Thread: Phone Hacking scandal snowballs

What other newspapers have used these same methods i wonder.

Rebekah Brooks, when before a parliamentary committee admitted to payments to police officers for information. Only the Guardian picked up on this. The silence from the other newspapers was deafening.

News of the World phone-hacking scandal - live updates
• Andy Coulson has been arrested



News of the World phone-hacking scandal - live updates | Media | guardian.co.uk

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Originally Posted by crippen

I wonder how his wife feels about this??



Wendi Deng

That's his dad's wife....

I know that! But his Dad Rupert is the C.E.O. of News International. Son is just involved with N.of W. as Chairman of this company.

A brilliant piece from The Spectator

What the papers won’t say


Peter Oborne
Thursday, 7th July 2011

The omertà of Britain’s press and politicians on phone-hacking amounts to complicity in crime



Let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that BP threw an extravagant party, with oysters and expensive champagne. Let’s imagine that Britain’s most senior politicians were there — including the Prime Minister and his chief spin doctor. And now let’s imagine that BP was the subject of two separate police investigations, that key BP executives had already been arrested, that further such arrests were likely, and that the chief executive was heavily implicated.
Let’s take this mental experiment a stage further: BP’s chief executive had refused to appear before a Commons enquiry, while MPs who sought to call the company to account were claiming to have been threatened. Meanwhile, BP was paying what looked like hush money to silence people it had wronged, thereby preventing embarrassing information entering the public domain.
And now let’s stretch probability way beyond breaking point. Imagine that the government was about to make a hugely controversial ruling on BP’s control over the domestic petroleum market. And that BP had a record of non-payment of British tax. The stench would be overwhelming. There would be outrage in the Sun and the Daily Mail — and rightly so — about Downing Street collusion with criminality. The Sunday Times would have conducted a fearless investigation, and the Times penned a pained leader. In parliament David Cameron would have been torn to shreds.
Instead, until this week there has been almost nothing, save for a lonely campaign by the Guardian. Because the company portrayed above is not BP, but News International, owner of the Times, the Sunday Times, the News of the World and the Sun, approximately one third of the domestic newspaper market. And last week, Jeremy Hunt ruled that Murdoch, who owns a 39 per cent stake in BSkyB, can now buy it outright (save for Sky’s news channel). This consolidates the Australian-born mogul as by far the most significant media magnate in this country, wielding vast political and commercial power.



