WEBVTT 00:00:00.732 --> 00:00:05.901 Once upon a time, the world was a big, dysfunctional family. 00:00:05.901 --> 00:00:09.332 It was run by the great and powerful parents, 00:00:09.332 --> 00:00:11.667 and the people were helpless 00:00:11.667 --> 00:00:14.163 and hopeless naughty children. 00:00:14.163 --> 00:00:16.666 If any of the more rowdier children questioned 00:00:16.666 --> 00:00:20.243 the authority of the parents, they were scolded. 00:00:20.243 --> 00:00:23.276 If they went exploring into the parents' rooms, 00:00:23.276 --> 00:00:27.059 or even into the secret filing cabinets, they were punished, 00:00:27.059 --> 00:00:29.812 and told that for their own good 00:00:29.812 --> 00:00:33.443 they must never go in there again. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:33.443 --> 00:00:35.939 Then one day, a man came to town 00:00:35.939 --> 00:00:38.737 with boxes and boxes of secret documents 00:00:38.737 --> 00:00:40.601 stolen from the parents' rooms. 00:00:40.601 --> 00:00:44.627 "Look what they've been hiding from you," he said. 00:00:44.627 --> 00:00:47.669 The children looked and were amazed. 00:00:47.669 --> 00:00:50.513 There were maps and minutes from meetings 00:00:50.513 --> 00:00:53.778 where the parents were slagging each other off. 00:00:53.778 --> 00:00:56.326 They behaved just like the children. 00:00:56.326 --> 00:01:00.284 And they made mistakes, too, just like the children. 00:01:00.284 --> 00:01:02.995 The only difference was, their mistakes 00:01:02.995 --> 00:01:05.820 were in the secret filing cabinets. 00:01:05.820 --> 00:01:08.625 Well, there was a girl in the town, and she didn't think 00:01:08.625 --> 00:01:11.492 they should be in the secret filing cabinets, 00:01:11.492 --> 00:01:13.392 or if they were, there ought to be a law 00:01:13.392 --> 00:01:15.509 to allow the children access. 00:01:15.509 --> 00:01:19.316 And so she set about to make it so. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:19.316 --> 00:01:23.162 Well, I'm the girl in that story, and the secret documents 00:01:23.162 --> 00:01:26.316 that I was interested in were located in this building, 00:01:26.316 --> 00:01:30.678 the British Parliament, and the data that I wanted 00:01:30.678 --> 00:01:33.339 to get my hands on were the expense receipts 00:01:33.339 --> 00:01:37.228 of members of Parliament. 00:01:37.228 --> 00:01:43.467 I thought this was a basic question to ask in a democracy. (Applause) 00:01:43.467 --> 00:01:46.374 It wasn't like I was asking for the code to a nuclear bunker, 00:01:46.374 --> 00:01:49.227 or anything like that, but the amount of resistance I got 00:01:49.227 --> 00:01:51.750 from this Freedom of Information request, 00:01:51.750 --> 00:01:54.994 you would have thought I'd asked something like this. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:54.994 --> 00:01:59.219 So I fought for about five years doing this, 00:01:59.219 --> 00:02:02.691 and it was one of many hundreds of requests that I made, 00:02:02.691 --> 00:02:05.644 not -- I didn't -- Hey, look, I didn't set out, honestly, 00:02:05.644 --> 00:02:07.293 to revolutionize the British Parliament. 00:02:07.293 --> 00:02:10.724 That was not my intention. I was just making these requests 00:02:10.724 --> 00:02:13.875 as part of research for my first book. 00:02:13.875 --> 00:02:16.740 But it ended up in this very long, protracted legal battle 00:02:16.740 --> 00:02:21.115 and there I was after five years fighting against Parliament 00:02:21.115 --> 00:02:24.155 in front of three of Britain's most eminent High Court judges 00:02:24.155 --> 00:02:28.307 waiting for their ruling about whether or not Parliament had to release this data. 00:02:28.307 --> 00:02:30.415 And I've got to tell you, I wasn't that hopeful, 00:02:30.415 --> 00:02:33.140 because I'd seen the establishment. I thought, 00:02:33.140 --> 00:02:36.496 it always sticks together. I am out of luck. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:36.496 --> 00:02:41.082 Well, guess what? I won. Hooray. (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:41.082 --> 00:02:44.505 Well, that's not exactly the story, because the problem was 00:02:44.505 --> 00:02:47.859 that Parliament delayed and delayed releasing that data, 00:02:47.859 --> 00:02:51.019 and then they tried to retrospectively change the law 00:02:51.019 --> 00:02:53.692 so that it would no longer apply to them. 00:02:53.692 --> 00:02:56.614 The transparency law they'd passed earlier that applied to everybody else, 00:02:56.614 --> 00:02:59.410 they tried to keep it so it didn't apply to them. 00:02:59.410 --> 00:03:02.905 What they hadn't counted on was digitization, 00:03:02.905 --> 00:03:05.291 because that meant that all those paper receipts 00:03:05.291 --> 00:03:08.531 had been scanned in electronically, and it was very easy 00:03:08.531 --> 00:03:11.730 for somebody to just copy that entire database, 00:03:11.730 --> 00:03:15.664 put it on a disk, and then just saunter outside of Parliament, 00:03:15.664 --> 00:03:18.149 which they did, and then they shopped that disk 00:03:18.149 --> 00:03:21.107 to the highest bidder, which was the Daily Telegraph, 00:03:21.107 --> 00:03:24.314 and then, you all remember, there was weeks and weeks 00:03:24.314 --> 00:03:27.339 of revelations, everything from porn movies 00:03:27.339 --> 00:03:30.495 and bath plugs and new kitchens 00:03:30.495 --> 00:03:33.956 and mortgages that had never been paid off. 00:03:33.956 --> 00:03:38.643 The end result was six ministers resigned, 00:03:38.643 --> 00:03:42.694 the first speaker of the house in 300 years was forced to resign, 00:03:42.694 --> 00:03:46.713 a new government was elected on a mandate of transparency, 00:03:46.713 --> 00:03:50.496 120 MPs stepped down at that election, 00:03:50.496 --> 00:03:54.987 and so far, four MPs and two lords 00:03:54.987 --> 00:03:58.017 have done jail time for fraud. 00:03:58.017 --> 00:04:04.395 So, thank you. (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:04.395 --> 00:04:08.670 Well, I tell you that story because it wasn't unique to Britain. 00:04:08.670 --> 00:04:12.011 It was an example of a culture clash that's happening 00:04:12.011 --> 00:04:15.331 all over the world between bewigged and bestockinged 00:04:15.331 --> 00:04:19.435 officials who think that they can rule over us 00:04:19.435 --> 00:04:21.343 without very much prying from the public, 00:04:21.343 --> 00:04:23.796 and then suddenly confronted with a public 00:04:23.796 --> 00:04:27.234 who is no longer content with that arrangement, 00:04:27.234 --> 00:04:30.472 and not only not content with it, now, more often, 00:04:30.472 --> 00:04:34.846 armed with official data itself. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:34.846 --> 00:04:39.984 So we are moving to this democratization of information, 00:04:39.984 --> 00:04:42.631 and I've been in this field for quite a while. 00:04:42.631 --> 00:04:45.272 Slightly embarrassing admission: Even when I was a kid, 00:04:45.272 --> 00:04:47.207 I used to have these little spy books, and I would, like, 00:04:47.207 --> 00:04:49.833 see what everybody was doing in my neighborhood and log it down. 00:04:49.833 --> 00:04:52.039 I think that was a pretty good indication 00:04:52.039 --> 00:04:55.120 about my future career as an investigative journalist, 00:04:55.120 --> 00:04:59.640 and what I've seen from being in this access to information field for so long 00:04:59.640 --> 00:05:02.416 is that it used to be quite a niche interest, 00:05:02.416 --> 00:05:05.567 and it's gone mainstream. Everybody, increasingly, around the world, 00:05:05.567 --> 00:05:08.735 wants to know about what people in power are doing. 00:05:08.735 --> 00:05:12.143 They want a say in decisions that are made in their name 00:05:12.143 --> 00:05:15.166 and with their money. It's this democratization of information 00:05:15.166 --> 00:05:17.872 that I think is an information enlightenment, 00:05:17.872 --> 00:05:21.335 and it has many of the same principles of the first Enlightenment. 00:05:21.335 --> 00:05:24.330 It's about searching for the truth, 00:05:24.330 --> 00:05:28.527 not because somebody says it's true, "because I say so." 00:05:28.527 --> 00:05:31.001 No, it's about trying to find the truth based on 00:05:31.001 --> 00:05:33.630 what you can see and what can be tested. 