"New hacking allegations engulf Murdoch papers; Rivals report intrusions on palace, ex-PM" July 12, 2011|By Cassandra Vinograd, Associated Press
LONDON - Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was besieged yesterday by accusations that two more of his British newspapers engaged in hacking, deception, and privacy violations that included accessing former prime minister Gordon Brown’s bank account information and stealing the medical records of his seriously ill baby son.
Murdoch’s reporters were also accused of paying Queen Elizabeth II’s bodyguards for secret information about the monarch, potentially jeopardizing her safety.
If proved, the charges by rival newspapers would dramatically increase the pressure on top Murdoch executives so far largely insulated from the scandal....
Members of a parliamentary committee are expected to hold a hearing today to try to determine whether senior officials of the Metropolitan Police limited the scope of the initial phone-hacking investigation in 2006 because their own phones had been hacked and they feared disclosure of damaging information about their personal lives.
Of course, western justice always seeks the truth so that can't be true.
News organizations outside News Corp. have reported that one of the senior officers allegedly padded his expense reports and was involved in extramarital affairs, and another used official frequent-flier miles for personal vacations.
The scandal has cast a harsh light on the unparalleled political influence of Murdoch’s collection of newspapers in Britain and it is taking an increasing toll on Prime Minister David Cameron. The conservative leader’s former communications chief, Andy Coulson, was arrested last week in connection with alleged payoffs to police when he was editor of News of the World....
The new kingmaker, 'er, PM-maker.
In the United States, Murdoch owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, among other holdings....
All pos.
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"Legislators to call Murdoch to stand in hacking case; Vote set today on his bid for broadcaster" July 13, 2011|By Alan Cowell and Jo Becker, New York Times
LONDON - Rupert Murdoch’s once-commanding influence in British politics seemed to dwindle to a new low yesterday, when all three major parties in Parliament joined in support of a sharp rebuke to his media empire and a parliamentary committee said it would call him, along with two other top executives, to testify publicly next week about the growing scandal enveloping his media empire....
Not like they had much credibility to begin with, but NOW they have NONE! Bunch of scummy criminal spies.
The accusations have spread to other papers in his News International group and have taken in an ever wider and more outrage-provoking list of victims....
A Parliamentary committee yesterday said it would call Murdoch, his son, James, and Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International, to testify next week about the accusations of phone-hacking and corruption at the News International papers, in what is likely to be one of the most sensational parliamentary hearings in years.
New and alarming charges came yesterday from Gordon Brown, former prime minister, who said that one of the most prestigious newspapers in the group, the Sunday Times, employed “known criminals’’ to gather personal information on Brown’s bank account, legal files, and tax affairs.
If Rupert Murdoch seemed under greater pressure than ever, a separate Parliamentary committee investigating years of indecisive police probes into News of the World’s rampant phone-hacking operations spent hours yesterday grilling police officers who led the inquiries.
Some of the most humbling moments for the police came as members of the home affairs committee demanded to know why John Yates, once regarded as Scotland Yard’s fastest-rising star, and still the head of the police’s counterterrorism force, spent only one day in a formal review of an earlier police investigation. That investigation had wrapped up after netting only two miscreants at the paper and securing brief jail terms for them; Yates concluded in 2009 that there was nothing more to probe....
When Andy Hayman, the officer now retired who oversaw the original investigation from 2005 to 2007, went on to acknowledge that he had private dinners with journalists from News of the World at a time when the paper was under a criminal investigation that he oversaw, and defended that by saying that to “have turned it down would have been potentially more suspicious than to have it,’’ peals of laughter erupted in the hearing room. When Hayman, startled, protested - “I don’t know why you’re laughing’’ - another committee member retorted, “Because it’s so incredible.’’
The hearing’s most startling revelation came with the disclosure of the sheer scope of the new police investigation, covering many more potential phone-hacking victims than the 4,000 that police investigators have previously said they identified by going through the 11,000 pages of notes taken from the private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, who was one of the men jailed in the affair in 2007.
It's called a COVER UP!
Sue Akers, the top Scotland Yard officer assigned to take over the inquiry earlier this year, said that her 45-officer team was working through a list of 3,870 names, as well as 5,000 landline telephone numbers and 4,000 cellphone numbers that had been culled from Mulcaire’s notes. So far, she said, only 170 people had been formally notified that their phones may have been hacked.
The hearing could be a make-or-break moment for Murdoch and Brooks. The panel they will face - the select Committee on Culture, Media, and Sports - has been asked by the government media regulator Ofcom to make a judgment on whether Murdoch and his executives are “fit and proper’’ persons to run British Sky Broadcasting, Britain’s most lucrative satellite television network. The chairman of the committee, John Whittingdale, told the BBC that the committee’s probe of the malpractice at News of the World and other Murdoch newspapers would want to know “how far up the chain this went,’’ and he cast the hearing as a turning point. “They’re going to take on their critics and account for themselves in Parliament,’’ he said.
Brown’s accusations against the Sunday Times, concerning incidents when he was in office, signaled that the scandal would not be confined to the tabloid papers in the group....
--more--"
And yeah, it does reach across the pond, American:
"Murdochs to face questioning in UK; FBI launches inquiry into new allegations" July 15, 2011|By Jill Lawless and Robert Barr, Associated Press
LONDON - Rupert Murdoch and his son James first refused, then agreed yesterday to appear before UK lawmakers investigating phone hacking and police bribery, while the FBI opened a review into accusations the Murdoch media empire sought to hack into the phones of Sept. 11 victims.
I don't expect that "review" to go anywhere.
Those two developments, and the arrest of another former editor of a Murdoch tabloid, deepened the crisis for News Corp., which has seen its stock price sink as investors ask whether the scandal could drag down the whole company.
Who gives a shit about stock price at this point? These scum used criminal ways to report diversionary dirt at the same time they were (and are) lying us into wars!
Murdoch defended News Corp.’s handling of the scandal, saying it will recover from any damage caused by the phone-hacking and police bribery accusations. The 80-year-old told The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp., that he is “just getting annoyed’’ at all the recent negative press....
What an arrogant and un-f***ing-believeable bastard!!
A law enforcement official in New York said the FBI was looking into accusations that employees of News Corp. tried to hack into the telephones of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States....
The citizen's media has speculated that it was a spying operation to gauge how well the official bs was playing amongst those that would care most.
The accusation that Murdoch papers may have targeted 9/11 victims came from the rival Daily Mirror, which quoted an anonymous source as saying an unidentified American investigator had rejected approaches from unidentified journalists who showed an interest in British victims of the terrorist attacks. It cited no evidence that any phone had been hacked.
Yeah, right, this is all some sort of business-motivated tactic by the Mirror, sure.
There was no indication members of Congress had information beyond the Mirror report....
Now that I can believe.
Specialists said they doubt such actions could jeopardize News Corp.’s US newspaper holdings or result in the revocation of the license it needs to own Fox TV stations in America.
But we'll smell it when we see it.
British lawmakers took the dramatic step yesterday of issuing a summons to the Murdochs after the father and son refused to appear before Parliament’s Culture, Media, and Sport Committee on Tuesday.
Within hours, the Murdochs made room in their schedules.
It is highly unusual for witnesses to refuse to appear before parliamentary committees, which quiz everyone from business leaders to prime ministers on a wide range of issues.
News Corp. faced more pressure yesterday with the arrest of former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis - the ninth person involved with the tabloid to be detained by police investigating phone hacking.
--more--"
"Top Murdoch aides quit over hacking scandal; WSJ chief leaves paper Mogul offers new apologies" July 16, 2011|By John F. Burns and Alan Cowell, New York Times
LONDON - The crisis rattling Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire claimed the two highest-level executives yet yesterday after days of mounting pressure from politicians and investors on two continents.
That second one i$ important.
Les Hinton, publisher of The Wall Street Journal since 2007, who oversaw News International, Murdoch’s British newspaper subsidiary, when voice mail hacking by journalists was rampant, and Rebekah Brooks, who has run the British papers since 2009 and become the target of unrelenting public outrage, both resigned in the latest blow to News Corp. and its chairman.
Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones & Co., and Brooks were two of Murdoch’s closest and most loyal deputies. He was said to be loath to lose either of them and became convinced that they had to leave only over the last several days.
The resignations came on a day when Murdoch made a series of public apologies. He wrote a letter to be published in all British newspapers this weekend acknowledging that the company did not address its problems soon enough. “We are sorry,’’ it begins.
You going to APOLOGIZE for the ENDLESS WAR LIES that has been responsible for the murder of millions, Rupe?
Then F*** OFF!!!!!!!
He also visited the family of a murdered 13-year-old girl, Milly Dowler, whose voice mail was hacked by reporters at News of the World while she was still listed as missing. According to the Dowler family’s lawyer, Mark Lewis, Murdoch held his head in his hands and apologized for the actions of his employees, who deleted phone messages after the girl’s mailbox had been filled so they could collect more messages from concerned family members.