Every summer Murdoch, now 80 years old, pays one of his rare visits to London, the social highlight of which is the annual News International party. An invitation carries the same weight, say insiders, as a royal command. In the phrase of one of his executives, to turn it down is a ‘statement of intent’.
At Murdoch’s side at last month’s bash at the Orangery in Holland Park was Rebekah Brooks, close friend of the prime minister and chief executive of News International. She was also editor of the News of the World in 2002, when Milly Dowler’s phone was apparently hacked by one of the private investigators hired by the newspaper. Mrs Brooks took effective personal charge of Murdoch himself, occasionally leaving her proprietor’s side to hurtle into the throng and recruit the most powerful guests for face-time with the boss. Later she joined Murdoch, News International editors and Gabby Bertin, David Cameron's press secretary, for a private dinner.
Brooks is already at the heart of one investigation into News International, concerning payments to police officers. She is also deeply implicated in the second, the voicemail hacking scandal known as Operation Weeting. This is now understood to have 70 police officers devoted to it, making it the largest investigation in the Metropolitan Police’s modern history. Yet until recently, Brooks had maintained there was no illegal hacking before 2006.
This claim — like so many other News International claims — is now falling apart. Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator imprisoned for hacking that year, is now believed to have targeted Milly Dowler’s phone. This development is seismic. It suggests police could be sitting on an as-yet-unpublished list of victims over an extra four years of Mulcaire’s phone-hacking career.
So one point is beyond debate. News International’s leading profit centre, the News of the World, was dependent on a very ugly culture of lawbreaking, hacking and impunity. This freewheeling, ask-no-questions attitude spread to other parts of the organisation, such as the Times and the Sunday Times, both of which used have used illegal or unethical techniques. Even more troubling, when senior News International management were confronted with evidence of wrongdoing, the company made false statements and took actions which prevented key evidence from reaching the public domain.
All of this raises the question: what on earth were the British prime minister and his wife doing at the Orangery on that Thursday night? There are those who maintain that David Cameron is little more than a high-grade public relations man. Cameron’s long association with the Murdoch empire, dating from his dreadful decision to hire Andy Coulson — a former editor of the News of the World who resigned after a phone-hacking scandal, and now looks to be in even deeper trouble — unfortunately suggests that the prime minister’s detractors are on to something.
When still leader of the opposition, David Cameron came across the PR fixer Matthew Freud, son-in-law of Murdoch, at Rebekah Brooks’s wedding. The two men exchanged an exuberant high-five salute. To this day, the Prime Minister and his wife remain on cheerful social terms with Brooks, who lives barely a mile up the road from the their country home. They have been known to go riding together. All this is too depressing for words.
In normal circumstances, such troubling and persistent failures of prime-ministerial judgment would be meat and drink to an opposition leader. But until this week, Ed Miliband had made the pragmatic decision to ignore the phone-hacking story — explaining privately to confidants that he had no choice because the alternative would be ‘three years of hell’ at the hands of the Murdoch press. His recent, panicked call for Brooks’s resignation only serves to highlight his silence on the scandal hitherto.
I am told that he has agreed in principle to follow in the footsteps of both Tony Blair and David Cameron and fly round the world to address an annual conference of News International executives. Perhaps he will make his theme the restoration of public decency. In recent weeks Miliband has made a series of speeches about this subject, demanding ‘a greater sense of responsibility and national mission for our country’. Doubtless it was this urgent mission which took him, alongside his shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, and his shadow chancellor Ed Balls, to the Murdoch party.
The truth is that Ed Miliband had made his choice very early with the appointment of Tom Baldwin, a former News International journalist, as his spin doctor. This mirrored David Cameron’s appointment of Coulson, another Murdoch high-flyer, to a similar role. For ten years, Baldwin was at the heart of a Times campaign to destroy Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory treasurer. As Ashcroft records in his book Dirty Politics, Dirty Times, illegal techniques were used, though not directly by Baldwin. A private investigator was used to ‘blag’ his way into the Conservative party bank account, while the Times paid £6,000 to a US Drugs Enforcement Agency official called Jonathan Randel for leaked information (the Times insisted the money was simply paid as a ‘research fee’). As a result Randel was sent to jail.
Perhaps Baldwin, like his former News International colleagues, doesn’t find phone hacking too shocking. Indeed, one of his first actions as Miliband’s spin-doctor was to instruct Labour MPs to go easy on the scandal. In a leaked memo, he ordered them not to link it to the impending takeover decision on BSkyB. But this was to let News International crucially off the hook. For the key question — and it burns deeper than ever in the light of the Milly Dowler revelations — is exactly whether the owner of News International is any longer a ‘fit and proper’ person to occupy such a dominant position in the British media.
This is a question that has almost never been asked. This is partly because of heavy political protection of the kind that was on such vivid display at the Orangery last month. But Murdoch could not have got away with it for so long but for the silence in the British press. The Sunday Mirror is the News of the World’s most direct competitor: one would have expected it to revel in its rival’s problems. Instead it has largely ignored the story — except for an attack on the News of the World on Wednesday — as has Express Newspapers.
The Daily Mail, likewise, has written almost nothing. Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief at Associated Newspapers, is rightly regarded as the greatest newspaper editor of his time. But in this case Fleet Street’s moralist has lost his compass: his failure to engage seriously with the phone-hacking story is a most unfortunate blot on a brilliant career. The Daily Telegraph, for which I write, has done better, but the minimum. Only the Guardian, and belatedly the Independent, have covered the story with flair and integrity.
This should have been one of the great stories of all time. It has almost everything — royalty, police corruption, Downing Street complicity, celebrities by the cartload, Fleet Street at its most evil and disgusting. One day, I guess, it will be turned into a brilliant film, and there will be a compulsive book as well.
The truth is that very few newspapers can declare themselves entirely innocent of buying illegal information from private detectives. A 2006 report by the Information Commissioner gave a snapshot into the affairs of one such ‘detective’, caught in so-called ‘Operation Motorman’. The commissioner’s report found that 305 journalists had been identified ‘as customers driving the illegal trade in confidential personal information’. It named each newspaper group, the number of offences and the number of guilty journalists (see above). But, as the commission observed, coverage of this scandal ‘even in the broadsheets, at the time of publication, was limited’. The same reticence has been seen, until now, over the voicemail-hacking scandal.
By minimising these stories, media groups are coming dangerously close to making a very significant statement: they are essentially part of the same bent system as News International and complicit in its criminality. At heart this is a story about the failure of the British system, which relies on a series of checks and balances to prevent high-level corruption. Each one of them has failed: parliament because MPs feel intimidated by the power of newspapers to expose and destroy them; and opposition, because Ed Miliband lacked the moral imagination to escape the News International mindset — until he was forced to confront it all by the sheer horror of the Milly Dowler episode.
That leaves the prime minister. He finally woke up to the kind of company he has been keeping on Tuesday when during his Afghanistan visit he declared the Milly Dowler revelations ‘truly dreadful’. David Cameron has repeatedly displayed an inability to make a distinction between right and wrong. The press ought to have stepped into the breach. Unfortunately, we in Fleet Street have forgotten that the ultimate vindication of journalism is not to intrude into, and destroy, private lives. Nor is it the dance around power, money and social status. It is the fight for truth and decency.

