Brexit Vote: Please Write to Your MP Today

As people may have heard, there is a rather important vote on Brexit tomorrow.  It's going to be very close, so I would like to urge everyone in the UK to write to their MP, asking them to vote against what is in every respect a terrible deal.  

It will not only harm the economy, and the most vulnerable people in UK society, it will also open the way for a catastrophic, crash-out "No Deal" Brexit, with no way for Parliament to stop it.  In short, it's a trap, and one that some foolish MPs seem content to walk into.  

FWIW, here's what I've just sent to my MP.  Please feel free to adapt it for your own communication.  You can find your MP's email address at the wonderful free site WriteToThem, which you can also use to send your message.

This is just a quick note to ask you to vote against the UK government's proposed Brexit agreement tomorrow.

I think you already know its deep problems -  not least the fact that it simply delays, but cannot prevent, a No Deal Brexit, which seems favoured by extreme Brexiters.  But I would also like to urge you to talk to other Labour MPs who seem willing to vote for it in the mistaken belief that it is what their constituents want.

As you know, the present deal will result in a massive hit to the UK economy, which will affect the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of society.  It will lead to workers' rights being eroded, along with crucial environmental protections being jettisoned.  Throw in the fact that a US trade deal will see much of the NHS privatised, and the cost of drugs greatly increased, and it is hard to understand how any Labour MP could contemplate voting for this terrible deal.  I hope you can help them to see this.

UK Citizens: Please Write to Your MPs Today about the Big Brexit Votes

There's an important series of Brexit votes taking place tomorrow.  The UK government will seek to overturn some sensible amendments made in the Lords, allotting just a few hours to consider many important issues. 

If you can, please write to your MPs today urging them to support amendments that will minimise the damage caused by the self-harming hard Brexit. 

You can write to your MP using the excellent WriteToThem service, which is quick and costs nothing.  Here's what I've sent - please feel free to draw on it, but do use your own words and thoughts to increase the impact. Thanks.

I am writing to you in connection with the votes on the EU Withdrawal Bill. I am very concerned about the destructive effect that a hard Brexit will have on this country, its economy and particularly those who are already struggling to make ends meet.

As every credible analysis shows, a hard Brexit will cause huge damage to the UK economy, and inevitably lead to an impoverishment of the vast majority of people in this country. For those who have little, that will be a serious blow.

To avoid that, I would urge you to vote for Amendments 1 & 2 (to continue in a customs union), Amendment 51 (to participate in Europe’s economic area) and Amendment 19 (to allow for a proper and meaningful vote in Parliament on any Brexit deal).

The votes on these amendments represent a unique opportunity to minimise the damage caused by Brexit and the UK government's incompetent handling of the negotiations. Please take full advantage of it for the sake of those most vulnerable in our society.

Please Write to Your MPs Asking Them To Support Fossil Fuel Divestment

It's is now clear that the incoming Trump government will be the most environment-hostile, and fossil fuel-friendly US administration in history.  As this perceptive post points out, this is no incidental feature, it is the defining feature of Trump and his plans:

Trump has surrounded himself with more oil industry and oil industry connected people than any president in history (even George W. Bush). You can’t understand what’s going on with Trump unless you understand the oil industry… and you can’t understand the oil industry without understanding climate change.

That's the bad news.  The good news is that we can fight this in a way that neither Trump nor the fossil fuel industry can block.  Given that it is unlikely that any progress in tackling climate change will be made on the political front, with the US blocking thwarting everything it can, we must turn to economics using divestment from fossil fuels as our main approach.

This is already happening on a massive scale, even if most people are unaware of that fact:

The value of investment funds committed to selling off fossil fuel assets has jumped to $5.2tn, doubling in just over a year.

The new total, published on Monday, was welcomed by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who said: “It’s clear the transition to a clean energy future is inevitable, beneficial and well underway, and that investors have a key role to play.”

