My battle to expose government corruption
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0:01 - 0:06Once upon a time, the world was a big, dysfunctional family.
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0:06 - 0:09It was run by the great and powerful parents,
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0:09 - 0:12and the people were helpless
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0:12 - 0:14and hopeless naughty children.
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0:14 - 0:17If any of the more rowdier children questioned
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0:17 - 0:20the authority of the parents, they were scolded.
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0:20 - 0:23If they went exploring into the parents' rooms,
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0:23 - 0:27or even into the secret filing cabinets, they were punished,
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0:27 - 0:30and told that for their own good
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0:30 - 0:33they must never go in there again.
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0:33 - 0:36Then one day, a man came to town
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0:36 - 0:39with boxes and boxes of secret documents
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0:39 - 0:41stolen from the parents' rooms.
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0:41 - 0:45"Look what they've been hiding from you," he said.
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0:45 - 0:48The children looked and were amazed.
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0:48 - 0:51There were maps and minutes from meetings
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0:51 - 0:54where the parents were slagging each other off.
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0:54 - 0:56They behaved just like the children.
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0:56 - 1:00And they made mistakes, too, just like the children.
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1:00 - 1:03The only difference was, their mistakes
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1:03 - 1:06were in the secret filing cabinets.
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1:06 - 1:09Well, there was a girl in the town, and she didn't think
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1:09 - 1:11they should be in the secret filing cabinets,
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1:11 - 1:13or if they were, there ought to be a law
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1:13 - 1:16to allow the children access.
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1:16 - 1:19And so she set about to make it so.
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1:19 - 1:23Well, I'm the girl in that story, and the secret documents
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1:23 - 1:26that I was interested in were located in this building,
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1:26 - 1:31the British Parliament, and the data that I wanted
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1:31 - 1:33to get my hands on were the expense receipts
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1:33 - 1:37of members of Parliament.
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1:37 - 1:43I thought this was a basic question to ask in a democracy. (Applause)
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1:43 - 1:46It wasn't like I was asking for the code to a nuclear bunker,
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1:46 - 1:49or anything like that, but the amount of resistance I got
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1:49 - 1:52from this Freedom of Information request,
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1:52 - 1:55you would have thought I'd asked something like this.
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1:55 - 1:59So I fought for about five years doing this,
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1:59 - 2:03and it was one of many hundreds of requests that I made,
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2:03 - 2:06not -- I didn't -- Hey, look, I didn't set out, honestly,
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2:06 - 2:07to revolutionize the British Parliament.
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2:07 - 2:11That was not my intention. I was just making these requests
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2:11 - 2:14as part of research for my first book.
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2:14 - 2:17But it ended up in this very long, protracted legal battle
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2:17 - 2:21and there I was after five years fighting against Parliament
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2:21 - 2:24in front of three of Britain's most eminent High Court judges
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2:24 - 2:28waiting for their ruling about whether or not Parliament had to release this data.
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2:28 - 2:30And I've got to tell you, I wasn't that hopeful,
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2:30 - 2:33because I'd seen the establishment. I thought,
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2:33 - 2:36it always sticks together. I am out of luck.
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2:36 - 2:41Well, guess what? I won. Hooray. (Applause)
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2:41 - 2:45Well, that's not exactly the story, because the problem was
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2:45 - 2:48that Parliament delayed and delayed releasing that data,
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2:48 - 2:51and then they tried to retrospectively change the law
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2:51 - 2:54so that it would no longer apply to them.
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2:54 - 2:57The transparency law they'd passed earlier that applied to everybody else,
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2:57 - 2:59they tried to keep it so it didn't apply to them.
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2:59 - 3:03What they hadn't counted on was digitization,
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3:03 - 3:05because that meant that all those paper receipts
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3:05 - 3:09had been scanned in electronically, and it was very easy
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3:09 - 3:12for somebody to just copy that entire database,
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3:12 - 3:16put it on a disk, and then just saunter outside of Parliament,
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3:16 - 3:18which they did, and then they shopped that disk
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3:18 - 3:21to the highest bidder, which was the Daily Telegraph,
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3:21 - 3:24and then, you all remember, there was weeks and weeks
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3:24 - 3:27of revelations, everything from porn movies
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3:27 - 3:30and bath plugs and new kitchens
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3:30 - 3:34and mortgages that had never been paid off.
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3:34 - 3:39The end result was six ministers resigned,
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3:39 - 3:43the first speaker of the house in 300 years was forced to resign,
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3:43 - 3:47a new government was elected on a mandate of transparency,
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3:47 - 3:50120 MPs stepped down at that election,
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3:50 - 3:55and so far, four MPs and two lords
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3:55 - 3:58have done jail time for fraud.
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3:58 - 4:04So, thank you. (Applause)
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4:04 - 4:09Well, I tell you that story because it wasn't unique to Britain.
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4:09 - 4:12It was an example of a culture clash that's happening
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4:12 - 4:15all over the world between bewigged and bestockinged
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4:15 - 4:19officials who think that they can rule over us
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4:19 - 4:21without very much prying from the public,
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4:21 - 4:24and then suddenly confronted with a public
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4:24 - 4:27who is no longer content with that arrangement,
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4:27 - 4:30and not only not content with it, now, more often,
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4:30 - 4:35armed with official data itself.
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4:35 - 4:40So we are moving to this democratization of information,
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4:40 - 4:43and I've been in this field for quite a while.
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4:43 - 4:45Slightly embarrassing admission: Even when I was a kid,
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4:45 - 4:47I used to have these little spy books, and I would, like,
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4:47 - 4:50see what everybody was doing in my neighborhood and log it down.
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4:50 - 4:52I think that was a pretty good indication
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4:52 - 4:55about my future career as an investigative journalist,
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4:55 - 5:00and what I've seen from being in this access to information field for so long
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5:00 - 5:02is that it used to be quite a niche interest,
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5:02 - 5:06and it's gone mainstream. Everybody, increasingly, around the world,
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5:06 - 5:09wants to know about what people in power are doing.
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5:09 - 5:12They want a say in decisions that are made in their name
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5:12 - 5:15and with their money. It's this democratization of information
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5:15 - 5:18that I think is an information enlightenment,
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5:18 - 5:21and it has many of the same principles of the first Enlightenment.
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5:21 - 5:24It's about searching for the truth,
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5:24 - 5:29not because somebody says it's true, "because I say so."
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5:29 - 5:31No, it's about trying to find the truth based on
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5:31 - 5:34what you can see and what can be tested.
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5:34 - 5:36That, in the first Enlightenment, led to questions about
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5:36 - 5:40the right of kings, the divine right of kings to rule over people,
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5:40 - 5:42or that women should be subordinate to men,
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5:42 - 5:45or that the Church was the official word of God.
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5:45 - 5:47Obviously the Church weren't very happy about this,
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5:47 - 5:49and they tried to suppress it,
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5:49 - 5:52but what they hadn't counted on was technology,
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5:52 - 5:55and then they had the printing press, which suddenly
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5:55 - 5:58enabled these ideas to spread cheaply, far and fast,
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5:58 - 6:01and people would come together in coffee houses,
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6:01 - 6:04discuss the ideas, plot revolution.
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6:04 - 6:08In our day, we have digitization. That strips all the physical mass out of information,
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6:08 - 6:12so now it's almost zero cost to copy and share information.
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6:12 - 6:16Our printing press is the Internet. Our coffee houses are social networks.
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6:16 - 6:21We're moving to what I would think of as a fully connected system,
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6:21 - 6:24and we have global decisions to make in this system,
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6:24 - 6:28decisions about climate, about finance systems,
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6:28 - 6:31about resources. And think about it --
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6:31 - 6:33if we want to make an important decision about buying a house,
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6:33 - 6:36we don't just go off. I mean, I don't know about you,
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6:36 - 6:39but I want to see a lot of houses before I put that much money into it.
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6:39 - 6:42And if we're thinking about a finance system,
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6:42 - 6:45we need a lot of information to take in. It's just not possible
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6:45 - 6:49for one person to take in the amount, the volume
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6:49 - 6:53of information, and analyze it to make good decisions.
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6:53 - 6:56So that's why we're seeing increasingly this demand
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6:56 - 6:58for access to information.
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6:58 - 7:01That's why we're starting to see more disclosure laws
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7:01 - 7:03come out, so for example, on the environment,
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7:03 - 7:04there's the Aarhus Convention,
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7:04 - 7:06which is a European directive that gives people
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7:06 - 7:09a very strong right to know, so if your water company
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7:09 - 7:13is dumping water into your river, sewage water
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7:13 - 7:16into your river, you have a right to know about it.
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7:16 - 7:20In the finance industry, you now have more of a right
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7:20 - 7:22to know about what's going on, so we have
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7:22 - 7:25different anti-bribery laws, money regulations,
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7:25 - 7:29increased corporate disclosure, so you can now track assets across borders.
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7:29 - 7:34And it's getting harder to hide assets, tax avoidance,
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7:34 - 7:37pay inequality. So that's great. We're starting to find out
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7:37 - 7:40more and more about these systems.