Lewis said that Murdoch apologized “many times’’ and that he was “very humbled, he was very shaken, and he was very sincere.’’
Whether these actions will do anything to quiet the backlash against News Corp. is unclear....
I think I answered that a few paragraphs ago.
Until yesterday, Hinton had been largely an offstage figure in the scandal. But questions grew about what he knew about the improper practices going on at the newspapers under his watch, even though he has testified twice before Parliament saying that he believed the hacking was limited to one rogue journalist.
Hinton spent part of his career at the Boston Herald. He was named associate editor after Murdoch bought the paper in 1982. Hinton previously served as editor of Murdoch’s Star national weekly paper. Murdoch later sold the Herald.
Last March, Patrick J. Purcell, president and publisher of the Herald, introduced Hinton as a keynote speaker at the Boston College Chief Executives’ Club of Boston luncheon. Hinton talked about the role of newspapers and the importance of information in today’s digital age.
“Everything we know about news and information is changing - what it is, where it comes from, how we consume it, and what we can trust,’’ he said, according to BC’s website.
Yup, and it AIN'T YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Letting Hinton go was an especially fraught decision for Murdoch. The two had worked together for 52 years, since Hinton joined Murdoch’s first paper, The News of Adelaide in South Australia, when he was 15; Hinton ran the Journal, Murdoch’s most cherished US newspaper....
--more--"
"Hacking crisis widens, for Murdoch and British leader; Document shows media company’s links to Cameron" July 17, 2011|By John F. Burns, New York Times
LONDON - As Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire took a step to contain the damage of a deepening scandal yesterday, publishing full-page ads in every national newspaper in Britain under the words “We are sorry,’’ the government released information documenting its close ties to the company that continued as the scandal escalated.
What a WASTE of MONEY! You think the PR CAMPAIGN is going to RESTORE TRUST?
Sorry, but WHAT LITTLE THERE WAS is now TOTALLY GONE!
The mood of atonement by Murdoch’s News Corp. was a U-turn from his previously defiant handling of the crisis. The banner headline in yesterday’s editions of the Times of London read “Day of Atonement,’’ and it was all the more striking for the fact that it ran in the 226-year-old newspaper that is the flagship of the print empire Murdoch has assembled in Britain.
At the end of a week that rocked the interwoven worlds of the press, politicians, and the police in Britain, and spread across the Atlantic with the opening of an FBI investigation into allegations of associated abuses in the United States, penitence was the buzzword far beyond the London headquarters of Murdoch’s British-based newspaper subsidiary, News International.
The crisis seemed far from over for Murdoch, as the scandal that began over illegal phone hacking by the now defunct News of the World, widened to include a second newspaper in his stable, The Sunday Times, officials said yesterday.
And at this point you must conclude that ALL HIS OUTLETS DO IT!
Nor was the crisis abating for Prime Minister David Cameron.
Now we know HOW HE WAS PUT in POWER!
As the presses rolled Friday night with the Murdoch bid for redemption in the “sorry’’ ad, and with front-page stories telling of his apology to the parents of a murdered girl whose cellphone voicemails were hacked, Cameron’s aides released a diary of his meetings with executives and editors of News International.
The diary shed light on what Cameron acknowledged last week was the “cozy and comfortable’’ world in which politicians, the press, and the police in Britain have functioned for decades, one he said had to yield to much greater public scrutiny.
The diary showed that since taking office in May 2010, Cameron has met 26 times with Murdoch executives....
Getting his marching orders.
Most of the meetings were at the prime minister’s London headquarters at 10 Downing Street, or at Chequers, his official country residence northwest of London. His meetings with the Murdoch officials exceeded all those with other British media representatives put together....
The list did nothing to assuage the questions about Cameron’s judgment in maintaining close ties with executives of a media enterprise that has been under a faltering police investigation for years and has come under intense scrutiny in the past few months.
Well, we KNOW WHY!
In a way it is funny: Cops getting a TASTE of their OWN MEDICINE!
The ties to Coulson, in particularly, have been assailed by the Labor opposition leader, Ed Miliband, but have also spread dismay among Cameron’s Conservatives.
Foreign minister William Hague defended those ties yesterday, telling the BBC that inviting Coulson to Chequers was “not surprising that in a democratic country there is some contact’’ between political and media leaders.