The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and Content Copyright ©2011 by The Spectator (1828) Ltd. All Rights Reserved

Crikey! We can't expect any investigation or enquiry to be that candid surely?

Very interesting perspective thanks.

Originally Posted by Neo

Crikey! We can't expect any investigation or enquiry to be that candid surely?

Very interesting perspective thanks.

The problem is, how do you do a truly independent investigation? The police are scared shitless some of their number will be fingered. The politicians can't push too hard because the press has so much dirt on them.

They'll sacrifice a few lambs and it will all go back to normal.

If they don't have the balls to stop Murdoch now, it will be like when J. Edgar Hoover was running America.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Originally Posted by Neo

Crikey! We can't expect any investigation or enquiry to be that candid surely?

Very interesting perspective thanks.

The problem is, how do you do a truly independent investigation? The police are scared shitless some of their number will be fingered. The politicians can't push too hard because the press has so much dirt on them.

They'll sacrifice a few lambs and it will all go back to normal.

If they don't have the balls to stop Murdoch now, it will be like when J. Edgar Hoover was running America.

Only chance of truly independant investigation is in a judicial enquiry. Which Cameron wont agree to at the moment.........

The goverment want a public inquiry after the police investigations have finished......in about 5 years time = after the next election !

Daily Star raided by Metropolitan Police amid phone hacking probe
The Metropolitan Police has confirmed officers are searching the Daily Star offices, hours after employee Clive Goodman was re-arrested by officers investigating phone-hacking and alleged payments to police.

Rumours abounded on Twitter that the newspaper’s offices had been raided, but the publication refused to comment on the reports.

A Met spokesman has now confirmed the news, saying: ‘We can confirm a search is ongoing at a business premises in central London.’

The news comes after former News Of The World royal editor Clive Goodman, now working for the Daily Star Sunday, was re-arrested by police in connection with alleged payments to police.

Goodman was jailed in January 2007 for four months for illegally intercepting phone messages involving members of the royal household.

Goodman and former News of the World editor Andy Coulson are currently being questioned by officers working on Operation Elveden – the inquiry into payments to police – and Operation Weeting, the phone-hacking investigation.

The latest development in the phone hacking scandal comes the day after the News of the World announced this Sunday would be its final edition.

Read more: Daily Star raided by Metropolitan Police amid phone hacking probe | Metro.co.uk

Britain fucked again,

always a good day for the rest of Europe when that happens

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Britain fucked again,

always a good day for the rest of Europe when that happens

But on the bright side, it isn't full of garlic munching soap dodgers.

Daily Telegraph.