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7:40 - 7:43And they're all moving to this central system,
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7:43 - 7:45this fully connected system,
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7:45 - 7:49all of them except one. Can you guess which one?
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7:49 - 7:51It's the system which underpins all these other systems.
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7:51 - 7:55It's the system by which we organize and exercise power,
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7:55 - 7:58and there I'm talking about politics, because in politics,
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7:58 - 8:02we're back to this system, this top-down hierarchy.
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8:02 - 8:06And how is it possible that the volume of information
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8:06 - 8:08can be processed that needs to in this system?
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8:08 - 8:11Well, it just can't. That's it.
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8:11 - 8:14And I think this is largely what's behind the crisis
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8:14 - 8:18of legitimacy in our different governments right now.
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8:18 - 8:20So I've told you a bit about what I did
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8:20 - 8:23to try and drag Parliament, kicking and screaming,
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8:23 - 8:25into the 21st century, and I'm just going to give you
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8:25 - 8:28a couple of examples of what a few other people I know
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8:28 - 8:29are doing.
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8:29 - 8:32So this is a guy called Seb Bacon. He's a computer
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8:32 - 8:36programmer, and he built a site called Alaveteli,
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8:36 - 8:41and what it is, it's a Freedom of Information platform.
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8:41 - 8:44It's open-source, with documentation, and it allows you
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8:44 - 8:47to make a Freedom of Information request,
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8:47 - 8:50to ask your public body a question, so
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8:50 - 8:53it takes all the hassle out of it, and I can tell you
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8:53 - 8:55that there is a lot of hassle making these requests,
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8:55 - 8:59so it takes all of that hassle out, and you just type in your question,
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8:59 - 9:03for example, how many police officers have a criminal record?
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9:03 - 9:07It zooms it off to the appropriate person, it tells you
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9:07 - 9:11when the time limit is coming to an end, it keeps track of all
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9:11 - 9:12the correspondence, it posts it up there,
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9:12 - 9:16and it becomes an archive of public knowledge.
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9:16 - 9:20So that's open-source and it can be used in any country
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9:20 - 9:23where there is some kind of Freedom of Information law.
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9:23 - 9:26So there's a list there of the different countries that have it,
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9:26 - 9:28and then there's a few more coming on board.
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9:28 - 9:30So if any of you out there like the sound of that
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9:30 - 9:33and have a law like that in your country,
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9:33 - 9:35I know that Seb would love to hear from you
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9:35 - 9:39about collaborating and getting that into your country.
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9:39 - 9:43This is Birgitta Jónsdóttir. She's an Icelandic MP.
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9:43 - 9:47And quite an unusual MP. In Iceland, she was
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9:47 - 9:50one of the protesters who was outside of Parliament
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9:50 - 9:54when the country's economy collapsed,
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9:54 - 9:58and then she was elected on a reform mandate,
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9:58 - 10:00and she's now spearheading this project.
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10:00 - 10:03It's the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative,
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10:03 - 10:06and they've just got funding to make it an international
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10:06 - 10:09modern media project, and this is taking all of the best laws
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10:09 - 10:12around the world about freedom of expression,
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10:12 - 10:15protection of whistleblowers, protection from libel,
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10:15 - 10:19source protection, and trying to make Iceland a publishing haven.
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10:19 - 10:22It's a place where your data can be free, so when we think
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10:22 - 10:25about, increasingly, how governments want to access user data,
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10:25 - 10:28what they're trying to do in Iceland is make this safe haven
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10:28 - 10:31where it can happen.
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10:31 - 10:34In my own field of investigative journalism, we're also
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10:34 - 10:37having to start thinking globally, so this is a site called
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10:37 - 10:40Investigative Dashboard. And if you're trying to track
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10:40 - 10:43a dictator's assets, for example, Hosni Mubarak,
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10:43 - 10:46you know, he's just funneling out cash from his country
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10:46 - 10:49when he knows he's in trouble, and what you want to do
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10:49 - 10:51to investigate that is, you need to have access to
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10:51 - 10:53all of the world's, as many as you can,
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10:53 - 10:56companies' house registrations databases.
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10:56 - 11:01So this is a website that tries to agglomerate all of those
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11:01 - 11:04databases into one place so you can start searching for,
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11:04 - 11:08you know, his relatives, his friends, the head of his security services.
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11:08 - 11:10You can try and find out how he's moving out assets
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11:10 - 11:13from that country.
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11:13 - 11:17But again, when it comes to the decisions which are
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11:17 - 11:20impacting us the most, perhaps, the most important
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11:20 - 11:23decisions that are being made about war and so forth,
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11:23 - 11:26again we can't just make a Freedom of Information request.