We must do everything in our power to accelerate that move away from fossil fuels.  Once the business world gets the message that investing in fossil fuels is not just a bad idea, but potentially disastrous, the shift to renewable energy will happen rapidly, regardless of what Trump does.

Here in the UK, there's an opportunity to encourage a key group of decision makers to tell their pension fund to divest from fossil fuels: MPs.  In fact, there's an entire campaign to encourage them. If you are a UK citizen, I would like to urge you to contact your MP asking them to support this campaign.

You can either do this using the link above, or directly using the indispensable WriteToThem site.  Here's what I've just sent my MP: 

I am writing to ask you to support a call for the MPs' pension fund to divest from fossil fuels (details here: http://gofossilfree.org/uk/divest-parliament/). There are two main reasons for this.

The first is that it is clear that climate change is the greatest threat we face – not just because of its direct effects on the environment, but also because of the knock-on effects – for example in creating millions of climate refugees, or threatening the world's food supplies.

Confronted by an incoming US administration that is the most environmentally-hostile ever, it is clear we cannot expect the US to lead here – indeed, it seems likely actively to obstruct efforts to address climate change through international agreements.

Divestment from fossil fuels is the most effective way to counter that threat, since it is something we can all do, both as individuals and as groups. The net effect is to divert investment away from the technologies that are exacerbating the problem of global warming, towards those that help solve it, creating new jobs in the process.

Fossil fuel divestment is already taking place on a massive scale: a report published last week now puts the figure at $5 trillion (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/12/fossil-fuel-divestment-funds-double-5tn-in-a-year). If the MPs' own pension fund divested, this would both strengthen that movement and set a good example for others to follow.

The other reason why I would urge you to support divestment is that the "carbon bubble" is likely to burst soon, and will take with it any pensions that still have large-scale investments in fossil fuels. No less a person than Mark Carney warned of this last year (https://www.ft.com/content/622de3da-66e6-11e5-97d0-1456a776a4f5), so this is by no means some fringe idea, but mainstream and increasingly accepted.

I hope you agree that for the sake of this and future generations, we must move as rapidly as possible to embrace renewable energy, and that an effective way of accelerating that shift is to divest from fossil fuels.

Thank you for your help in this important matter.

TTIP Is Dying; Here's How to Help Finish It Off

TTIP is dying:

According to the research, "In the United States [today], opinion is split, with 15 percent in favour [of TTIP] and 18 percent against." In 2014, 53 percent of Americans were in favour, and 20 percent were against TTIP. In Germany today, "33 percent have a negative opinion of TTIP, with only 17 percent considering it a good thing." Two years ago, 55 percent of Germans were in favour, with 25 percent against.

There are no comparable figures for the UK, but they probably wouldn't be as good: the almost total lack of media coverage on TTIP and CETA might make cynics suspect a conspiracy, and many people in the UK have never heard of it.  If asked, they would probably say they were in favour of a trade deal with the US - indeed, some surveys carried out for the European Commission ask precisely that question, and get generally favourable answers.  That's not surprising, since the problem is not so much with US trade deals in general as TTIP in particular: when people find out exactly what is in TTIP they are generally pretty appalled at what is being done in their name.

Given the reluctance of mainstream media to provide objective information - if any - there's not much we can do other than post to social media.  One other thing we Europeans can all do is to contact our politicians expressing our concerns, and asking them some questions about their knowledge and support or otherwise for TTIP.

Linda Kaucher, the main organiser of the Stop TTIP movement in the UK, has put together a useful sample letter for UK citizens to send to their MPs to do precisely that.  It could easily be modified for other EU countries.  Ideally, you could take the letter and edit it to make it more personal, but the most important thing is to send it to your political representatives so that they appreciate the strength of public opinion on the topic of TTIP and CETA.  Here's the letter:

Dear [politician],

I have these concerns and questions about the EU so-called ‘trade’ agreements and I would appreciate a response at your earliest convenience.

