Thread: Phone Hacking scandal snowballs

How many fucking lawyers did these two bring with them?

Ha! Johnie "Marbles", the artist with the white stuff: "I'm sure Mr. Murdoch will understand the irony, but I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation".

Some one,s just thrown a foam pie at Rupert Murdock during his Q + A session ,,,,,,,,,as quick as a flash his young wife jumped up and swung a right hook at her lol

"People can have no expectation of privacy in a transparent society"

about right - the way every cnut is freaking out you would have thought the newspapers had been telling blatant lies to the public

talk about slavering for censorship - the burmese govt must be taking notes

Originally Posted by baldrick

"People can have no expectation of privacy in a transparent society"

about right - the way every cnut is freaking out you would have thought the newspapers had been telling blatant lies to the public

talk about slavering for censorship - the burmese govt must be taking notes

Slavering for privacy and slavering for censorship are two completely different things.

Hacking a victim's mobile phone and deleting messages is not in the public interest.

All it shows is the PCC is a fucking waste of time. If they actually had the power to fine newspapers for transgressions, this probably would never happen; let's face it, the newspapers are hardly in it for news nowadays, they're in it for money.

A few criminal convictions and a proper regulatory body do not constitute censorship.

If the newspapers can't act responsibly on their own, someone has to make them.

Let's not forget they broke the law.

Put it this way, Woodward and Bernstein brought down a President, and they didn't break the law doing it.

Modern journalism is a fucking joke by comparison.

Gotta give his wife credit on this one. She nailed the guy dead on.
Rupert Murdoch Attacked By Protester Throwing White Substance As Quizzed By MPs With Son James | UK News | Sky News

Wake me up when this cheap drama is over..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Detectives seize computer found in bin near Brooks flat Read more:

LONDON: Detectives are examining a computer, paperwork and a phone found in a bin near the riverside London home of the former chief executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks.
The Guardian has learnt that a bag containing the items was found in an underground car park in the Design Centre at the exclusive Chelsea Harbour development on Monday afternoon.
The car park, under a shopping centre, is metres from the gated apartment block where Ms Brooks lives with her husband, a former racehorse trainer and close friend of the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.




I thought she would have been smarter than that.

Maybe she didn't have time to get it any further? Or meant to retrieve it later ? Or maybe a plant to incriminate her? So the boss of Fox is claiming he has never been so humbled. That his trusted minions have deceived him. That he is shocked and disgusted at what his very very highly paid executives did. That he has no knowledge of any wrong doing. And Fox is at the same time claiming that it is a non issue. Like waving a white flag with one hand, while still pointing a uzi with the other and claiming nothing has changed business as usual.

Wonder what the FBI will come up with? Fox should have nothing to say about that.

You could watch fox news for the next six months and the likes of bill o'reilly won't even mention it.Can't wait for jon stewart & bill maher to get on the case.

Rupert Murdoch: I do not accept responsibility for wrongdoing at News of the World

Rupert Murdoch has told MPs that he does not accept responsibility for wrongdoing at the News of the World.









Link to this video

3:05PM BST 19 Jul 2011
121 Comments


He told a committee of MPs investigating phone hacking: "I do not accept ultimate responsibility. I hold responsible the people that I trusted to run it and the people they trusted.

He earlier said he was appalled when he heard that reporters had hacked into the voicemails of missing teenager Milly Dowler.

A contrite Mr Murdoch today appeared before MPs and declared: "This is the most humble day of my life".

Sitting alongside his son, James, the 80-year-old media mogul said that he was "more than prepared" to answer the questions of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee into the phone hacking scandal.

The start of the keenly-awaited hearing in the Wilson Room of Portcullis House was briefly disrupted as some protesters were removed.