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11:26 - 11:29It's really difficult. So we're still having to rely on
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11:29 - 11:33illegitimate ways of getting information, through leaks.
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11:33 - 11:36So when the Guardian did this investigation about
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11:36 - 11:39the Afghan War, you know, they can't walk into
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11:39 - 11:43the Department of Defense and ask for all the information.
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11:43 - 11:45You know, they're just not going to get it.
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11:45 - 11:48So this came from leaks of tens of thousands of dispatches
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11:48 - 11:51that were written by American soldiers
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11:51 - 11:53about the Afghan War, and leaked,
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11:53 - 11:57and then they're able to do this investigation.
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11:57 - 12:02Another rather large investigation is around world diplomacy.
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12:02 - 12:05Again, this is all based around leaks,
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12:05 - 12:10251,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, and I was involved
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12:10 - 12:14in this investigation because I got this leak
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12:14 - 12:17through a leak from a disgruntled WikiLeaker
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12:17 - 12:20and ended up going to work at the Guardian.
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12:20 - 12:23So I can tell you firsthand what it was like to have access
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12:23 - 12:25to this leak. It was amazing. I mean, it was amazing.
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12:25 - 12:28It reminded me of that scene in "The Wizard of Oz."
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12:28 - 12:31Do you know the one I mean? Where the little dog Toto
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12:31 - 12:34runs across to where the wizard [is], and he pulls back,
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12:34 - 12:35the dog's pulling back the curtain, and --
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12:35 - 12:39"Don't look behind the screen. Don't look at the man behind the screen."
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12:39 - 12:41It was just like that, because what you started to see
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12:41 - 12:44is that all of these grand statesmen, these very pompous
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12:44 - 12:47politicians, they were just like us.
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12:47 - 12:50They all bitched about each other. I mean, quite gossipy,
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12:50 - 12:52those cables. Okay, but I thought it was a very important
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12:52 - 12:55point for all of us to grasp, these are human beings
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12:55 - 12:57just like us. They don't have special powers.
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12:57 - 13:01They're not magic. They are not our parents.
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13:01 - 13:06Beyond that, what I found most fascinating
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13:06 - 13:08was the level of endemic corruption that I saw
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13:08 - 13:11across all different countries, and particularly centered
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13:11 - 13:14around the heart of power, around public officials
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13:14 - 13:17who were embezzling the public's money
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13:17 - 13:20for their own personal enrichment, and allowed to do that
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13:20 - 13:23because of official secrecy.
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13:23 - 13:27So I've mentioned WikiLeaks, because surely what could be
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13:27 - 13:30more open than publishing all the material?
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13:30 - 13:33Because that is what Julian Assange did.
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13:33 - 13:35He wasn't content with the way the newspapers published it
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13:35 - 13:39to be safe and legal. He threw it all out there.
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13:39 - 13:43That did end up with vulnerable people in Afghanistan
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13:43 - 13:46being exposed. It also meant that the Belarussian dictator
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13:46 - 13:50was given a handy list of all the pro-democracy campaigners
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13:50 - 13:54in that country who had spoken to the U.S. government.
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13:54 - 13:58Is that radical openness? I say it's not, because for me,
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13:58 - 14:02what it means, it doesn't mean abdicating power,
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14:02 - 14:05responsibility, accountability, it's actually being a partner
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14:05 - 14:08with power. It's about sharing responsibility,
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14:08 - 14:11sharing accountability. Also, the fact that
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14:11 - 14:13he threatened to sue me because I got a leak of his leaks,
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14:13 - 14:16I thought that showed a remarkable sort of inconsistency
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14:16 - 14:22in ideology, to be honest, as well. (Laughs)
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14:22 - 14:25The other thing is that power is incredibly seductive,
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14:25 - 14:28and you must have two real qualities, I think,
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14:28 - 14:30when you come to the table, when you're dealing
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14:30 - 14:32with power, talking about power,
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14:32 - 14:34because of its seductive capacity.
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14:34 - 14:37You've got to have skepticism and humility.
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14:37 - 14:40Skepticism, because you must always be challenging.
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14:40 - 14:43I want to see why do you -- you just say so? That's not good enough.
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14:43 - 14:46I want to see the evidence behind why that's so.
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14:46 - 14:50And humility because we are all human. We all make mistakes.
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14:50 - 14:53And if you don't have skepticism and humility,
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14:53 - 14:56then it's a really short journey to go from reformer
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14:56 - 15:01to autocrat, and I think you only have to read "Animal Farm"
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15:01 - 15:07to get that message about how power corrupts people.
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15:07 - 15:12So what is the solution? It is, I believe, to embody
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15:12 - 15:16within the rule of law rights to information.