As they decide what agenda to push.
While the police investigation has largely centered on cellphone hacking by journalists at News of the World, it has now spread to the investigative unit of the Sunday Times, a person familiar with internal News Corp. discussions said. That person, as well as a person with knowledge of the scope of the inquiry, said the investigation would expand to include hacking into e-mail accounts and other online privacy invasions....
Like I said, a CRIMINAL SPYING OPERATION!
--more--"
"Arrest, resignation roil Britain; Chief quits hours after Brooks held" by Sarah Lyall and Don Van Natta Jr., New York Times / July 18, 2011
LONDON - Britain’s top police official resigned yesterday, the latest casualty of the phone hacking scandal engulfing British public life, hours after Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, was arrested on suspicion of illegally intercepting phone calls and bribing the police.
The official, Paul Stephenson, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, commonly known as the Met or Scotland Yard, said that he had decided to step down because “the ongoing speculation and accusations relating to the Met’s links with News International at a senior level’’ had made it difficult for him to do his job.
But he said he had done nothing wrong and that he would not “lose sleep over my personal integrity.’’ He also said that because he had not been involved in the original phone-hacking investigation, he had had no idea that Neil Wallis, a former News of the World deputy editor who had become a public-relations consultant for the police after leaving the paper, was himself suspected of phone hacking.
Wallis, 60, was arrested Thursday.
The commissioner’s resignation came as the London political establishment was still digesting the stunning news about the arrest of Brooks - who apparently was surprised herself. A consummate networker who has always been assiduously courted by politicians and whose friends include Prime Minister David Cameron, Brooks, 43, is the 10th and by far the most powerful person to be arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandal....
Stephenson, who took over the top police job in 2009, stepped down in large part because of a furor over his contacts with News International officials. The New York Times reported over the weekend that he met for meals 18 times with News International executives and editors during the phone hacking investigation, and that other top other police officials have had similar meetings....
Keeping them abreast of the investigation, 'eh? Not that it was needed.
Committee members seem disappointed at the prospect of losing Brooks. Some even said that they wondered if the timing of the arrest was designed to ensure that she was unavailable to answer their questions.
Yeah, that SURE DOES STINK!
“Being of a suspicious mind, I do find it odd that they should arrest her now by appointment,’’ said Chris Bryant, a Labor member of the committee, who suspects his phone was hacked by News of the World. He said that Brooks’s arrest brings the scandal closer to the top.
“The water is now lapping around the ankles of the Murdoch family,’’ he said.
--more--"
"Arrest caps meteoric rise, fall from grace" July 18, 2011|By Christopher Torchia, Associated Press
LONDON - Rebekah Brooks dined with Britain’s prime minister over Christmas and got a public show of support from her boss, Rupert Murdoch, before the cameras this month as allegations of phone hacking on her watch mounted.
Now the 43-year-old UK media executive is a criminal suspect, her world of power and connections shattered by scandal.
Brooks, who quit as head of Murdoch’s British newspapers Friday, was arrested yesterday in a widening investigation into years of alleged phone hacking of prominent Britons, as well as bribing police for information, at the now-closed tabloid News of the World.
The arrest sealed Brooks’s swift transformation from one of Britain’s most powerful female executives to a figure of scorn....
Reports of illegal eavesdropping had percolated for years, but revelations that journalist had hacked into the voice mail of a 13-year-old murder victim, Milly Dowler, in 2002 caused a public uproar.
The scandal was deemed toxic for the tabloid, and Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old newspaper. Brooks was vilified for initially clinging to her job while 200 journalists lost theirs....
Brooks peppered News of the World with celebrity scandals, and drew praise for using the newspaper as a platform to help get sex offender legislation, known as “Sarah’s Law,’’ passed in Britain....
Just another good corporate media journalist, 'eh?
--more--"
Related: Skewered by a tabloid culture she nurtured
Hacking into some hypocrisy?
"Hacking scandal claims another British official; Scotland Yard aide resigns; Murdoch testimony due today" July 19, 2011|By Alan Cowell and Sarah Lyall, New York Times
LONDON - The phone hacking scandal in Britain brought down another high-profile figure yesterday when John Yates, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London and the country’s most senior counterterrorism officer, resigned his post.
Yates departed a day after the country’s top police officer quit and Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, was arrested on suspicion of illegally intercepting phone messages and bribing the police.
