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Giving the Commons grief

Martin Rosenbaum | 14:00 UK time, Tuesday, 19 August 2008

It's not only Rother Council which has been quarrelling with whatdotheyknow.com. The House of Commons authorities are also involved in a continuing tussle over the site's policy of automatically publishing responses to freedom of information requests.

This dispute has attracted the attention of Cabinet Office IT minister Tom Watson (himself an FOI requester when a backbench MP), who comments 'Oh good grief'. Is it safe to assume that it is the stance of the Commons which is the cause of his exasperation?

UPDATE: I should stress that, following the involvement of the Information Commissioner's Office, Rother Council are now answering requests received via whatdotheyknow.

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  • 1. At 01:12am on 20 Aug 2008, Steve_In_Liverpool wrote:

    I really can't see what their problem is!

    So what if details of people's requests are made public.

    As they keep telling us regarding ID cards, 'if you've got nothing to hide then you've go nothing to fear...'

    So what are they afraid of?

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Martin RosenbaumA blog about freedom of information, written by the BBC's Martin Rosenbaum.

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