19 Jul 2011
James Murdoch, News Corp's deputy chief operating officer, opened by saying how sorry he and his father were to the victims in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.
"It is a matter of great regret of mine, my father's and everyone at News Corporation. These actions do not live up to the standards our company aspires to everywhere around the world," he said.
"It is our determination both to put things right, make sure these things don't happen again, and to be the company that I know that we have always aspired to be."
James Murdoch told the committee the company acted "swiftly" as soon as it became aware of fresh evidence over phone hacking following a series of civil actions in 2010, particularly the case involving actress Sienna Miller.
It became apparent that more people than originally believed were victims of the practice, he added.
Mr Murdoch Jnr said: "Subsequent to our discovery of that information in one of these civil trials at the end of 2010, which I believe was the Sienna Miller case, the company immediately went to look at additional records around the individual involved, the company alerted the police and restarted, on that basis, the investigation that is now under way."
He said the company had apologised "unreservedly, which I repeat today," to phone hacking victims.
He added: "The company acted as swiftly and transparently as possible."
Asked by Labour MP Tom Watson whether he had been "misled" by senior employees, Mr Murdoch senior replied: "Clearly."
Mr Watson pointed out that former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks admitted in 2003 that police were paid for information.
Mr Murdoch senior said: "I am now aware of that, I was not aware at the time. I'm also aware that she amended that considerably very quickly afterwards."
Mr Watson said: "I think she amended it seven or eight years afterwards but did you or anyone else in your organisation investigate it at the time?"
Mr Murdoch replied: "No. I didn't know of it.
"I'm sorry, if I can just say something and this is not as an excuse, maybe it's an explanation of my laxity.
"The News of the World is less than 1% of our company. I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished people, professionals in their work.
"I'm spread watching and appointing people whom I trust to run those divisions."
Mr Yates said the Met turned over a "huge amount of staff", many on short-term contracts.
"There are numerous examples from numerous senior people, both within the Metropolitan Police and Metropolitan Police Authority, where people who are known to those people have been employed on a short-term basis and some have even become permanent employees. So it is not unusual."
Mr Yates said he classed Mr Wallis as "a friend", but stressed they were not "bosom buddies".
"I must have been round there once to pick him up for a football match. I would see him maybe two or three times a year," he said.
"Do not get the impression that we are the bosom buddies, living in each other's houses."
Mr Yates insisted he had not carried out "due diligence" when Mr Wallis was given the Met contract, and had only sought "assurances" that there was not anything being chased by the Guardian that was going to embarrass "him, me, the commissioner or the Metropolitan Police Service".
The assistant commissioner was asked about Sir Paul's reference to a No 10 official who recommended they should not disclose information such as Mr Wallis's links to the Yard to the Prime Minister.
Mr Yates said that last September he emailed Downing Street chief of staff Ed Llewellyn offering to brief Mr Cameron on aspects of the hacking inquiry.
"There was an offer in the early part of September 2010 for me to put into context some of the nuances around police language in terms of what a scoping exercise is, what an assessment is...
"That offer was properly and understandably rejected."
Mr Yates stressed that the Prime Minister was only "rarely" briefed on operational matters, usually around national security.
"I would not have disclosed any operational matters about this," he added.
Mr Yates said: "I confidently predict that as a result of the News International disclosures a very small number of police officers will go to prison as a result of corruption."
Sir Paul had earlier declared no knowledge of new claims that hacking suspect Neville Thurlbeck worked as an informer for Scotland Yard while he was a reporter at the News of the World.
When Dr Julian Huppert MP questioned him about his knowledge of a police source working at News International, the outgoing commissioner said: "I certainly would not have been aware of it."
Mr Thurlbeck, who was arrested on suspicion of illegally accessing voicemail messages in April, has admitted working as an official police source under the codename "George", the Evening Standard reported today.

Rupert Murdoch: I do not accept responsibility for wrongdoing at News of the World - Telegraph

Rupert Murdoch - the old devil is up for it

Rupert Murdoch strayed from his script, James Murdoch stuck to the crisis PR line on phone-hacking, while Wendi Murdoch was awesome.


James Murdoch, left, and Rupert Murdoch face the select committee, with Wendi Murdoch in the background in the middle Photo: REUTERS







By Allison Pearson
9:25PM BST 19 Jul 2011



Towards the end of the Dark Lord’s empire, his plucky opponents have to find and destroy the remaining horcruxes which give him his invincible power.

First, Coulson the Snake is eliminated, strangled by his own serpentine coils. Next, his mighty organ, the News of the World, is shut down.

Then Bellatrix “Rebekah” Lestrange is “disappeared” behind a demonic cataract of curls into exile in the dark land of Chipping Norton.

Still, never mind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The other big drama everyone wanted to see was the testimony of Rupert Murdoch and his son James before a Commons select committee.

I would like to make it absolutely clear, having spoken to my lawyers, Harbottle, Bluebottle and Nobottle, that there is no connection whatsoever between Harry Potter’s arch opponent, a master wizard who creates a climate of suspicion and fear among his cowering underlings, and Rupert Murdoch.