Such is the severity of the crisis swirling around the Murdoch empire and Britain’s public life that Prime Minister David Cameron cut short an African trip yesterday and, bowing to opposition pressure, called a special parliamentary session for tomorrow to debate the widening scandal.
The scandal also took a grim turn yesterday when Sean Hoare, a former reporter for News of the World, the tabloid newspaper at the center of the scandal, was found dead in his home in a London suburb, according to British news organizations and the Associated Press.
Hoare was one of the first to go on record saying that “phone hacking,’’ as the practice of breaking into private voice mail is known, was widespread at News of the World. He also said a friend, Andy Coulson, was aware of it and actively encouraged it as editor of the paper.
Coulson later left to work as Cameron’s spokesman.
The Hertfordshire police said they had found the body of a man but would not confirm his identity. They said they were not viewing the death as suspicious.
Related:
Now Two Murdoch Whistleblowers Dead
First it was Big George Webley who relayed a fear of the Murdoch machine and wound up dead. Now it’s Sean Hoare. Two British media whistleblowers. Two untimely deaths.
Let’s assume that neither was killed by Rupert Murdoch (toxicology reports haven’t been made available; foul play isn’t suspected by British authorities in either case), but something happened that put the fear of God into both men. Neither was known as a lunatic before their demise, both simply told the truth to British authorities about what they knew of Mr. Murdoch’s enterprises and died afterward at a relatively young age.
Also see:
'Someone's coming to get me': Terrified phone-hacking whistleblower feared for his life before he was found dead
Why did UK police declare death of News of the World whistleblower “not suspicious?”
And my paper isn't bothering with it.
Yates, who was the police official in charge of counterterrorism, was asked in 2009 to determine whether to reopen an investigation into allegations that News of the World had regularly hacked the cellphone messages of celebrities, politicians, and other public figures.
He decided against reopening the inquiry, a decision that he acknowledged last week was the wrong one....
So how much did they pay you, Yates?
Shortly after the Metropolitan Police announced his resignation, Yates made a defiant public statement: “I have acted with complete integrity,’’ he said. “My conscience is clear.’’
He said a “huge amount of inaccurate, ill-informed, and on occasion downright malicious gossip’’ had caused him to step down.
Yeah, that is Murdoch's media.
A group of Internet hackers took aim at Murdoch yesterday, defacing the website of his other UK tabloid. Visitors to The Sun website were redirected to a page featuring a story saying Murdoch’s dead body had been found in his garden. Lulz Security, an Internet hacking collective, took responsibility for the hacking attack in a Twitter message....
Translation: a government intelligence agency operation.
Yeah, poor Rupe deserves your sympathy!
Boris Johnson, mayor of London, said yesterday that Yates had told him last year that he did not believe there was “anything at the end of the rainbow’’ to justify reopening the phone-hacking inquiry....
Nothing but a pot of gold?
The crisis has exploded in the two weeks since reports surfaced that the newspaper had ordered the hacking of the cellphone of a 13-year-old girl who had been abducted and murdered in 2002.
The prime minister, who has come under repeated attacks over his relationship with Coulson, defended himself yesterday. “In terms of Andy Coulson, no one has argued that the work he did in government was in any way inappropriate or bad,’’ he said, speaking at a news conference in South Africa.
Under pressure from the Labor opposition, the prime minister said Parliament would be called to a special session tomorrow to “answer any questions that may arise’’ and “so I can make a further statement.’’
Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labor Party, repeated his attacks yesterday on what he called the prime minister’s “spectacular error of judgment’’ in hiring Coulson, despite warnings about Coulson’s possibly murky past.
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"Murdoch rejects blame for hack scandal at hearing" by Paisley Dodds, Associated Press / July 19, 2011
LONDON—Summoned by lawmakers to answer for a phone hacking and bribery scandal at one of his tabloids, Rupert Murdoch said he was humbled and ashamed Tuesday but accepted no responsibility for wrongdoing as a widening investigation threatened to ensnare Britain's prime minister.
In a three-hour grilling, the 80-year-old media tycoon insisted he was at fault only for trusting the wrong people at the now-defunct News of the World, and noted that the paper made up a tiny portion of his vast media empire.
The scandal has rocked Murdoch's News Corp. and embroiled Britain's top police, many journalists and politicians. Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his Africa trip to appear before a special parliamentary question session he called for Wednesday.
Murdoch appeared confused and flustered in the beginning of Tuesday's parliamentary hearing, turning frequently to his son James for answers.
Those were the two minutes I watched!
But he soon regained his trademark cool.
