“Our right to know
…..There is, however, a simpler and far more democratic solution [to the problem of providing responses to requests for information from government under the Freedom of Information laws] – to adopt the motto of the open-source movement in computing: “Information should be free.” Public bodies should be legally obliged to place in the public domain every piece of physical or electronic information they generate, unless there are overwhelming reasons of privacy or national security. This would, at a stroke, solve the problems of the current system. …many private sector firms…would surely spring up. And the justification is ethical as well as practical. We pay for government – it is our money and our information. We should be able to see it whenever we like.”