment. I thought,

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it always sticks together. I am out of luck.

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Well, guess what? I won. Hooray. (Applause)

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Well, that's not exactly the story, because the problem was

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that Parliament delayed and delayed releasing that data,

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and then they tried to retrospectively change the law

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so that it would no longer apply to them.

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The transparency law they'd passed earlier that applied to everybody else,

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they tried to keep it so it didn't apply to them.

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What they hadn't counted on was digitization,

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because that meant that all those paper receipts

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had been scanned in electronically, and it was very easy

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for somebody to just copy that entire database,

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put it on a disk, and then just saunter outside of Parliament,

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which they did, and then they shopped that disk

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to the highest bidder, which was the Daily Telegraph,

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and then, you all remember, there was weeks and weeks

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of revelations, everything from porn movies

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and bath plugs and new kitchens

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and mortgages that had never been paid off.

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The end result was six ministers resigned,

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the first speaker of the house in 300 years was forced to resign,

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a new government was elected on a mandate of transparency,

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120 MPs stepped down at that election,

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and so far, four MPs and two lords

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have done jail time for fraud.

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So, thank you. (Applause)

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Well, I tell you that story because it wasn't unique to Britain.

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It was an example of a culture clash that's happening

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all over the world between bewigged and bestockinged

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officials who think that they can rule over us

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without very much prying from the public,

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and then suddenly confronted with a public

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who is no longer content with that arrangement,

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and not only not content with it, now, more often,

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armed with official data itself.

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So we are moving to this democratization of information,

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and I've been in this field for quite a while.

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Slightly embarrassing admission: Even when I was a kid,

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I used to have these little spy books, and I would, like,

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see what everybody was doing in my neighborhood and log it down.

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I think that was a pretty good indication

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about my future career as an investigative journalist,

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and what I've seen from being in this access to information field for so long

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is that it used to be quite a niche interest,

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and it's gone mainstream. Everybody, increasingly, around the world,

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wants to know about what people in power are doing.

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They want a say in decisions that are made in their name

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and with their money. It's this democratization of information

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that I think is an information enlightenment,

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and it has many of the same principles of the first Enlightenment.

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It's about searching for the truth,

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not because somebody says it's true, "because I say so."

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No, it's about trying to find the truth based on

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what you can see and what can be tested.

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That, in the first Enlightenment, led to questions about

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the right of kings, the divine right of kings to rule over people,

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or that women should be subordinate to men,

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or that the Church was the official word of God.

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Obviously the Church weren't very happy about this,

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and they tried to suppress it,

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but what they hadn't counted on was technology,

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and then they had the printing press, which suddenly

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enabled these ideas to spread cheaply, far and fast,

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and people would come together in coffee houses,

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discuss the ideas, plot revolution.

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In our day, we have digitization. That strips all the physical mass out of information,

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so now it's almost zero cost to copy and share information.

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Our printing press is the Internet. Our coffee houses are social networks.

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We're moving to what I would think of as a fully connected system,

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and we have global decisions to make in this system,

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decisions about climate, about finance systems,

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about resources. And think about it --

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if we want to make an important decision about buying a house,

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we don't just go off. I mean, I don't know about you,

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but I want to see a lot of houses before I put that much money into it.

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And if we're thinking about a finance system,

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we need a lot of information to take in. It's just not possible

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for one person to take in the amount, the volume

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of information, and analyze it to make good decisions.

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So that's why we're seeing increasingly this demand

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for access to information.

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That's why we're starting to see more disclosure laws

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come out, so for example, on the environment,

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there's the Aarhus Convention,

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which is a European directive that gives people

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a very strong right to know, so if your water company

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is dumping water into your river, sewage water

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into your river, you have a right to know about it.

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In the finance industry, you now have more of a right

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to know about what's going on, so we have

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different anti-bribery laws, money regulations,

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increased corporate disclosure, so you can now track assets across borders.

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And it's getting harder to hide assets, tax avoidance,

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pay inequality. So that's great. We're starting to find out

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more and more about these systems.

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And they're all moving to this central system,

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this fully connected system,

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all of them except one. Can you guess which one?

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It's the system which underpins all these other systems.

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It's the system by which we organize and exercise power,

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and there I'm talking about politics, because in politics,

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we're back to this system, this top-down hierarchy.