He said he had known nothing of allegations that staff at the News of the World tabloid hacked into cell phones and bribed police to get information on celebrities, politicians and crime victims, and that he never would have approved such "horrible invasions" of privacy.
In the face of lawmakers' suggestions that his organization encouraged such behavior, he was unflappable -- even after a protester rushed at him in the middle of the hearing.
He stayed seated when the man tried to throw a foam pie at him. A News Corp. attorney partially blocked the attack and Murdoch's 42-year-old wife slapped the prankster. After the protester was arrested, the billionaire simply shed his splattered suit jacket and continued answering questions.
Oh, ANOTHER FALSE FLAG, STAGED POS so that RUPE can GAIN SYMPATHY!
How frikkin' PATHETIC!
The scandal has captivated audiences from America to Murdoch's native Australia, and there's more to come -- only a fraction of the nearly 4,000 people whose information was hacked are known and the police investigation appears to be widening. Murdoch has already shut the News of the World, given up on buying a major British satellite television company and accepted the resignations of two top executives because of the scandal....
--more--"
Related: At hearing, Murdoch rejects blame for scandal (By Alan Cowell and Graham Bowley, New York Times)
I no longer read NYT or WaPo updates on matters of pricniple; however, it is there for you if you want it, dear readers.
And guess what flip-flop the printed and web Globe play the next day:
"Cameron defends himself to British Parliament over ties to phone-hacking scandal" by Anthony Faiola
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron defended himself in a combative session of Parliament on Wednesday over Britain’s phone-hacking scandal, as the opposition raucously questioned his judgment in hiring and associating with executives in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire who are now facing criminal charges.
Cameron cut short an official visit to Africa and flew home to answer questions from lawmakers about the scandal, whose gathering clouds have darkened his 15-month-old premiership.
First and foremost, the prime minister is under fire for hiring Andy Coulson — a former News of the World editor — as his director of communications and keeping him on staff even as allegations against him mounted in the press. Coulson was arrested in connection with the scandal this month.
Blasting Cameron and his staff for repeatedly ignoring warnings about Coulson’s role in the hacking scandal, Ed Miliband, leader of the opposition Labor Party, said: “This can’t be put down to gross incompetence. It was a deliberate attempt to hide from the facts.”
********
Cameron shot back that Miliband was seeking to distort the facts: “Stop hunting feeble conspiracy theories.”
Oh, when lying ELITES start HOLLERING CONSPIRACY THEORY you KNOW YOU HAVE STRUCK a NERVE!
--more--"
Related: UK leader appears to regain some party support (By John F. Burns and Alan Cowell, New York Times)
Yeah, they did it again and it's a nice pos prop piece, too.
Btw, where are the (allegedly) governing partner Lib-Dems on this?
"Ex-aides assert James Murdoch knew of hacking; Scotland Yard to pursue claim of police bribes" July 22, 2011|By Jill Lawless and Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press
LONDON - James Murdoch’s former legal adviser and a former editor contested the testimony he gave to British lawmakers, saying yesterday that he was told years ago about an e-mail that suggested the rot at his Sunday tabloid was far more widespread than previously claimed.
Their statement could deal a blow to the credibility of Rupert Murdoch’s son as the family struggles to limit the damage from a phone-hacking scandal that has already cost the media empire one of its British tabloids, two top executives, and a billion-dollar bid for control of a satellite broadcaster.
Meanwhile, Scotland Yard, still reeling from allegations that it turned a blind eye to the scandal, was asked to investigate another explosive claim: that journalists bribed officers to locate people by tracking their cellphone signals.
The practice is known as “pinging’’ because of the way cellphone signals bounce off relay towers as they try to find reception....
James Murdoch, in a grilling by lawmakers on Tuesday, batted away claims that he knew the full extent of the illegal espionage at the News of the World when he approved a massive payout in 2008 to soccer players’ association chief Gordon Taylor, one of the phone hacking victims.
Murdoch’s News International had long maintained that the eavesdropping was limited to a single rogue reporter, Clive Goodman, and the private investigator he was working with to break into voice mails of members of the royal household.
But an e-mail uncovered during legal proceedings seemed to cast doubt on that claim, because it seemed to implicate others in the hacking, the e-mail had the potential to blow a hole through News International’s fiercely held contention that one reporter alone had engaged in hacking.
If Murdoch knew about the e-mail - and was aware of its implication - it would lend weight to the notion that he approved the payoff in an effort to bury the scandal.