In fact, our first glimpse of the legendary media mogul was a huge anticlimax. Good grief, could that really be him? He was shockingly old. I mean, Galapagos tortoise old.
Despite the sharp pinstripe suit and fashionably strobing, chunky tie, the octogenarian Murdoch looked less like a master of the universe than one of those Ukrainian pensioners who is dragged from obscurity to testify about a suspected past as a war criminal.
“Nope.” “Nope.” And “nope.” Those were the News Corp chairman’s first three answers to a fusillade of passionately incensed questions from Tom Watson, who knows a great deal more about the News of the World and its reporting practices than its owner seemed to.
Seated at the right hand of the father was James Murdoch, who kept stepping in to speak for his faltering parent. “We were not in full possession of the facts,” explained James.
Never mind the facts, in the opening 10 minutes Murdoch Senior seemed to be scarcely in possession of his faculties. In the interminable and embarrassing silences between question and answer, you wondered whether our star witness, with his head lolling forward, had actually nodded off.
The only sign of the force he once was came when Rupert began to bang out his answers on the pine table in front of him with flattened palms; a defiant, almost contemptuous sound that was perturbingly at odds with the words of regret and contrition coming out of his mouth.
At one point, Wendi Deng, who was seated just behind her husband, leant forward to try to stop him hitting the table. She just couldn’t help herself; Rupert’s unconscious drumbeat of defiance was clearly spoiling the carefully calibrated performance that both men were putting on to reassure their shareholders and save their business.
Wow, Wendi! Trust me, you don’t want to mess with the Chinese-born third Mrs Murdoch. Immaculate in a coral pink jacket and polka dot skirt with killer heels, Wendi is two parts care nurse to three parts Ninja.
With her lovely head cocked alertly and her laser eyes drilling into Rupert’s impertinent interrogators, you could almost read the thoughts running through her mind:
“Ha! In my country, you take the fat Scottish MP man, leave him tied to bamboo in sun for five days, cut out his liver then serve him with soft noodle!” We’ll come back to scary Ninja Wendi in a minute.
It’s well known that Crisis PR experts coach major corporate clients who are behind catastrophic oil spills or have caused a fire to rage through British public life claiming everyone in its path. The key is not to be angry or defensive, but to defuse and disarm one’s critics.
James Murdoch came across as an eager scholar of these techniques. With his buzzcut and steel-rimmed specs, he has the manner of a keen MBA student. If the plan was to say the same vague, helpfully unhelpful thing over and over again in that midatlantic drone of his until viewers gave up the will to live, he succeeded admirably.
Lesson One of Crisis PR: always welcome your critic’s complaints? Check. “That’s a very good question, Sir, I welcome the chance to answer that,” smiled James.
When the wonderfully well-informed Tory Philip Davies landed a potentially lethal blow, asking why News International had paid the legal fees of both the jailed Royal Correspondent Clive Goodman and phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire, a clearly flummoxed James gave an Olympic-class display of crisis PR: “I’d like to answer that question. It’s a good question.
"To my knowledge, er... I asked that question myself.” So did young Murdoch answer that excellent question? What do you think this is, a public inquiry?
Lesson Two of Crisis PR: show a pleasing humility so they can’t claim you’re an arrogant bastard. “This is my most humble day,” said Rupert, his eyes darting briefly to his script. There followed some folksy, touching stuff about his old dad who had left Rupe a small newspaper in his will “specifically to do good”. With that very Murdoch paper, the scandal of Gallipoli was exposed.
Brilliant! Tender memories of an inspiring father, evocation of journalism as a trusty sword wielded for the public good, Rupert personally righting the wrongs of the massacred innocents in World War One. We were just waiting to hear that he had bought a children’s hospital to name after Milly Dowler when the custard pie struck.
There was uproar in the committee room. Louise Mensch was caught mid-question, her mouth forming a horrified O of astonishment when, suddenly, came a flying, vengeful form. Pow! Kaboom! It was Ninja Wendi.
For over two hours, Mrs Murdoch had looked like she was longing to punch someone and here was a chance. Not Tom Watson, sadly, but the next best thing. A fantastic hook to the assailant’s jaw left you in no doubt that the killer Murdoch instinct has not passed to the son, but to the missus.
When the session reconvened, Rupert Murdoch read out a prepared statement, but there was no need. Father and son had already made it clear that they felt everyone’s pain while being totally ignorant of what caused it.
You were left with a sense that there were gaping holes in News International’s case. The idea that Murdoch the arch micro-manager would ring up the editor of the News of the World on a Saturday night, ask what was happening and be satisfied with the answer “Not much” is about as plausible as Lord Voldemort saying that, yes, he had met the Dementors, but only socially.
We have been here before. Back in the early Eighties, when Rupert Murdoch had his back up against the wall, he went on a charm offensive to silence his critics. Harry Evans, the great journalist and then Sunday Times editor, recalled one cynical peer observing: “The wolf has started sucking lozenges to sweeten its breath.”
See how well that wolf wears sheep’s clothing. Eighty years of age and the old devil isn’t going down without a fight.