The US/EU TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) is of huge public concern as it is clearly for the benefit of transnational corporations while it threatens our health and safety standards, our public services (despite attempted ‘reassurances’), and our democracy and sovereignty.

Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) and the Trade Commission’s latest version of this, Investment Court System (ICS) will give rights to transnational and foreign corporations to sue EU governments, thus threatening regulation in the EU and in the UK. The planned Regulatory Cooperation Body, by any name, will be supranational, assessing all regulation, existing and future, on criteria of ‘trade’ rather than social values, with big business input from both sides of the Atlantic from the earliest stages.

Of immediate concern is the EU/Canada CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement). It has many of the same components as TTIP and is in some aspects even worse eg 100% negative listing of services.  It is very much a ‘back door’ for TTIP, both as a model for such deals and in allowing US corporations to utilise ISDS (ICS) against EU governments, including our own, via their Canadian subsidiaries.

Supposed economic ‘gains‘ for both TTIP and CETA , even according to the official studies, have  been exposed as minimal and it is indicative that the European Commission no longer refers to them  – so, no ‘jobs and growth‘ after all.

These trade agreements should be blocked and the UK government can do this in the European Council. Will you urge the Cameron government to do this?

In addition to these concerns about these agreements, I have these questions and requests about process:

It appears from the UK parliamentary procedures that the UK has denied itself any veto with regard to trade deals, even though other member state parliaments have this power. Is this the case, and if so will you initiate action to change this?

The problem remains that our MPs still have no access to key TTIP documents, whereas members of other EU parliaments do. Will you ask a parliamentary question on why UK MPs still have no access to key TTIP documents?

In the CETA text we have no UK protection for Geographical Indicators (regional food names), whereas other member states do. Will you ask a PQ on why the UK government has failed to seek any GI protection in CETA and call on the UK government to block the completed CETA agreement on this basis?

Even if CETA and TTIP are 'mixed deals’ they would be ‘provisionally implemented’ by the Commission, with ISDS obligations legally in force from that point,  before any parliamentary discussion here and there are no procedures to reverse this. This procedure, particularly combined with a lack of UK veto, makes the UK ratification process irrelevant. Will you call on the UK government to block TTIP and CETA in the EU Council, for this additional reason?

There is no analysis of the 1600 page CETA text, as a basis for either the European Parliament or the UK parliament to ratify this agreement.  It should therefore not be ratified. Will you call for CETA to be blocked in the Council for this reason also?

I look forward to your response

Me too.

Please Write To MPs To Call For More Time To Debate Investigatory Powers Bill

Last week, the UK government published a revised Investigatory Powers Bill, aka the Snooper's Charter.  Surprisingly, it took no notice of the the serious criticisms made by no less than three Parliamentary committees; indeed, in some respects, it has made the Bill even worse.

The UK government is now trying to force the Bill through Parliament quickly, so that there is very little scrutiny.  As a priority, we need to get more time allocated for the debates. To achieve that, UK citizens can write to their MPs using WriteToThem, asking them to support efforts to allow more time.  Here's what I've just sent to my MP:

This is just a quick note to ask you to support efforts to allow more Parliamentary scrutiny for the Investigatory Powers Bill.  Although views may differ on the contents of the Bill, surely everyone can agree that something as important and as complex as this deserve rigorous examination by MPs. 

As a journalist, I have looked through the Bill and several of the Codes of Practice, so I know from first-hand experience how much is contained in the 800 pages they represent in total.  With only a cursory examination by MPs, it is highly likely that there will be aspects that could cause huge problems later on – for the intelligence services and police, the public, UK computer companies and specific groups like journalists, lawyers and MPs.

I therefore urge you to join with your colleagues to ask the government to allocate more time for the Bill to be discussed.  The fact that there is a sunset clause in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act is not a good reason to rush through a flawed Investigatory Powers Bill to replace it.

UK 'Snooper's Charter' Torn Up; Now What?

Since the UK government published the draft version of its Communications Data Bill -- better known as the "snooper's charter" -- with plans to store data about every British citizen's emails, mobile calls and visits to Web sites, there has been almost total opposition to it from everyone else. Indeed, there has been growing resistance even within the UK government's ranks, largely from the smaller of the coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. Here's what the party's leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has been up to, as described by one of the Liberal Democrat MPs, Julian Huppert: 

On Techdirt.

Please Write to Your MPs About Snooper's Charter

It seems that the UK government will be deciding what to do about the Snooper's Charter this week. It is already under huge pressure as more and more problems with the plans become evident. I urge you to write to your MP (perhaps using WriteToThem.com) to express your own concerns.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Won't Someone Think of the Trees?

The concept of the commons derives from common land. This still lives on in England, in the form of commons - like Clapham Common - and as national forests that all can use. Against that background, I am naturally appalled that the coalition government proposes selling off our forests in order to raise a few pennies to throw into the bottomless pit of our National Debt.

The campaigning site 38 Degrees if fighting this with a petition, and is also encouraging Brits to write to their MPs. Here's what I've just sent using WriteToThem:

I am writing to you about the proposed sell-off of Britain's forests.

Although I broadly agree that our currently very onerous national debt needs to be reduced, it is important that efforts to achieve this do not result in rash or irreversible actions. I believe that selling off our forests would be such an action.

If forests are sold, they will be bought with a view to profit maximisation. This will inevitably lead to felling and destruction of habitats up to the limit of the law (and probably beyond if buyers think they can get away with it).

Indeed, it is quite likely that many buyers will be from overseas, particularly in those countries that have large cash reserves. They will have no compunction in destroying the environmental resources of another country, since they wish to extract the greatest profit in the shortest time possible, and will certainly not be overly worried about local effects caused by their actions.

Once damaged, these resources will take hundreds of years to regenerate, and may well be lost for ever. At a time when the environment is under pressure on many fronts – not least rising population and climate change – it would be foolish to reduce national holdings of this key assets. If anything, the Government should be *increasing* the extent of national forests.

As well as providing valuable resources, they offer Britons a much-needed refuge from the pressures of modern life. Again, if forests are sold off, access is bound to be reduced (not least by felling activities); this will lead to a general loss of the quality of life – hardly something that the Government should be encouraging.

For these reasons, I urge you not to support these sell-off plans. I would be grateful if you could please convey my concerns to the ministers concerned, and to ask them to reconsider.

If you care about the commons - or just like trees - please consider sending a brief email to your MP.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Yet Another Letter to My MP

It seems my MP was not at the Second Reading of the Digital Economy Bill. Here's what I've just fired off:

Following my long conversation with your assistant yesterday (who was very sympathetic) about the Digital Economy Bill, I was disappointed not to see your name on the list of MPs that attended the Second Reading yesterday. The full list is here:

http://debillitated.heroku.com/

Now, perhaps your name has been left off by mistake, in which I apologise for the false accusation. But if you were in fact absent, I'd like to ask why a Bill that is so important that it must be rammed through the wash-up with only the barest scrutiny is not something that is worth turning up for?

I think it is important to recognise that things have changed in politics: that many more of us can - and do - follow closely what is happening in Parliament, and write, blog and tweet about it. This means that politics is becoming more open, and much more public, which I think is a good thing. But it does mean that we are all much more aware of what our representatives are doing at all times.

Against that background, I would urge you to do all you can, even at this late stage, in pushing for the Bill to be dropped so that it can be debated properly after the election.

Last Chance: Write to MPs on Digital Economy Bill

Now is probably our last chance to influence our MPs on the Digital Economy Bill. Here's what I've sent:

Although the main news today will obviously be the announcement of the General Election, I would like to urge you once more to support calls for a proper debate on the Digital Economy Bill. If this is important legislation, as I and I am sure you believe it is, then it deserves real scrutiny, not some cursory waving through.

Just because an election is imminent, there is no reason to lower the standards required for passing laws; indeed, how they act in the closing days of this Parliament could be seen as a final chance for politicians to demonstrate their professionalism in this regard.

Writing (Yet Again) to my MP

I must be a glutton for punishment: I've written yet another letter to my MP about the Digital Economy Bill (not that he bothered replying to the last one...):

I wrote to you a little while back in connection with the Digital Economy Bill. I don't intend to rehearse all the arguments I made there; I'd just like to point out that this is an incredibly important bill that will affect the future of this country greatly. As such, surely it is important to get it right?

If, as may be the case, time is simply too short to debate it properly, then it should be dropped now and picked up after the General Election. If the bill is not scrutinised fully, there is a strong possibility of a seriously-flawed piece of legislation reaching the statute books with all kinds of unforeseen and highly detrimental effects for the country, both in economic and social terms.

I would therefore urge you to press ministers for a full debate on the Bill, perhaps by signing this Early Day Motion (EDM 1223):

“That this House believes that the Digital Economy Bill [Lords] is too important to be taken further in the last days of a dying Parliament; and considers that a bill with so many repercussions for consumers, civil liberties, freedom of information and access to the internet should be debated and properly scrutinised at length and in detail, with a full opportunity for public discussion and representation in a new Parliament after the general election and not rushed through in the few days that remain in this Parliament.”

At a time when the public's confidence in politicians is at an all-time low, surely the worst thing that could be done is rushing through legislation that has been criticised by every kind of expert, including those in the realms of technology, law, consumer affairs and human rights to name but a few.

Walk Like a Geek? Talk Like a Geek? Vote Geek

As you may have noticed, there's some kind of political thingy happening in a few weeks' time. Too often, the geek vote is simply ignored amid all the exictement. As readers of this blog will appreciate, that's wrong at many levels: there are lots of us and we know what we're talking about when it comes to technology (unlike most politicians).

Here's a fine initiative that wants to do something about that sad state of affairs. Called “Vote Geek”, it demands “Technocracy not Idiocracy”:

Welcome to Vote Geek, our mission is to find out where the candidates in the forthcoming UK General Election stand on issues of technology.

The website depends on your participation, we need you to write to your candidates and ask them what their views are on the issues that matter to you.

First find your constituency using the search or list of counties to the right. We are gathering information on the standing candidates and how to contact them, if it is incomplete or wrong then please leave a comment and it will be corrected. You can see what other people have written to the candidates and you can leave copies of letters you have written to them, plus any responses you get back.

Although this website is run by a bunch of Free and Open Source Software enthusiasts it is not here to tell you what to think, it is here to find out what the candidates think. If you think the Digital Economy Bill is a good thing for you then please do write to your candidates asking for their support and post the responses here. Which ever way they respond would be just as interesting as a response to someone with a negative opinion. It would of course be very interesting if a candidate’s views changed depending on how the question was asked!

This is a really great move, and the people behind it are to be commended for being both civic-minded and geeky. I urge everyone to pose some suitably burning questions relating to technology to their candidates and to post the results to this site. Speaking from personal experience, I know that these letters do have an impact, if only because they get candidates say something about technology, which requires at least some thought by them and/or their handlers. If enough of us do it, it will bring home to future MPs that technology is important and that geek power shouldn't be overlooked.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

The Indispensable Background Twitter?

Nice observation:

The other remarkable thing that happened at the conference took place during the three-strikes session. This was a parallel session held in a very small, hot and crowded room with no more than 20 attendees. The panel included several twitterers, and the audience was clearly following what promised to be an interesting discussion. The end result pretty much exemplified to me why Twitter has become a must-have at conferences. As this was an emotionally-charged topic, the tweets emanating from the room were soon picked up by various other users, so much so that at some point we had journalists and even a Member of Parliament making comments about what was being said. What transpired in the little room spawned claims and counter-claims elsewhere, and even led to the MP asking questions via Twitter.

I might be guilty of overstating the importance of the technology, but I truly think that there is something important happening with social media. Opening discussion to the wider public is not a bad thing.