Murdoch told lawmakers he was not aware of the e-mail at the time, but in a statement late yesterday, former News International legal manager Tom Crone and former News of the World editor Colin Myler contradicted him....
The request for a pinging inquiry, meanwhile, stems from an allegation made by the late Sean Hoare, a former News of the World reporter who spoke to The New York Times about skullduggery at the tabloid.
Hoare - who was fired in 2005 - said officers were paid nearly $500 per trace. The paper cited a second, unnamed former News of the World journalist as corroborating Hoare’s claim.
Hoare was found dead on Monday at his home near London; police say the death is not suspicious.
Pinging joins a host of alleged media misdeeds being put under the microscope as police, politicians, and the public weigh allegations that journalists at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World engaged in years of lawless behavior to get scoops.
As if that is all it is/was.
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"James Murdoch faces new scrutiny from Parliament; British police may also look at statements" by Anthony Faiola and Jerry Markon, Washington Post / July 23, 2011
LONDON - Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that James Murdoch, scion of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, should be recalled by Parliament to address allegations he misled lawmakers in his testimony on Britain’s phone hacking.
Further increasing the pressure on Murdoch, 38, an opposition lawmaker called for a police investigation into whether Murdoch lied.
Interesting to see such terminology used in my newspaper.
Think THIS might have something to do with it?
Amid Murdoch scandal, Israel backers worry about muting of pro-Israel media voice
Campbell, in an account republished last week in The Guardian, which has led the coverage of the phone-hacking charges, described a dinner at 10 Downing St., the British prime minister’s residence, in 2002, when Tony Blair -- also seen as pro-Israel -- was its occupant.
“Murdoch said he didn't see what the Palestinians' problem was and James said it was that they were kicked out of their f---ing homes and had nowhere to f---ing live,” the account in The Guardian said. Murdoch chided his son for using foul language in the prime minister’s home.
And now the LEAD LIARS of the AmeriKan media are CALLING HIM ONE (not that he isn't)?
At issue is whether News Corp. executives knew of the widespread practice of phone-hacking at their now-defunct News of the World tabloid, which illegally accessed the phones of thousands of British citizens, and whether they tried to cover it up.
How could they not know?
In another development, US Justice Department prosecutors are preparing subpoenas as part of their inquiry into allegations that News Corp. employees sought to hack into the phones of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and tried to bribe law enforcement officers for information, people familiar with the matter said yesterday. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is not public.
“Murdoch said he didn't see what the Palestinians' problem was and James said it was that they were kicked out of their f---ing homes and had nowhere to f---ing live,” the account in The Guardian said. Murdoch chided his son for using foul language in the prime minister’s home.
And now the LEAD LIARS of the AmeriKan media are CALLING HIM ONE (not that he isn't)?
At issue is whether News Corp. executives knew of the widespread practice of phone-hacking at their now-defunct News of the World tabloid, which illegally accessed the phones of thousands of British citizens, and whether they tried to cover it up.
How could they not know?
In another development, US Justice Department prosecutors are preparing subpoenas as part of their inquiry into allegations that News Corp. employees sought to hack into the phones of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and tried to bribe law enforcement officers for information, people familiar with the matter said yesterday. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is not public.
The subpoenas would seek information from the company related to the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed Rupert Murdoch’s British media operations, the sources said. Murdoch is chairman and chief executive of News Corp., which is based in New York and has extensive US operations.
It is unclear if or when subpoenas will be issued and specifically what information they would seek. The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp., first reported on the preparation of the subpoenas and said they still require approval by senior Justice Department officials.
Murdoch's Wall Street Journal got the government leak?
In-f***ing-credible!
How much they pay for it?
On Tuesday, while testifying beside his father before a British select committee, James Murdoch denied having ever seen a key piece of evidence in the case that emerged in 2008 - an e-mail suggesting phone hacking went as high as the tabloid’s chief correspondent.
But after two former News Corp. executives cast doubt on his assertion, saying they personally had shown the younger Murdoch the e-mail in question, several British lawmakers insisted he should be recalled to address the discrepancy.
Yesterday, Cameron, who himself is under pressure for his close ties to News Corp. executives arrested over phone hacking scandal, echoed those calls....
Shifting the focus from himself!
Contradictions to Murdoch’s testimony emerged Thursday when Colin Myler, former editor of the News of the World, and Tom Crone, the former legal director at the tabloid, issued a statement effectively claiming the younger Murdoch had lied.