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And how is it possible that the volume of information

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can be processed that needs to in this system?

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Well, it just can't. That's it.

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And I think this is largely what's behind the crisis

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of legitimacy in our different governments right now.

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So I've told you a bit about what I did

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to try and drag Parliament, kicking and screaming,

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into the 21st century, and I'm just going to give you

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a couple of examples of what a few other people I know

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are doing.

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So this is a guy called Seb Bacon. He's a computer

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programmer, and he built a site called Alaveteli,

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and what it is, it's a Freedom of Information platform.

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It's open-source, with documentation, and it allows you

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to make a Freedom of Information request,

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to ask your public body a question, so

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it takes all the hassle out of it, and I can tell you

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that there is a lot of hassle making these requests,

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so it takes all of that hassle out, and you just type in your question,

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for example, how many police officers have a criminal record?

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It zooms it off to the appropriate person, it tells you

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when the time limit is coming to an end, it keeps track of all

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the correspondence, it posts it up there,

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and it becomes an archive of public knowledge.

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So that's open-source and it can be used in any country

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where there is some kind of Freedom of Information law.

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So there's a list there of the different countries that have it,

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and then there's a few more coming on board.

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So if any of you out there like the sound of that

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and have a law like that in your country,

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I know that Seb would love to hear from you

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about collaborating and getting that into your country.

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This is Birgitta Jónsdóttir. She's an Icelandic MP.

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And quite an unusual MP. In Iceland, she was

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one of the protesters who was outside of Parliament

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when the country's economy collapsed,

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and then she was elected on a reform mandate,

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and she's now spearheading this project.

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It's the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative,

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and they've just got funding to make it an international

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modern media project, and this is taking all of the best laws

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around the world about freedom of expression,

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protection of whistleblowers, protection from libel,

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source protection, and trying to make Iceland a publishing haven.

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It's a place where your data can be free, so when we think

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about, increasingly, how governments want to access user data,

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what they're trying to do in Iceland is make this safe haven

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where it can happen.

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In my own field of investigative journalism, we're also

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having to start thinking globally, so this is a site called

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Investigative Dashboard. And if you're trying to track

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a dictator's assets, for example, Hosni Mubarak,

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you know, he's just funneling out cash from his country

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when he knows he's in trouble, and what you want to do

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to investigate that is, you need to have access to

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all of the world's, as many as you can,

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companies' house registrations databases.

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So this is a website that tries to agglomerate all of those

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databases into one place so you can start searching for,

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you know, his relatives, his friends, the head of his security services.

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You can try and find out how he's moving out assets

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from that country.

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But again, when it comes to the decisions which are

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impacting us the most, perhaps, the most important

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decisions that are being made about war and so forth,

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again we can't just make a Freedom of Information request.

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It's really difficult. So we're still having to rely on

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illegitimate ways of getting information, through leaks.

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So when the Guardian did this investigation about

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the Afghan War, you know, they can't walk into

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the Department of Defense and ask for all the information.

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You know, they're just not going to get it.

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So this came from leaks of tens of thousands of dispatches

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that were written by American soldiers

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about the Afghan War, and leaked,

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and then they're able to do this investigation.

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Another rather large investigation is around world diplomacy.

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Again, this is all based around leaks,

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251,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, and I was involved

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in this investigation because I got this leak

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through a leak from a disgruntled WikiLeaker

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and ended up going to work at the Guardian.

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So I can tell you firsthand what it was like to have access

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to this leak. It was amazing. I mean, it was amazing.

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It reminded me of that scene in "The Wizard of Oz."

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Do you know the one I mean? Where the little dog Toto

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runs across to where the wizard [is], and he pulls back,

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the dog's pulling back the curtain, and --

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"Don't look behind the screen. Don't look at the man behind the screen."

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It was just like that, because what you started to see

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is that all of these grand statesmen, these very pompous

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politicians, they were just like us.

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They all bitched about each other. I mean, quite gossipy,

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those cables. Okay, but I thought it was a very important

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point for all of us to grasp, these are human beings

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just like us. They don't have special powers.

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They're not magic. They are not our parents.