00:05:33.630 --> 00:05:36.298 That, in the first Enlightenment, led to questions about 00:05:36.298 --> 00:05:39.807 the right of kings, the divine right of kings to rule over people, 00:05:39.807 --> 00:05:41.984 or that women should be subordinate to men, 00:05:41.984 --> 00:05:44.687 or that the Church was the official word of God. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:44.687 --> 00:05:47.123 Obviously the Church weren't very happy about this, 00:05:47.123 --> 00:05:49.224 and they tried to suppress it, 00:05:49.224 --> 00:05:52.295 but what they hadn't counted on was technology, 00:05:52.295 --> 00:05:54.720 and then they had the printing press, which suddenly 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:58.112 enabled these ideas to spread cheaply, far and fast, 00:05:58.112 --> 00:06:00.952 and people would come together in coffee houses, 00:06:00.952 --> 00:06:03.768 discuss the ideas, plot revolution. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:03.768 --> 00:06:08.359 In our day, we have digitization. That strips all the physical mass out of information, 00:06:08.359 --> 00:06:11.764 so now it's almost zero cost to copy and share information. 00:06:11.764 --> 00:06:16.001 Our printing press is the Internet. Our coffee houses are social networks. 00:06:16.001 --> 00:06:21.103 We're moving to what I would think of as a fully connected system, 00:06:21.103 --> 00:06:23.976 and we have global decisions to make in this system, 00:06:23.976 --> 00:06:27.662 decisions about climate, about finance systems, 00:06:27.662 --> 00:06:31.003 about resources. And think about it -- 00:06:31.003 --> 00:06:33.465 if we want to make an important decision about buying a house, 00:06:33.465 --> 00:06:35.979 we don't just go off. I mean, I don't know about you, 00:06:35.979 --> 00:06:39.323 but I want to see a lot of houses before I put that much money into it. 00:06:39.323 --> 00:06:41.678 And if we're thinking about a finance system, 00:06:41.678 --> 00:06:45.322 we need a lot of information to take in. It's just not possible 00:06:45.322 --> 00:06:49.283 for one person to take in the amount, the volume 00:06:49.283 --> 00:06:53.049 of information, and analyze it to make good decisions. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:53.049 --> 00:06:56.075 So that's why we're seeing increasingly this demand 00:06:56.075 --> 00:06:58.460 for access to information. 00:06:58.460 --> 00:07:00.769 That's why we're starting to see more disclosure laws 00:07:00.769 --> 00:07:02.745 come out, so for example, on the environment, 00:07:02.745 --> 00:07:04.461 there's the Aarhus Convention, 00:07:04.461 --> 00:07:06.489 which is a European directive that gives people 00:07:06.489 --> 00:07:09.237 a very strong right to know, so if your water company 00:07:09.237 --> 00:07:12.607 is dumping water into your river, sewage water 00:07:12.607 --> 00:07:15.655 into your river, you have a right to know about it. 00:07:15.655 --> 00:07:19.534 In the finance industry, you now have more of a right 00:07:19.534 --> 00:07:22.087 to know about what's going on, so we have 00:07:22.087 --> 00:07:25.040 different anti-bribery laws, money regulations, 00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:29.113 increased corporate disclosure, so you can now track assets across borders. 00:07:29.113 --> 00:07:34.357 And it's getting harder to hide assets, tax avoidance, 00:07:34.357 --> 00:07:37.492 pay inequality. So that's great. We're starting to find out 00:07:37.492 --> 00:07:40.211 more and more about these systems. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:40.211 --> 00:07:43.003 And they're all moving to this central system, 00:07:43.003 --> 00:07:45.370 this fully connected system, 00:07:45.370 --> 00:07:48.577 all of them except one. Can you guess which one? 00:07:48.577 --> 00:07:51.248 It's the system which underpins all these other systems. 00:07:51.248 --> 00:07:55.406 It's the system by which we organize and exercise power, 00:07:55.406 --> 00:07:58.336 and there I'm talking about politics, because in politics, 00:07:58.336 --> 00:08:02.463 we're back to this system, this top-down hierarchy. 