Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy

The Silent State

A modern classic of journalism and an iconic investigation of power in C21st Britain, by one of the country's leading reporters.

You won't know whether to laugh or rise up and overthrow absolutely everything.

A wonderful book... Heather Brooke puts every other British journalist to shame. She has changed British public culture and earned an essential place in our national history. She is an extraordinary figure who must be celebrated.

Secrecy is one of the great British diseases. It's so secret that we don't even admit we suffer from it. Heather Brooke is part of the cure - challenging the routine concealment and distortion of important information. There should be more journalists doing the same.

'passionate, eloquent and persuasive...We need the likes of Heather Brooke to challenge, to take up grievances and to campaign.'

'Brooke tells the story of her own preliminary part in one of the most successful raids every carried out against the Establishment vividly'

The American heroine of the battle to release details of MPs' expenses look in turn at different abuses...the book is cogent, impersonal analysis...beadily observant, playful but implacable.'

'[The Silent State] unmasks an endemic secrecy and a sod-you attitude to the public that arouses new levels of indignation.'

Heather Brooke is a freelance journalist and Freedom of Information campaigner famous for uncovering the MPs' expenses scandal. She is a visiting professor at City University's Department of Journalism and is also the author of Your Right to Know. In 2009 she was named Reformer of the Year and won the Setting the Political Agenda Award from the Political Studies Association.

Award-winning investigative journalist Heather Brooke exposes the shocking and farcical lack of transparency at all levels of government. At a time when the State knows more than ever about us, Brooke argues that without proper access to the information that citizens pay for, Britain can never be a true democracy. 
 
*SECRECY*: anonymous bureaucrats, clandestine courts, men in tights and the true cost of 'public' information. *PROPAGANDA*: spin, PR and bullshitting by numbers. The British government spent £38m more on advertising last year than their closest competitor, Proctor and Gamble - find out what they spent it on! *SURVEILLANCE*: discover the extent of Britain's network of databases spying on ordinary citizens, *EXPENSES*: read, for the first time, the exclusive and definitive account of Brooke's five-year campaign to have MPs' expenses revealed, which rocked the nation and transformed Britain's political landscape.

Heather Brooke

Brooke hasn't set out to write just another inside account of the Wikileaks saga: this is a mélange of anecdote, imagination and experience designed to open our eyes to the possibility of digital change ... feisty and vivid and honest.

Brooke has a serious agenda and she poses serious questions ... We have been warned.

A robust examination of the race for control of information in our digital age.

Dispatches from the Information War

There is more information in the world than ever before - but who's in control? 
 
At the centre sits the Establishment: governments, corporations and powerful individuals who have more knowledge about us, and more power, than ever before. Circling them is a new generation of hackers, pro-democracy campaigners and internet activists who no longer accept that the Establishment should run the show. 
 
Award-winning journalist and campaigner Heather Brooke takes us inside the Information War and explores the most urgent questions of the digital age: where is the balance between freedom and security? In an online world, does privacy still exist? And will the internet empower individuals, or usher in a new age of censorship, surveillance and oppression?

The Revolution will be Digitised

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Heather Brooke

Praise for The Revolution will be Digitised

Brooke hasn't set out to write just another inside account of the Wikileaks saga: this is a mélange of anecdote, imagination and experience designed to open our eyes to the possibility of digital change ... < ...

Brooke has a serious agenda and she poses serious questions ... We have been warned.

A demanding, illuminating read.

Brooke hasn't set out to write just another inside account of the Wikileaks saga: this is a mélange of anecdote, imagination and experience designed to open our eyes to the possibility of digital change ... < ...

Brooke has a serious agenda and she poses serious questions ... We have been warned.

A demanding, illuminating read.

Brooke hasn't set out to write just another inside account of the Wikileaks saga: this is a mélange of anecdote, imagination and experience designed to open our eyes to the possibility of digital change ... < ...

Brooke has a serious agenda and she poses serious questions ... We have been warned.

A demanding, illuminating read.

Books by Heather Brooke

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter