Commons touch: how MPs' fiddles made news (British intrigue)

[depakid]

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

IT SOUNDS like a scene from the TV drama 24. An unknown person in a government office copies a terabyte of data from a classified computer to a portable hard drive and, under the noses of colleagues and security, spirits it out of Westminster. That hard drive contains revelatory material - all the expense claims made by 646 members of Parliament over the past five years. Two million documents in all, including copies of claim forms, handwritten comments in margins, even sticky notes.

The hard drive and its data do not show up on any security manifest and House of Commons authorities are unaware of its existence. Time to call Fleet Street and cash in. Such a scenario was outlined by a newspaper executive with knowledge of the dealings. The truth may have been more prosaic. Yet The Daily Telegraph's expenses investigation has shaken up the political establishment, sent sales of the paper soaring and left frustrated rivals asking questions about chequebook journalism.

The expenses data were sighted by at least three other newspapers before the Telegraph broke the story more than a week ago.

Two months ago, The Times was approached via a phone call judged sufficiently interesting for three journalists to take a taxi from the House of Commons to the offices of a public relations firm on March 18. The meeting lasted 30 minutes and some details from the hard drive were divulged by a businessman who said he was acting as an intermediary for the source of the material, which is presumed to have come from the House of Commons fees office. When £300,000 ($600,300) was requested - £250,000 for the data and £50,000 for the businessman's company to analyse it, plus unlimited legal indemnity - The Times said no sale.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/commons-touch-how-mps-fiddles-made-news-20090520-bfqn.html?page=-1

[RandomThoughts]

1. I don't think stealing data is a good idea, seems wrong.

But on the bigger point, all the information stored by government, or private sector for that matter, that can be used to smear anyone, or used to create profiles on anyone, should be released to everyone on the Internet. (But probably not that data, since it was stolen and it should be done by law.)

Why? Because information like that could be used as a weapon against citizens or even people running, or in office, and so it should be covered by second amendment(if in USA). And citizens should have the same ability to use that information, just like any one sector of government could today.

This would lead to 30 second 'out of perspective' smears on just about everyone on the planet, which would move the ability to destroy someone from the holder of the data to whoever has the biggest megaphone. Right now the data has to be released to press. So at least if any info that could be used for 'control through threat of smear' was already available people would better learn to ignore smears based on out of perspective information.

(On a very odd weird correlation without causation, gold is righteousness, silver is redemption.)

[mackerel]

2. The Times probably considered that, they sent three

journalist. The information gleaned was important and I think sharing it with the public was necessary.