^ very good

As Murdoch flies in to "take charge" (for me, that reads "to personally threaten the PM"), it's interesting to read comments like below:

David Cameron's press conference was nearly a masterclass in damage limitation. How firm he sounded with his three-point actions, announcing two inquiries and the demise of the "failed" Press Complaints Commission. Yes, he would have accepted Rebekah Brooks's resignation. How shocked he was. It was "simply disgusting". Here was a wake-up call on the "culture, practice and ethics of the press" and, for now, the crucial BSkyB deal would be delayed. He strove with every sinew to show he gets it, he really does get the public outrage at the hacked phones of a murdered child and dead soldiers. But as the questions rained down, you could see the crisis slipping from his control. This was too little, too late, not quite grasping the changed rules of the old politico-media game.

He said "frankly" once too often, a word that rings alarm bells from politicians on the ropes. "We've all been in this together," he confessed. All the parties, "yes, including me", had cosied up to Murdoch, turning a blind eye to court political support. But paddling hard to stay afloat, he could not say the Murdoch bid should be stopped. He could not apologise for hiring a man who had already resigned over phone hacking. Every time he said he gave Andy Coulson "a second chance", that soundbite sounded weaker. What may some day do for him was his denial that he ever received private warnings, one from the Guardian, not to take Coulson into Downing Street, as further revelations were imminent. "I wasn't given any specific information … I don't recall being given any information." Denials about who knew what often turn embarrassments into serious political danger.

At last Labour has kicked off the shackles: no more of the toadying to Murdoch that shamed Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In this crisis Ed Miliband has made all the running – and Cameron has been forced to follow, doing what he might not have done otherwise. Miliband was first to call for inquiries, first to call for axing the "toothless poodle" PCC, first to call for Rebekah Brooks's head. Above all, he is the one demanding the BSkyB bid be sent to the Competition Commission, pointing out the emptiness of Murdoch's assurances that Sky News would be independent.

He went further and called for a vote in the commons on the take-over. He will use an opposition day debate on Wednesday for a vote on the BSkyB bid: there is a good chance the Lib Dems would vote with Labour against Murdoch – how could they dare do otherwise? If they do, they are well and truly done for. Quite a few Tory MPs might join a vote against Murdoch. Over the years Labour leaders have been implored to regain their dignity and find the nerve to stand up to Murdoch. Ed wavered at first: he didn't dare strike out from the start. But now he has crossed that Rubicon there is no going back – and it turns out to be liberating. The game has changed and any politicians creeping back to kowtow will be mocked from now on. The emperor lost his clothes.

Don't imagine this act of defiance will be painless or without consequence. Already a senior Miliband aide tells me they received a "very hostile" threat, not veiled at all, from a News International journalist warning: "You have made it personal about Rebekah, so we'll make it personal about you." Braggadocio maybe, but as the recipient of the threat said: "That's how they operate." And it can be terrifying. Bugging, blagging and Benji the Binman send shudders down many a spine. The spell is broken, but the terror may not be over.

In this whirl of arrests, denials and inquiries, keep your eye firmly fixed on the vital issue. Will Murdoch still get his hands on the rest of BSkyB? Other damage this government does can mostly be rectified – but this would darken the future media landscape forever. It was Cameron's plan to gift Murdoch a power beyond imagining. How valuable? So precious that Murdoch was ready to cast away his highly profitable market leading newspaper selling 2.6m. To casual observers, it may not look important. He already owns 31% of Sky, so why not let him have the rest? Follow the money.

Already Sky's revenue is bigger than the BBC's: this merger would make far more. Bundling up the Times, Sunday Times and other papers with Sky News behind a paywall with sports and movie rights, puts them beyond serious competition. With this online blend, Murdoch expects to knock most other newspapers and their podcasting out of the market. Expensive shares to buy at first, within just two years huge sums would flow in. Buying up everything worth having, he would cripple the BBC – always under Murdoch press attack.

Ofcom is the one regulator that might stop him: two years ago it did weaken Sky's grip on Premier League football and movies, forcing them to sell on the rights at a more reasonable price to others. Murdoch turned the pens of his papers against Ofcom and 10 days later Cameron made an unscheduled speech attacking "the quango state" – in which, oddly, of all the quangos ripe for attack or ridicule, only one was singled out for the axe: Ofcom. Inside the industry, rightly or wrongly it was assumed Coulson was the conduit for this message from the News Corp puppet-master. So now Ofcom may get another chance to declare Murdoch not "fit and proper" to take over all of Sky. But if so, surely that must mean he is not "fit and proper" to own any of it?