Rupert Murdoch - the old devil is up for it - Telegraph

I bet a lot of email scrubbing is happening at Fox and other establishments, that have Murdoch connections. Sometimes we need the great to fall it gives us under achievers a chance to say "see I told you it would not work".

Some of the people in the committee came over as quite naive and even clueless on the ways of business in the real world. That is what happens when you have career MPs who know nothing but politics. They can't really comprehend the size of his business and what he would actually be involved with day to day.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

OK we're back. Apparently it was some "comedian".

Seriously though, how easy would it be to smuggle in a bag of acid?

Of course, now they're praising Murdoch for having the "guts" to stay.

Fucking great, eh?

You said you live in the middle east.

Bag of acid ?

I guess you have bags of acid close at hand for your wives faces right ? Sorry to break it ti you but throwing acid into your wives or daughters face is not customary in the civilized world.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Wake me up when this cheap drama is over..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

OK, but I'll be sure to wake you up if there is news about Obama's hair, his stuffy nose, his Kenyan father or Michelle's hemlines. I know you are mad about that stuff.

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

I'll bet censorship laws are the ultimate goal in all this. Murdoch's empire is the sacrificial lamb the British elites have been waiting to slaughter.

how you can connect censorship to all this is beyong me.
Harsher privacy laws maybe.
Only a complete dolt could associate this with censorship.
if you disagree that certain things are private (your personal phone calls and emails for example) then I dare you to post EVERY email or message you recieve here on TD for us all to scrutinize.

Originally Posted by Koojo

In fact, our first glimpse of the legendary media mogul was a huge anticlimax. Good grief, could that really be him? He was shockingly old. I mean, Galapagos tortoise old.

Originally Posted by socal

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

OK we're back. Apparently it was some "comedian".

Seriously though, how easy would it be to smuggle in a bag of acid?

Of course, now they're praising Murdoch for having the "guts" to stay.

Fucking great, eh?

You said you live in the middle east.

Bag of acid ?

I guess you have bags of acid close at hand for your wives faces right ? Sorry to break it ti you but throwing acid into your wives or daughters face is not customary in the civilized world.

Socal,

You really are a bit of a tit. I do realise it's unlikely to happen in this particular case, but the number of security breaches at Parliament is really quite a joke considering the threats out there.

It isn't just Murdoch that has to face parliamentary committees you know.

What if it was a committee discussing Domestic Abuse laws and a disturbed ex-husband wanted to harm a witness?

An investigation has been launched by Speaker John Bercow into how Marbles could have brought a plate of foam into the committee room and why normal search procedures for the public failed to pick up anything.

A spokeswoman for Mr Bercow said: "The Speaker is very concerned at what has occurred and has asked for the incident to be thoroughly investigated. It is wholly unacceptable that a member of the public should treat a witness in this way."

Because of public interest in the event yesterday, police numbers had reportedly been increased and members of the public were being carefully searched by security staff as they entered.

The incident raised memories of purple flour in condoms being thrown at Tony Blair in May 2004 during Prime Minister's Questions, which led to a major review of security and restrictions put on public viewing in the Commons chamber.

However, while members of the public now sit behind glass screens in the Commons, no similar security exists in the committee rooms.

Doesn't really meet my criteria of "being carefully searched". Did he tell them he was running late and was going to have a quick shave in the public gallery?

And as for your rather naive "civilised world" comment, perhaps you have forgotten 7/7?

is there a video of the hearing ? wanted to see that ninja incident