As it happens, I was there too. Since I wasn't twittering, I missed much of this, but a look at the Twitter stream afterwards showed just how much was going on. Which suggests, perhaps, that even people who were taking part needed to be on Twitter in order to take part fully. Exciting stuff.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

UK "Three Strikes": Please Write to Your MP

Yesterday I wrote a quick analysis of the insane U-turn effected by the UK government over "three strikes and you're out". Below I've posted the corresponding letter that I've sent to my MP on the subject. I urge you to do the same if you're a Brit, since it's the only way we have of influencing the situation. I'm not holding my breath waiting for a result, but I feel it's my duty....

I am writing to express my deep disquiet at the UK government's U-turn over disconnecting those accused of sharing copyright materials on the Internet.

For the eminently sane and well-balanced conclusions of Lord Carter and his Digital Britain team, based on many months of hard work, to be thrown away in this manner is extraordinary. In the place of a carefully-considered view that access to the Internet is a right not to be removed lightly, and that doing so on the say-so of media companies would be an inappropriate response to alleged copyright infringement, we now have a diktat from on high that proposes precisely this punishment.

As the indecent haste clearly demonstrates, this has not been thought through.

First, it is completely disproportionate. Cutting off people's Internet connection for allegedly swapping copyright materials is not just, any more than cutting someone's electricity supply would be for watching the TV without a licence, or cutting someone's water supply off would be for brewing illegal spirits.

Secondly, it represents a fundamental assault on due process in this country. If people can be cut off from the most important communication medium of the 21st century on the whim of media companies, who don't even need to prove their accusations in court, then things have reached a pretty sorry state in this country.

Thirdly, the approach won't work from a technical viewpoint. All it means is that the more tech-savvy will start encrypting their traffic; those who can't take this route will simply buy a few huge external hard discs – ones able to hold a quarter of a million songs cost around £50 these days – and swap files personally when they visit their friends.

Fourthly, the idea is at odds with European legislation. Amendment 138 of the Telecoms Package currently being finalised in Europe forbids the cutting off of users without judicial oversight. And that's even before the ISPs start taking legal advice on other ways in which it breaks relevant laws. Moreover, the European Court of Human Rights would probably have something to say about legislation that allows what Viviane Reding has explicitly called a “fundamental human right” (http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/05/internet-access-is-fundamental-fight.html) to be taken away so easily.

What's particularly bizarre about this move is that those who will suffer the most are likely to be traditional Labour supporters. For it is the poor who cannot afford to pay for high-priced digital downloads, and may therefore look for material on P2P networks. It is the poor who may well share an Internet across several families using a wifi connection in a block of flats, for example. If one user is accused of swapping copyright materials, several families will be severely disadvantaged – hardly something that fits with Labour's historical mission to help precisely these people.

For all these reasons - assuming this truly is a consultation and not just another rubber-stamping – I urge you to join your colleague, Tom Watson (http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2009/08/filesharing-revised-consultation/), in passing on to Lord Mandelson and Stephen Timms the comments of myself and others who may write to you on this subject.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

MPs Plot Against Transparency - and Lose the Plot

They just don't get it, do they?

Parliament is planning to block the future release of expenses receipts after the humiliation endured by MPs this week, The Times has learnt.

Senior MPs have drawn up plans to replace the publication of every receipt with a spreadsheet detailing individual claims.

The changes would make less information available for public scrutiny, despite the anger caused this week by the way in which details were blacked out from the official files.

Look chaps, open means open, as in o-p-e-n: we're not going to settle for less. Get used to it, because we're going to keep coming back and coming back until we get audit trail clarity from our money in your pockets to every last expense.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Speak up for the Speaker's Principles

In the past, I've frequently asked you write a letter to your MP or MEPs about issues that relate to technical issues around open source, even if only indirectly. Today, I have a slightly different request. It's not about technology, but it is about openness....

