Heather Brooke Quotes
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Politicians often claim secrecy is necessary for good governance or national security.
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Hackerspaces are the digital-age equivalent of English Enlightenment coffee houses. They are places open to all, indifferent to social status, and where ideas and knowledge hold primary value.
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There are corporate private investigators, companies doing very forensic background checks on people. They buy data, they get their own data... They don't want their industry publicised.
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Slightly embarrassing admission: Even when I was a kid, I used to have these little spy books, and I would, like, see what everybody was doing in my neighborhood and log it down.
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Parliamentarians certainly know how to do bad public relations.
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I trained as a journalist in America where paying sources is frowned upon. Now I work in the U.K. where there is a more flexible attitude.
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When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.
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There's not a self-regulating group of nice fair-playing people in politics. There are a lot of dodgy people in politics.
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It is quite surreal having a film made about your life. The whole process of turning real life into drama is interesting in itself, but even more so when it is your own life being put into the narrative forge.
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A lot of people have a lot to gain from peddling scare stories about cyber warfare.
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You don't make a system more effective by increasing the number of regulators.
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Diplomacy has always involved dinners with ruling elites, backroom deals and clandestine meetings. Now, in the digital age, the reports of all those parties and patrician chats can be collected in one enormous database. And once collected in digital form, it becomes very easy for them to be shared.
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The hacker community may be small, but it possesses the skills that are driving the global economies of the future.
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Traditional publishers require an author to submit a manuscript six months in advance, and if pressed, no later than two or three.
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I've always worked on the fringe of the British press establishment, carving out this niche for myself.
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We need to codify our values and build consensus around what we want from a free society and a free Internet. We need to put into law protections for our privacy and our right to speak and assemble.
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As the news agenda goes into warp speed, it becomes ever more difficult for authors writing about current events to keep their books timely and relevant.
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When I came to Britain I was in awe of the British press, afraid of them. But they're not as ferocious as people think. In some instances they are, but when it comes to taking on power they're really deferential.
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Britain's legal structure is basically the same as in feudal times: laws are written for the elite.
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It used to cost money to disclose and distribute information. In the digital age it costs money not to.
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We are not naughty children, and the state is not our parent.
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If the public can't see justice being done, or afford the costs of justice, then the entire system becomes little more than a cozy club solely for the benefit of judges, lawyers and their lackeys, a sort of care in the community for the upper middle classes.
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I like to write books and cause trouble.
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I'm very optimistic, but I'm optimistic about individuals, not institutions.