Your Right To Know: A Citizen's Guide to the Freedom of Information Act

by Heather Brooke, Ian Hislop (Foreword)

Have you ever wanted to force open the secretive doors of government? This book provides all the tools you need. With a new foreword by Ian Hislop, it's also fully updated to include new tips for digging out information, new template letters, an expanded directory, new examples of case law, an expanded business chapter, and a new chapter on the law in Scotland.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2004

About the author

Heather Rose Brooke (born 1970) is an American journalist and freedom of information campaigner. Resident since the 1990s in the UK, she is best known for her role in helping to expose the 2009 United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, which culminated in the resignation of House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin.

Brooke is Professor of Journalism at City University London's Department of Journalism. She is the author of Your Right to Know (2006), The Silent State (2010), and The Revolution Will Be Digitised (2011).

Reviews

[Badger · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent how-to-do-it when dealing with officialdom. How Heather blew the Ship of State out of the water with her expenses revelations.

Well, not the story of how she did it, but a list of the tools she used.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

You might want to crosscheck the part where the history of FoI is introduced. US FoI legislation was not the second in the world like Brooke claims.

[Crina Boros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brooke's FOI requests were the source of the British MPs scandal, which made history when she won a Freedom of Information war against the Parliament. YRTK is full of tips on how to get information from public agency and a useful read for anyone who wants to start out using transparency laws.