Meanwhile, US law may enter the fray. A former Labour cabinet minister has alerted attention to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes an American company (News Corp) liable for colossal fines if any employee bribes a foreign official (the Met police) even if no one at head office knew. What's more, any whistleblower inside the company (sacked News of the World reporters), stands to win a percentage of that fine if they report acts of bribery.

Suddenly, what looked like a done deal is unravelling. Cameron's hiring of Coulson was part of his pact with Murdoch, willing and eager to sell press and broadcasting diversity to a monopolist who has made his fortune out of intimidating governments, avoiding taxes and trouncing regulators in exchange for political support. Labour sank humiliatingly low in its dealings with the old monster. Cameron hit rock bottom. Now that Labour has broken the omerta and is opposing Murdoch unequivocally, Cameron will press on with this deal at his peril.

And there's more....

Senior staff accused of deleting emails as McCann link emerges

By Victoria Ward and Mark Hughes

Saturday July 09 2011

Senior executives and staff at the 'News of the World' attempted to obstruct the police investigation into telephone hacking by deleting millions of emails and hiding evidence from detectives, it was claimed last night.

An executive from News International, the tabloid's parent company, allegedly deleted potentially incriminating emails from an internal archive shortly after Scotland Yard began its second investigation in January.

It is also alleged that the contents of a reporter's desk were removed following his arrest, before police had an opportunity to conduct a search.

The allegations came as 'The Daily Telegraph' learnt that detectives have been handed a list of potential telephone hacking victims linked to the Madeleine McCann case.

The list of 67 names and numbers includes Kate and Gerry McCann, parents of the missing child.

It was handed to officers working on Operation Weeting, the investigation into telephone hacking at the 'News of the World' last year.

The list suggests the victims of telephone hacking are not confined to names seized from Glenn Mulcaire following his arrest in 2006.

Although the three-year-old went missing in May 2007 -- after Mulcaire, the private investigator at the heart of the scandal, had been jailed -- some connected to the investigation into her disappearance have raised concerns that their telephones may have been hacked.

One is understood to be Justine McGuinness, a Liberal Democrat adviser who was a spokeswoman for the McCanns.

The list of possible victims also features Ms McGuinness's Lib Dem colleagues, Nick Clegg and Sir Menzies Campbell, and Jane Tanner, who was on holiday with the McCanns in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and is convinced she saw Madeleine being carried off by a man. (© Daily Telegraph, London)

Link

Suggestions that Murdoch jr. could be prosecuted under US laws that forbid bribing foreign officials:

Rupert Murdoch’s son could be prosecuted by U.S.

As the phone-hacking scandal involving Rupert Murdoch’s media empire widens, attention is increasingly being focused on his son, James Murdoch. The Guardian reported on Friday that the younger Murdoch, who has already admitted misleading Parliament, “could face criminal charges on both sides of the Atlantic.”

James Murdoch is the deputy CEO of News Corp, the US company which owns the British company News International that allegedly paid police officers in the United Kingdom for information. This could make him liable to prosecution in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits American companies from bribing foreign officials.

Current TV’s Keith Olbermann summarized the latest developments in the scandal before turning to Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff for commentary. Wolff began by saying that the elder Murdoch should really be out apologizing to everyone who has been harmed by his company’s actions, but “that’s not Rupert Murdoch.”

“This is a company that’s all about — it’s about power,” Wolff explained. “You hurt me, you diss me, we smack you down.” He added, “These people will do anything.”

“Is James Murdoch really at legal risk?” Olbermann asked.

“I think it’s an exaggeration, somewhat,” Wolff replied, but he quickly noted, “Anything could happen now. … The unimaginable is now occurring.”

“This is the snowball effect,” Wolff said, explaining that when it comes to Rupert Murdoch, “these politicians … in the UK have had to put up with this guy for a long time. He’s never been pleasant about it. He’s always extracted blood. So finally there’s an opportunity. ‘We can get rid of this guy.’”