You guys might want to avoid flying and driving these days.
The two claimed they showed Murdoch the e-mail, which was included in sealed court documents in the settlement of a 2008 lawsuit brought by Gordon Taylor, the executive director of Britain’s professional soccer players union, whose phone was allegedly hacked by the News of the World. Taylor received more than $1.3 million in an out-of-court settlement, which some lawmakers now allege amounted to hush money to keep a lid on the scandal....
The suggestion Murdoch may have known about the e-mail infuriated lawmakers. Tom Watson, a member of the opposition Labor Party who specifically asked Murdoch about it Tuesday, said yesterday that he had now referred the question to investigators at Scotland Yard.
Pffft!
What are they going to do other than block investigationd and cover up crimes?
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Related: Murdoch’s News Corp. drops bid for British TV broadcaster
"Rupert Murdoch Dogpaddles over the Cosmic Sewer
Dog Poet Transmitting.......
Rupert Murdoch is going down. He’s going down planetary wise and he is going down soul wise; ‘down, down to the bottom’. Israel’s main agent in the satanic hierarchy is dogpaddling over the suckhole of the cosmic sewer. Ordinarily, the status quo would be in quid pro quo mode but Rupert has made too many enemies among the other bad guys and that brings me to Anonymous and LulzSec (please do not hack me for telling the truth). Rupert, chief demon freak from the bathhouses of Hell is only one part of the equation; CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSN and a host of other lying, disinfo spewing, sewer rat enclaves are equally culpable, as are the majority of world governments and their administrative, legislative and judicial branches; which is the same thing, now that I think about it.
Until Anonymous and LulzSec go after the Israeli infiltration aspect of the global game scenario they are simply mining the cave perimeter and not going after the beast within. Behind all of the evil of the day are the banks, which are under the general control of Israel. They need to stop defending Wikileaks, which is also an arm of the Israeli lie machine that has the whole Middle East under assault and is the main drain on world economies. I applaud the courageous operatives in these covert hacking efforts but they are missing the point. They should be replacing the headlines of the hacked media with tales about the Holocaust Blackmail scam and the direct relationship between Israel and the commission of the 9/11 attacks.
Here’s direct and irrefutable truth; Israel has no right to exist and Israel did 9/11 and Israel is behind all of the present wars in operation. Israel is behind the vicious predatory activities of the banks of the world and Israel is the main agent of the ancient darkness that performs all of the mischief and mayhem in and around us.
Rupert is going to be implicated in paying off foreign police services and also hacking the 9/11 relatives. This will result in the loss of all of his licenses but it’s not going to do much about all of that media being transferred into the hands of a proxy. Meanwhile a massive typhoon is bearing down on Japan.....
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And you thought you were safe here in AmeriKa?
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And you thought you were safe here in AmeriKa?
"Most cellphone voice mail is vulnerable to hackers; Online services guide the way" July 13, 2011|By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff
Breaking into someone’s voice mailbox - in the style of the hackers at the British tabloid News of the World - can be as easy in the United States as it is on the other side of the Atlantic.
It is done using a readily available online service known as “caller ID spoofing,’’ which can make a call appear to be coming from any phone number. Hackers can use it to access someone else’s voice mail messages by fooling the system into thinking the call is coming from the owner’s cellphone.
If the mailbox is not protected by a password, as is often the case, the attacker can hear and even delete messages in the target’s voice mailbox.
There are numerous spoofing services in the United States; all you need to do is Google them. Although these services are used by hackers to commit crimes, they’re also used legitimately by, for example, battered women who do not want their calls traced, or law enforcement agents operating undercover....
In 2009, police in Queens, N.Y., broke up a fraud ring that reportedly used caller ID spoofing to deceive workers at several banks. The criminals stole $15 million by making their calls appear to come from real customers of the bank, and persuading employees to send them new credit cards. And spoofing can be used for other kinds of mischief; for example, the celebrity Paris Hilton supposedly used it to break into starlet Lindsay Lohan’s voice mail in 2006, according to various media reports....
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Related:
Social media butterflies just can’t take a break
For years, employees have been complaining about bosses who expect them to respond to e-mail or meet other online demands even when they are on vacation. But now some people are feeling social pressure to stay on the grid.
Not me; I don't face or tweet, I only blog.
Also see:
Jane Austen manuscript fetches almost $1.6 million at auction
UK nurse arrested on murder charges
When is Tony Bliar going to be arrested for murderous war crimes based on lies?