00:08:02.463 --> 00:08:05.544 And how is it possible that the volume of information 00:08:05.544 --> 00:08:08.355 can be processed that needs to in this system? 00:08:08.355 --> 00:08:10.971 Well, it just can't. That's it. 00:08:10.971 --> 00:08:13.678 And I think this is largely what's behind the crisis 00:08:13.678 --> 00:08:18.001 of legitimacy in our different governments right now. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:18.001 --> 00:08:20.184 So I've told you a bit about what I did 00:08:20.184 --> 00:08:22.869 to try and drag Parliament, kicking and screaming, 00:08:22.869 --> 00:08:25.384 into the 21st century, and I'm just going to give you 00:08:25.384 --> 00:08:28.048 a couple of examples of what a few other people I know 00:08:28.048 --> 00:08:29.268 are doing. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:29.268 --> 00:08:32.487 So this is a guy called Seb Bacon. He's a computer 00:08:32.487 --> 00:08:36.445 programmer, and he built a site called Alaveteli, 00:08:36.445 --> 00:08:41.215 and what it is, it's a Freedom of Information platform. 00:08:41.215 --> 00:08:44.190 It's open-source, with documentation, and it allows you 00:08:44.190 --> 00:08:47.293 to make a Freedom of Information request, 00:08:47.293 --> 00:08:50.262 to ask your public body a question, so 00:08:50.262 --> 00:08:53.382 it takes all the hassle out of it, and I can tell you 00:08:53.382 --> 00:08:55.470 that there is a lot of hassle making these requests, 00:08:55.470 --> 00:08:59.014 so it takes all of that hassle out, and you just type in your question, 00:08:59.014 --> 00:09:03.485 for example, how many police officers have a criminal record? 00:09:03.485 --> 00:09:07.326 It zooms it off to the appropriate person, it tells you 00:09:07.326 --> 00:09:10.814 when the time limit is coming to an end, it keeps track of all 00:09:10.814 --> 00:09:12.466 the correspondence, it posts it up there, 00:09:12.466 --> 00:09:16.121 and it becomes an archive of public knowledge. 00:09:16.121 --> 00:09:19.694 So that's open-source and it can be used in any country 00:09:19.694 --> 00:09:22.605 where there is some kind of Freedom of Information law. 00:09:22.605 --> 00:09:25.815 So there's a list there of the different countries that have it, 00:09:25.815 --> 00:09:27.610 and then there's a few more coming on board. 00:09:27.610 --> 00:09:30.170 So if any of you out there like the sound of that 00:09:30.170 --> 00:09:32.903 and have a law like that in your country, 00:09:32.903 --> 00:09:34.942 I know that Seb would love to hear from you 00:09:34.942 --> 00:09:39.014 about collaborating and getting that into your country. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:39.014 --> 00:09:43.309 This is Birgitta Jónsdóttir. She's an Icelandic MP. 00:09:43.309 --> 00:09:47.143 And quite an unusual MP. In Iceland, she was 00:09:47.143 --> 00:09:50.460 one of the protesters who was outside of Parliament 00:09:50.460 --> 00:09:54.206 when the country's economy collapsed, 00:09:54.206 --> 00:09:58.100 and then she was elected on a reform mandate, 00:09:58.100 --> 00:10:00.467 and she's now spearheading this project. 00:10:00.467 --> 00:10:03.354 It's the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, 00:10:03.354 --> 00:10:05.619 and they've just got funding to make it an international 00:10:05.619 --> 00:10:09.058 modern media project, and this is taking all of the best laws 00:10:09.058 --> 00:10:11.994 around the world about freedom of expression, 00:10:11.994 --> 00:10:14.789 protection of whistleblowers, protection from libel, 00:10:14.789 --> 00:10:19.263 source protection, and trying to make Iceland a publishing haven. 00:10:19.263 --> 00:10:21.684 It's a place where your data can be free, so when we think 00:10:21.684 --> 00:10:25.099 about, increasingly, how governments want to access user data, 00:10:25.099 --> 00:10:27.871 what they're trying to do in Iceland is make this safe haven 00:10:27.871 --> 00:10:30.608 where it can happen. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:30.608 --> 00:10:33.746 In my own field of investigative journalism, we're also 00:10:33.746 --> 00:10:36.576 having to start thinking globally, so this is a site called 00:10:36.576 --> 00:10:39.699 Investigative Dashboard. And if you're trying to track 00:10:39.699 --> 00:10:42.682 a dictator's assets, for example, Hosni Mubarak, 00:10:42.682 --> 00:10:46.127 you know, he's just funneling out cash from his country 00:10:46.127 --> 00:10:48.666 when he knows he's in trouble, and what you want to do 00:10:48.666 --> 00:10:51.062 to investigate that is, you need to have access to 00:10:51.062 --> 00:10:53.361 all of the world's, as many as you can, 00:10:53.361 --> 00:10:56.144 companies' house registrations databases. 00:10:56.144 --> 00:11:00.582 So this is a website that tries to agglomerate all of those 00:11:00.582 --> 00:11:03.837 databases into one place so you can start searching for, 00:11:03.837 --> 00:11:07.505 you know, his relatives, his friends, the head of his security services. 00:11:07.505 --> 00:11:10.256 You can try and find out how he's moving out assets 00:11:10.256 --> 00:11:12.982 from that country. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:12.982 --> 00:11:16.615 But again, when it comes to the decisions which are 00:11:16.615 --> 00:11:19.615 impacting us the most, perhaps, the most important 00:11:19.615 --> 00:11:22.904 decisions that are being made about war and so forth, 00:11:22.904 --> 00:11:25.833 again we can't just make a Freedom of Information request. 00:11:25.833 --> 00:11:28.941 It's really difficult. So we're still having to rely on 00:11:28.941 --> 00:11:33.023 illegitimate ways of getting information, through leaks. 00:11:33.023 --> 00:11:36.065 So when the Guardian did this investigation about 00:11:36.065 --> 00:11:39.215 the Afghan War, you know, they can't walk into 00:11:39.215 --> 00:11:42.679 the Department of Defense and ask for all the information. 00:11:42.679 --> 00:11:44.621 You know, they're just not going to get it. 00:11:44.621 --> 00:11:48.161 So this came from leaks of tens of thousands of dispatches 00:11:48.161 --> 00:11:50.567 that were written by American soldiers 00:11:50.567 --> 00:11:53.126 about the Afghan War, and leaked, 00:11:53.126 --> 00:11:56.777 and then they're able to do this investigation. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:56.777 --> 00:12:02.345 Another rather large investigation is around world diplomacy. 00:12:02.345 --> 00:12:04.845 Again, this is all based around leaks, 00:12:04.845 --> 00:12:10.096 251,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, and I was involved 00:12:10.096 --> 00:12:14.037 in this investigation because I got this leak 00:12:14.037 --> 00:12:17.406 through a leak from a disgruntled WikiLeaker 00:12:17.406 --> 00:12:20.175 and ended up going to work at the Guardian. 00:12:20.175 --> 00:12:22.599 So I can tell you firsthand what it was like to have access 00:12:22.599 --> 00:12:24.566 to this leak. It was amazing. I mean, it was amazing. 00:12:24.566 --> 00:12:28.216 It reminded me of that scene in "The Wizard of Oz." 00:12:28.216 --> 00:12:30.704 Do you know the one I mean? Where the little dog Toto 00:12:30.704 --> 00:12:33.555 runs across to where the wizard [is], and he pulls back, 00:12:33.555 --> 00:12:35.017 the dog's pulling back the curtain, and -- 00:12:35.017 --> 00:12:39.000 "Don't look behind the screen. Don't look at the man behind the screen." 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:41.136 It was just like that, because what you started to see 00:12:41.136 --> 00:12:44.087 is that all of these grand statesmen, these very pompous 00:12:44.087 --> 00:12:47.185 politicians, they were just like us. 00:12:47.185 --> 00:12:49.745 They all bitched about each other. I mean, quite gossipy, 00:12:49.745 --> 00:12:52.416 those cables. Okay, but I thought it was a very important 00:12:52.416 --> 00:12:55.017 point for all of us to grasp, these are human beings 00:12:55.017 --> 00:12:56.968 just like us. They don't have special powers. 00:12:56.968 --> 00:13:00.791 They're not magic. They are not our parents. 