1. Heather Brooke is the author of Your Right to Know, The Silent State, and The Revolution Will Be Digitised, as well as a regularly updated Substack.
19 Facts About Heather Brooke
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Heather Brooke grew up in Seattle, Washington, where her mother worked for Boeing and graduated from Federal Way High School.
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Heather Brooke attended the University of Washington Department of Communication, where she graduated in 1992 with a double major degree in journalism and political science.
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Heather Brooke then became a crime reporter for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, where she reported on murder cases and uncovered flaws in South Carolina's forensic crime lab.
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Heather Brooke enrolled for a master's in English literature at the University of Warwick, then moved to East London with her husband, where she took a job with the BBC as a copywriter.
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In early 2007, Heather Brooke won a landmark legal case that led the BBC to disclose the minutes of its Board of Governors' meeting of 28 January 2004.
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In October 2004, Heather Brooke started to request details of MPs' expenses, via the House of Commons Freedom of Information Officer, Bob Castle.
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Julian Assange 8.
Heather Brooke started out requesting all 646 MPs' expenses, but the Commons claimed that would be too costly.
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Heather Brooke then asked for request for travel information ; then for the names and salaries of MPs' staff, blocked personally by the Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin.
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Heather Brooke then asked for information on second homes for the details for all MPs, but this was refused.
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Heather Brooke's request was considered for a year, together with two other similar requests on MPs' expenses which had been appealed to the Commissioner in 2005, from Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas of The Sunday Times.
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The role of Heather Brooke was played by Anna Maxwell Martin.
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Heather Brooke still serves as a visiting professor in the journalism department of City University London and has done since the expenses scandal.
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Heather Brooke was the first international winner of the FOI award in 2009 at the Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards.
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Heather Brooke included a personal account of her role in the MPs expenses scandal in her second book, The Silent State: How Secrecy and Misinformation are Destroying Democracy.
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Heather Brooke has continued to blog about freedom of information issues, as well as writing and speaking at conferences.
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Heather Brooke was commissioned in 2010 to write her third book, The Revolution Will Be Digitised, exploring "the world of computer hackers, internet whistleblowers and pro-democracy campaigners," and including in-depth research on WikiLeaks.
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Heather Brooke worked with The Guardian to edit and publish the material, while concerned about genuine harm minimisation.
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Heather Brooke starred in We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks as a pundit giving commentary based on her freedom of information campaigning experience and dealings with Julian Assange.