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Beyond that, what I found most fascinating

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was the level of endemic corruption that I saw

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across all different countries, and particularly centered

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around the heart of power, around public officials

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who were embezzling the public's money

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for their own personal enrichment, and allowed to do that

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because of official secrecy.

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So I've mentioned WikiLeaks, because surely what could be

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more open than publishing all the material?

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Because that is what Julian Assange did.

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He wasn't content with the way the newspapers published it

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to be safe and legal. He threw it all out there.

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That did end up with vulnerable people in Afghanistan

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being exposed. It also meant that the Belarussian dictator

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was given a handy list of all the pro-democracy campaigners

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in that country who had spoken to the U.S. government.

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Is that radical openness? I say it's not, because for me,

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what it means, it doesn't mean abdicating power,

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responsibility, accountability, it's actually being a partner

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with power. It's about sharing responsibility,

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sharing accountability. Also, the fact that

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he threatened to sue me because I got a leak of his leaks,

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I thought that showed a remarkable sort of inconsistency

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in ideology, to be honest, as well. (Laughs)

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The other thing is that power is incredibly seductive,

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and you must have two real qualities, I think,

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when you come to the table, when you're dealing

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with power, talking about power,

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because of its seductive capacity.

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You've got to have skepticism and humility.

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Skepticism, because you must always be challenging.

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I want to see why do you -- you just say so? That's not good enough.

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I want to see the evidence behind why that's so.

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And humility because we are all human. We all make mistakes.

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And if you don't have skepticism and humility,

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then it's a really short journey to go from reformer

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to autocrat, and I think you only have to read "Animal Farm"

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to get that message about how power corrupts people.

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So what is the solution? It is, I believe, to embody

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within the rule of law rights to information.

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At the moment our rights are incredibly weak.

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In a lot of countries, we have Official Secrets Acts,

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including in Britain here. We have an Official Secrets Act

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with no public interest test. So that means it's a crime,

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people are punished, quite severely in a lot of cases,

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for publishing or giving away official information.

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Now wouldn't it be amazing, and really, this is what I want

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all of you to think about, if we had an Official Disclosure Act

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where officials were punished if they were found

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to have suppressed or hidden information

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that was in the public interest?

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So that -- yes. Yes! My power pose. (Applause) (Laughs)

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I would like us to work towards that.

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So it's not all bad news. I mean, there definitely is

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progress on the line, but I think what we find is that

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the closer that we get right into the heart of power,

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the more opaque, closed it becomes.

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So it was only just the other week that I heard London's

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Metropolitan Police Commissioner talking about why

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the police need access to all of our communications,

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spying on us without any judicial oversight,

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and he said it was a matter of life and death.

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He actually said that, it was a matter of life and death.

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There was no evidence. He presented no evidence of that.

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It was just, "Because I say so.

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You have to trust me. Take it on faith."

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Well, I'm sorry, people, but we are back

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to the pre-Enlightenment Church,

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and we need to fight against that.

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So he was talking about the law in Britain which is

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the Communications Data Bill, an absolutely outrageous piece of legislation.

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In America, you have the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.

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You've got drones now being considered for domestic surveillance.

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You have the National Security Agency building

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the world's giantest spy center. It's just this colossal --

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it's five times bigger than the U.S. Capitol,

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in which they're going to intercept and analyze

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communications, traffic and personal data

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to try and figure out who's the troublemaker in society.

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Well, to go back to our original story, the parents

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have panicked. They've locked all the doors.

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They've kitted out the house with CCTV cameras.

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They're watching all of us. They've dug a basement,

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and they've built a spy center to try and run algorithms

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and figure out which ones of us are troublesome,

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and if any of us complain about that, we're arrested for terrorism.

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Well, is that a fairy tale or a living nightmare?

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Some fairy tales have happy endings. Some don't.

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I think we've all read the Grimms' fairy tales, which are,

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indeed, very grim.

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But the world isn't a fairy tale, and it could be more brutal

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than we want to acknowledge.

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Equally, it could be better than we've been led to believe,

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but either way, we have to start seeing it exactly as it is,

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with all of its problems, because it's only by seeing it

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with all of its problems that we'll be able to fix them

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and live in a world in which we can all be

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happily ever after. (Laughs) Thank you very much.

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(Applause)

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Thank you. (Applause)