00:13:00.791 --> 00:13:05.640 Beyond that, what I found most fascinating 00:13:05.640 --> 00:13:08.264 was the level of endemic corruption that I saw 00:13:08.264 --> 00:13:11.419 across all different countries, and particularly centered 00:13:11.419 --> 00:13:14.247 around the heart of power, around public officials 00:13:14.247 --> 00:13:16.863 who were embezzling the public's money 00:13:16.863 --> 00:13:19.881 for their own personal enrichment, and allowed to do that 00:13:19.881 --> 00:13:23.264 because of official secrecy. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:23.264 --> 00:13:26.891 So I've mentioned WikiLeaks, because surely what could be 00:13:26.891 --> 00:13:29.722 more open than publishing all the material? 00:13:29.722 --> 00:13:32.793 Because that is what Julian Assange did. 00:13:32.793 --> 00:13:35.361 He wasn't content with the way the newspapers published it 00:13:35.361 --> 00:13:39.158 to be safe and legal. He threw it all out there. 00:13:39.158 --> 00:13:42.873 That did end up with vulnerable people in Afghanistan 00:13:42.873 --> 00:13:46.289 being exposed. It also meant that the Belarussian dictator 00:13:46.289 --> 00:13:50.059 was given a handy list of all the pro-democracy campaigners 00:13:50.059 --> 00:13:53.545 in that country who had spoken to the U.S. government. 00:13:53.545 --> 00:13:58.017 Is that radical openness? I say it's not, because for me, 00:13:58.017 --> 00:14:01.519 what it means, it doesn't mean abdicating power, 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:05.273 responsibility, accountability, it's actually being a partner 00:14:05.273 --> 00:14:08.289 with power. It's about sharing responsibility, 00:14:08.289 --> 00:14:11.201 sharing accountability. Also, the fact that 00:14:11.201 --> 00:14:13.338 he threatened to sue me because I got a leak of his leaks, 00:14:13.338 --> 00:14:16.023 I thought that showed a remarkable sort of inconsistency 00:14:16.023 --> 00:14:21.864 in ideology, to be honest, as well. (Laughs) NOTE Paragraph 00:14:21.864 --> 00:14:25.198 The other thing is that power is incredibly seductive, 00:14:25.198 --> 00:14:27.866 and you must have two real qualities, I think, 00:14:27.866 --> 00:14:30.279 when you come to the table, when you're dealing 00:14:30.279 --> 00:14:32.013 with power, talking about power, 00:14:32.013 --> 00:14:34.386 because of its seductive capacity. 00:14:34.386 --> 00:14:37.405 You've got to have skepticism and humility. 00:14:37.405 --> 00:14:39.998 Skepticism, because you must always be challenging. 00:14:39.998 --> 00:14:43.030 I want to see why do you -- you just say so? That's not good enough. 00:14:43.030 --> 00:14:45.745 I want to see the evidence behind why that's so. 00:14:45.745 --> 00:14:50.238 And humility because we are all human. We all make mistakes. 00:14:50.238 --> 00:14:53.030 And if you don't have skepticism and humility, 00:14:53.030 --> 00:14:56.125 then it's a really short journey to go from reformer 00:14:56.125 --> 00:15:00.734 to autocrat, and I think you only have to read "Animal Farm" 00:15:00.734 --> 00:15:06.677 to get that message about how power corrupts people. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:06.677 --> 00:15:12.145 So what is the solution? It is, I believe, to embody 00:15:12.145 --> 00:15:15.612 within the rule of law rights to information. 00:15:15.612 --> 00:15:18.247 At the moment our rights are incredibly weak. 00:15:18.247 --> 00:15:21.229 In a lot of countries, we have Official Secrets Acts, 00:15:21.229 --> 00:15:23.392 including in Britain here. We have an Official Secrets Act 00:15:23.392 --> 00:15:26.508 with no public interest test. So that means it's a crime, 00:15:26.508 --> 00:15:30.674 people are punished, quite severely in a lot of cases, 00:15:30.674 --> 00:15:34.877 for publishing or giving away official information. 00:15:34.877 --> 00:15:38.355 Now wouldn't it be amazing, and really, this is what I want 00:15:38.355 --> 00:15:41.917 all of you to think about, if we had an Official Disclosure Act 00:15:41.917 --> 00:15:45.293 where officials were punished if they were found 00:15:45.293 --> 00:15:48.253 to have suppressed or hidden information 00:15:48.253 --> 00:15:50.438 that was in the public interest? 