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Free Software Pact

As regular readers of these posts will have noticed, political issues are starting to impinge more and more on the world of free software and openness in general. I think that's the result of two trends.

One, is that politicians are starting to wake up to the fact that openness is hot, and are beginning to talk about it - not always sincerely - in the hope of looking vaguely trendy. The other is that supporters of free software and the rest are beginning to realise that the main obstacles to spreading openness are increasingly political, rather than technical. This means the fight must be taken to the politicians directly.

One way to do that is to write to MPs and MEPs, and that's also something that I've been advocating more frequently recently, as important legislation with an impact on openness comes before national and European parliaments. Clearly, though, it would be good to be able to bring free software and related areas to the attention of politicians in other ways. The recently-launched Free Software Pact is one possibility:

What is the Free Software Pact?

The Free Software Pact is a citizen initiative to coordinate a European scale campaign in favour of Free Software. We will provide material and software to any volunteer who want to contribute to the initiative.

What are the objectives of the Free Software Pact?

The Free Software Pact is a simple document with which candidates can inform the voting public that they favor the development and use of Free Software, and will protect it from possible threatening EU legislation. The Free Software Pact is also a tool for citizens who value Free Software to educate candidates about the importance of Free Software and why they should, if elected, protect the European Free Software community.

You can find the text of the Pact (in various languages and formats) here, although I can't see a version that politicians can sign online. Either it doesn't exist - which would be foolish, since it's by far the easiest way to sign - or else it's badly signposted on the site. Either way, it needs fixing.

The coordinator for the Free Software Pact in the UK is Mark Taylor, a familiar name to this blog, and one of the most selfless defenders of free software around. Getting him on board is an excellent start for this fledgling movement, and I wish him and it well in their efforts. You can contact him about the Pact at mtaylor@freesoftwarepact.eu.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

"Transparency will Damage Democracy"

Great to see Heather Brooke getting at least *some* recognition for the huge service she has done transparency in this country by fighting for access to details of MPs' expenses, thanks to her fascinating piece in the Guardian today, which lets her tell the real story behind recent events. Do read it if you can: it's an extraordinary tale of dogged refusal to give up in the face of unremitting parliamentary arrogance. Best quotation:

"Transparency will damage democracy."

I just hope she gets at least a juicy book deal out of all this - I'll certainly buy a copy, and will promote it as much as I can. After all, it's the Telegraph that is getting most of the glory for this, when she did 99.9% of the work, which is downright unfair ("Unsung hero" is the all-too apt title of her Guardian feature).

Amazingly, and to her eternal credit, she's remarkably lacking in bitterness about this:

As a campaigner I was thrilled to see the details finally put into the public domain. This is important information that the public have a right to see. But as a journalist, I was livid. I asked myself - what is the point of doing all that work, going to court, setting a legal precedent, dealing in facts, when every part of the government conspires to reward the hacks who do none of these things?

But I don't begrudge the paper. It is getting the story out in the most cost-effective way possible. What's unforgiveable is that the House of Commons repeatedly obstructed legitimate requests and then delayed the expense publication date and that MPs went so far as to try to exempt themselves from their own law. I wonder, too, how much we would have actually seen if we'd waited for the Commons to publish, given that MPs were given a free hand to black out anything that was "personal" or a danger to their "security". These terms have been so overused by MPs that I've no doubt that items such as cleaning the moat would have been removed for "security" reasons, as would the house-flipping scandal, as an invasion of MPs' privacy.

Kudos to all involved.

Why We Need Openness, Part 5748

One of the central themes of this blog is that the openness that powers the continuing rise and success of open source can be applied to most other areas – in business, and in life generally. No better proof of that could be found than the revelations today about the widespread and thoroughgoing abuse of the expenses system by senior UK politicians...

On Open Enterprise blog.

As I Was Saying...

I just knew this was coming:

Labour and the Tories left the door open today for a future move to exempt the full details of MPs expenses from the Freedom of Information Act.

They just cannot contemplate letting us see what they do.