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15:16 - 15:18At the moment our rights are incredibly weak.
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15:18 - 15:21In a lot of countries, we have Official Secrets Acts,
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15:21 - 15:23including in Britain here. We have an Official Secrets Act
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15:23 - 15:27with no public interest test. So that means it's a crime,
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15:27 - 15:31people are punished, quite severely in a lot of cases,
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15:31 - 15:35for publishing or giving away official information.
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15:35 - 15:38Now wouldn't it be amazing, and really, this is what I want
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15:38 - 15:42all of you to think about, if we had an Official Disclosure Act
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15:42 - 15:45where officials were punished if they were found
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15:45 - 15:48to have suppressed or hidden information
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15:48 - 15:50that was in the public interest?
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15:50 - 15:57So that -- yes. Yes! My power pose. (Applause) (Laughs)
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15:57 - 16:00I would like us to work towards that.
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16:00 - 16:04So it's not all bad news. I mean, there definitely is
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16:04 - 16:07progress on the line, but I think what we find is that
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16:07 - 16:10the closer that we get right into the heart of power,
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16:10 - 16:14the more opaque, closed it becomes.
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16:14 - 16:17So it was only just the other week that I heard London's
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16:17 - 16:21Metropolitan Police Commissioner talking about why
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16:21 - 16:26the police need access to all of our communications,
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16:26 - 16:29spying on us without any judicial oversight,
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16:29 - 16:30and he said it was a matter of life and death.
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16:30 - 16:34He actually said that, it was a matter of life and death.
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16:34 - 16:38There was no evidence. He presented no evidence of that.
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16:38 - 16:41It was just, "Because I say so.
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16:41 - 16:44You have to trust me. Take it on faith."
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16:44 - 16:46Well, I'm sorry, people, but we are back
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16:46 - 16:50to the pre-Enlightenment Church,
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16:50 - 16:54and we need to fight against that.
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16:54 - 16:57So he was talking about the law in Britain which is
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16:57 - 17:01the Communications Data Bill, an absolutely outrageous piece of legislation.
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17:01 - 17:05In America, you have the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.
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17:05 - 17:08You've got drones now being considered for domestic surveillance.
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17:08 - 17:11You have the National Security Agency building
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17:11 - 17:15the world's giantest spy center. It's just this colossal --
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17:15 - 17:17it's five times bigger than the U.S. Capitol,
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17:17 - 17:19in which they're going to intercept and analyze
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17:19 - 17:22communications, traffic and personal data
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17:22 - 17:25to try and figure out who's the troublemaker in society.
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17:25 - 17:30Well, to go back to our original story, the parents
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17:30 - 17:34have panicked. They've locked all the doors.
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17:34 - 17:37They've kidded out the house with CCTV cameras.
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17:37 - 17:40They're watching all of us. They've dug a basement,
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17:40 - 17:42and they've built a spy center to try and run algorithms
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17:42 - 17:45and figure out which ones of us are troublesome,
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17:45 - 17:49and if any of us complain about that, we're arrested for terrorism.
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17:49 - 17:53Well, is that a fairy tale or a living nightmare?
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17:53 - 17:56Some fairy tales have happy endings. Some don't.
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17:56 - 17:59I think we've all read the Grimms' fairy tales, which are,
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17:59 - 18:02indeed, very grim.
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18:02 - 18:07But the world isn't a fairy tale, and it could be more brutal
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18:07 - 18:10than we want to acknowledge.
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18:10 - 18:12Equally, it could be better than we've been led to believe,
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18:12 - 18:16but either way, we have to start seeing it exactly as it is,
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18:16 - 18:20with all of its problems, because it's only by seeing it
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18:20 - 18:22with all of its problems that we'll be able to fix them
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18:22 - 18:26and live in a world in which we can all be
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18:26 - 18:30happily ever after. (Laughs) Thank you very much.
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18:30 - 18:33(Applause)
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18:33 - 18:37Thank you. (Applause)
- Title:
- My battle to expose government corruption
- Speaker:
- Heather Brooke
- Description:
-
Our leaders need to be held accountable, says journalist Heather Brooke. And she should know: Brooke uncovered the British Parliamentary financial expenses that led to a major political scandal in 2009. She urges us to ask our leaders questions through platforms like Freedom of Information requests -- and to finally get some answers.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 18:57
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for My battle to expose government corruption | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for My battle to expose government corruption | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for My battle to expose government corruption | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for My battle to expose government corruption | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for My battle to expose government corruption | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for My battle to expose government corruption | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for My battle to expose government corruption | ||
Joseph Geni added a translation |