00:15:50.438 --> 00:15:57.338 So that -- yes. Yes! My power pose. (Applause) (Laughs) 00:15:57.338 --> 00:15:59.883 I would like us to work towards that. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:59.883 --> 00:16:03.803 So it's not all bad news. I mean, there definitely is 00:16:03.803 --> 00:16:06.758 progress on the line, but I think what we find is that 00:16:06.758 --> 00:16:09.934 the closer that we get right into the heart of power, 00:16:09.934 --> 00:16:14.358 the more opaque, closed it becomes. 00:16:14.358 --> 00:16:17.438 So it was only just the other week that I heard London's 00:16:17.438 --> 00:16:20.935 Metropolitan Police Commissioner talking about why 00:16:20.935 --> 00:16:25.527 the police need access to all of our communications, 00:16:25.527 --> 00:16:28.590 spying on us without any judicial oversight, 00:16:28.590 --> 00:16:30.256 and he said it was a matter of life and death. 00:16:30.256 --> 00:16:33.503 He actually said that, it was a matter of life and death. 00:16:33.503 --> 00:16:37.725 There was no evidence. He presented no evidence of that. 00:16:37.725 --> 00:16:40.847 It was just, "Because I say so. 00:16:40.847 --> 00:16:44.095 You have to trust me. Take it on faith." 00:16:44.095 --> 00:16:46.094 Well, I'm sorry, people, but we are back 00:16:46.094 --> 00:16:49.799 to the pre-Enlightenment Church, 00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:53.575 and we need to fight against that. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:53.575 --> 00:16:56.863 So he was talking about the law in Britain which is 00:16:56.863 --> 00:17:01.089 the Communications Data Bill, an absolutely outrageous piece of legislation. 00:17:01.089 --> 00:17:04.695 In America, you have the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. 00:17:04.695 --> 00:17:08.335 You've got drones now being considered for domestic surveillance. 00:17:08.335 --> 00:17:11.095 You have the National Security Agency building 00:17:11.095 --> 00:17:14.623 the world's giantest spy center. It's just this colossal -- 00:17:14.623 --> 00:17:17.095 it's five times bigger than the U.S. Capitol, 00:17:17.095 --> 00:17:18.897 in which they're going to intercept and analyze 00:17:18.897 --> 00:17:21.846 communications, traffic and personal data 00:17:21.846 --> 00:17:25.159 to try and figure out who's the troublemaker in society. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:25.159 --> 00:17:29.959 Well, to go back to our original story, the parents 00:17:29.959 --> 00:17:33.809 have panicked. They've locked all the doors. 00:17:33.809 --> 00:17:36.895 They've kidded out the house with CCTV cameras. 00:17:36.895 --> 00:17:39.647 They're watching all of us. They've dug a basement, 00:17:39.647 --> 00:17:42.311 and they've built a spy center to try and run algorithms 00:17:42.311 --> 00:17:44.983 and figure out which ones of us are troublesome, 00:17:44.983 --> 00:17:49.217 and if any of us complain about that, we're arrested for terrorism. 00:17:49.217 --> 00:17:52.791 Well, is that a fairy tale or a living nightmare? 00:17:52.791 --> 00:17:56.450 Some fairy tales have happy endings. Some don't. 00:17:56.450 --> 00:17:59.197 I think we've all read the Grimms' fairy tales, which are, 00:17:59.197 --> 00:18:01.695 indeed, very grim. 00:18:01.695 --> 00:18:06.917 But the world isn't a fairy tale, and it could be more brutal 00:18:06.917 --> 00:18:09.721 than we want to acknowledge. 00:18:09.721 --> 00:18:12.010 Equally, it could be better than we've been led to believe, 00:18:12.010 --> 00:18:15.721 but either way, we have to start seeing it exactly as it is, 00:18:15.721 --> 00:18:19.570 with all of its problems, because it's only by seeing it 00:18:19.570 --> 00:18:22.063 with all of its problems that we'll be able to fix them 00:18:22.063 --> 00:18:26.134 and live in a world in which we can all be 00:18:26.134 --> 00:18:29.820 happily ever after. (Laughs) Thank you very much. 00:18:29.820 --> 00:18:33.055 (Applause) 00:18:33.055 --> 00:18:37.110 Thank you. (Applause)