Wolff concluded by saying that we can expect “new revelations every day” as “more shoes drop.”

Link

On one level, this is rather a story about nothing...

Another media on media clusterfuck.

The real war going on here is the left-wing press's fear of the (more popular) right-wing press gaining the upper hand.

Whatever you might think or say about Murdoch, he's the only force capable of standing up to appalling institutions like the BBC.

We wait to hear how many Mirror, Guardian, Indy, C4, and BBC phone-hackers there are...

One thing's for sure, they will stop at nothing to try and prevent any non-lefty media outlet gaining a foothold to oust them from power.

Final edition of News of the Screws.

An interesting slideshow of some of their front pages from the last 168 years:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw...l-readers.html

So the NOTW is gone, big deal. The Sun will just launch a Sunday edition, with the same formula of sleaze & nice big pictures for the illiterate.

What is crucial is that the dirty digger does not get control of BSB Sky. If they are awarded the 'contract', that is the ultimate in political betrayal and corruption. In which case, I believe the British people would be entirely justified in storming 'fortress Wapping', and burning it to the ground.

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

Whatever you might think or say about Murdoch, he's the only force capable of standing up to appalling institutions like the BBC.

Get a life! Sorry, any statement like that can only lead one to believe, that any logical discussion is a waste of time and breath with you. Only someone closed in mind and spirit could come up with that one. No doubt your reality is best identified by Fox and other closed minded networks! One view your view. No watch dog, just let the the forces of the jungle rule. Your view of the BBC is shared by some historical figures. Most of them past and present despotic leaders fearful of a body that has the mandate to be independent from political pressure.

Is the BBC faultless, free from error of judgement? No. But since its inception it has been the free worlds measuring stick on what free speech is in a democratic society.

Max Mosley bankrolls phone hacking cases against the News of the World
Max Mosley, who won a privacy case against the News of the World after it exposed his sadomasochistic sex life, has been bankrolling a number of phone hacking cases against the newspaper in the civil courts.



Max Mosley has continued his campaign against the News of the World by providing financial backing to claimants whose mobile telephones may have been hacked by Glenn Mulcaire Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Robert Mendick11:42PM BST 09 Jul 2011
Mr Mosley, former president of the FIA, the Formula 1 motorsport body, effectively went to war with the tabloid newspaper after an undercover reporter filmed him engaging in bizarre sexual practices. He sued the newspaper for breach of privacy, winning £60,000 damages in 2008. It now appears he has also won a final battle, having watched the newspaper closed over the phone hacking saga.
Sources have confirmed that behind the scenes, Mr Mosley, 71, who is a multi-millionaire, has continued his campaign against the News of the World by providing financial backing to claimants whose mobile telephones may have been hacked by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator working on behalf of the newspaper.
A source told The Sunday Telegraph yesterday: “It’s true to say that Max has been funding a number of cases. Wealthy celebrities have not needed his assistance but there are a number of cases where the claimants do not have much money and could face losing a lot if News International were somehow to win some of those.
“He has been guaranteeing the court actions go ahead by putting money into an account so if somebody does lose a case against the News of the World, he will pay all the court costs. He has also paid court fees for things like lodging court papers which can be extremely costly.”
It means that claimants have been able to push cases all the way and obtain full disclosure from the news[at]paper group without risking massive legal costs. It is understood that Mr Mosley contacted lawyers working on cases, offering his financial support.

He was accused of engaging in a Nazi-style orgy by the News of the World in 2008. The claim so incensed Mr Mosley, the son of the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, that he pursued the case through the courts.
Mr Justice Eady found that the sex party did not have any Nazi overtones. The scale of the damages was a record for a privacy case, and in many ways set a benchmark for the phone hacking claims that have subsequently followed.
A spokesman for Mr Mosley refused to comment.

Max Mosley bankrolls phone hacking cases against the News of the World - Telegraph

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Britain fucked again

It has to be great news for the catholic church though.

Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble

But since its inception it has been the free worlds measuring stick on what free speech is in a democratic society.

Sadly, politically compromised nowadays.