Maybe you can gain some insight from the Globe.
"New evidence cited in British hacking scandal; Letter shows practice known at newspaper" August 17, 2011|By Alan Cowell and Ravi Somaiya, New York Times
LONDON - A high-profile parliamentary panel investigating phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid released embarrassing new evidence yesterday that the practice of intercepting voicemail had been widely discussed at the newspaper, contradicting assertions by its owners and editors.
The disclosures threatened to push the scandal back to the forefront of public concern, raising worrying questions for Murdoch and for the British prime minister, David Cameron, who hired a former News of the World editor as his director of communications and has been taunted by the opposition for poor judgment in doing so.
The newest allegations are contained in a four-year-old letter released for the first time from Clive Goodman, News of the World’s former royal correspondent, who served a jail term for hacking the mobile phones of members of the royal family, to a senior human resources executive who had informed him that he was being dismissed.
In addition to the Goodman letter, the parliamentary panel also released a letter from Harbottle & Lewis, a law firm hired by the Murdochs, that they have repeatedly cited as having given the News of the World a “clean bill of health’’ in reviewing a cache of e-mails in 2007.
The letter contradicts that assertion and says its own investigation had been limited strictly to advising the company in its employment dispute with Goodman. The disclosures could mean that both Rupert Murdoch and his son James, head of the Murdoch media empire’s European operations, could be recalled after testifying to the parliamentary panel last month. Tom Watson, a Labor lawmaker and member of the panel, also said Andy Coulson, who was editor of the newspaper at the time, could be summoned to give further evidence.
The scandal has spread through Britain’s public life and media world....
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"Reporter arrested in hacking scandal; Had received major UK award" August 19, 2011|By Sarah Lyall, The New York Times
LONDON - British police arrested the Hollywood reporter for the defunct tabloid News of the World yesterday, according to a person close to the investigation. He is the 13th person to be arrested in the scandal over phone hacking.
The reporter, James Desborough, worked for the newspaper in Britain for four years before being sent to Hollywood in 2009. It is not clear when the crimes he is suspected of committing - gaining illegal access to other people’s voice mail messages - took place.
Until 2005, Desborough covered celebrity culture for The People, a Sunday tabloid owned by Trinity Mirror, which also publishes The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror.
He was sent to Hollywood by News of the World shortly after being named “showbiz reporter of the year’’ at the annual British Press Awards, one of the industry’s most important accolades. The judges said that Desborough had “produced a series of uncompromising scoops which mean no celebrity with secrets can sleep easy.’’
Among those articles was an exclusive report revealing that Fern Britton, a British television personality who claimed to have lost a large amount of weight through diet and exercise, had in fact had gastric band surgery. Desborough also appears to have been the first journalist to report that Peaches Geldof, daughter of rock star Bob Geldof, was getting a divorce after a hurried marriage in 2008.
In addition, Desborough wrote exclusive articles about Heather Mills before her divorce from Sir Paul McCartney. Mills recently said she believed that she had, at some point, been a victim of phone hacking.
Desborough, after winning the reporting award in 2009, said in an interview with its sponsor, The Press Gazette, that he was working at a “very difficult time for the tabloid market.’’
“A lot of deals are done these days between P.R.’s and papers,’’ he said, referring to public relations professionals. Speaking of his own articles, he said: “These stories were all old-fashioned journalism where we said, ‘We know this to be true; would you like to comment?’ ’’
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"British detective arrested over leaks" August 20, 2011|By Cassandra Vinograd, Associated Press
LONDON - One of the detectives investigating phone hacking at the News of the World tabloid has been arrested on suspicion of leaking information about the inquiry, police said yesterday.
A 51-year-old detective constable was arrested at work Thursday on suspicion of “unauthorized disclosure of information,’’ London police said. The officer has also been suspended.
Police would not identify the recipient of the leaked information, but the Guardian newspaper - which has had several recent scoops about the hacking inquiry - issued a statement after the arrest.
“In common with all news organizations, we have no comment to make on the sources of our journalism,’’ the newspaper said.
“On the broader point raised by the arrest, journalists would no doubt be concerned if conversations between off-the-record sources and reporters came routinely to be regarded as criminal activity,’’ it added.
When they start wars based on lies it is.
Police also announced that a 35-year-old was arrested yesterday on suspicion of conspiring to intercept voicemails.
The suspect appeared at a London police station by appointment and has been released on bail, police said.
Police did not name the suspect, but he was identified as Dan Evans, a former News of the World features writer, by a person familiar with the matter....
Another leaker?
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"The suggestion that Sept. 11 victim families in the United States might have been subject to phone hacking rests on a thinly sourced news story in the Daily Mirror, a London tabloid rival to Murdoch’s The Sun....
And the government is dragging its heels on the case.
Related: FBI Saves Fox
And don't you love the shot at a thinly sourced news story -- as if the AmeriKan media is some sort of paragon of virtue.
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Also see: Hacking Away at the U.K.
"British police struggle with issue of restraint" August 21, 2011|By David Stringer, Associated Press
LONDON - Four nights of arson, looting and violence erupted across England’s largest cities and left five people dead. British police didn’t fire a single shot.
It is part of a cherished culture of restraint that is now coming under unprecedented pressure, as Prime Minister David Cameron plans reforms, slashes police budgets, and humiliates homegrown talent by asking American help.
Since the early 19th Century, when legislator Robert Peel launched the world’s first modern police department in London, law enforcers in the United Kingdom have kept the peace by winning the respect of the public, not by instilling fear. They became a world-renowned icon of the capital - nicknamed “bobbies’’ in Peel’s honor.
Now sharp cuts to officer numbers driven by Britain’s austerity measures, sweeping reforms that threaten to inject politics into decision making, the fallout of England’s riots, and harsh realities of protecting the public from threats such as suicide bombers leaves the country’s fabled police in crisis.
Capping the agony, Cameron has turned for advice to William Bratton, the former police commissioner of Boston and New York and police chief of Los Angeles. He was dubbed “supercop’’ after his pioneering approach sent crime rates tumbling in those cities.
“You are at a turning point,’’ said Maurice Punch, the author of books on British policing. “What happened … has just accelerated that, there is now a necessity to have a major review, to take a step back and for the public to ask what kind of policing they want.’’
Officers acknowledge the debate is urgent, with London’s 2012 Olympic Games looming. But, with relations between Britain’s public and its police under strain, there remain deep divisions and uncertainty about whether Britain’s police officers are too hard or too soft.
Police were chastened by the 2005 shooting death of an innocent Brazilian electrician, mistaken by marksmen for a suicide bomber, and criticized for the death of a bystander at protests at a 2009 Group of 20 summit.
Related: British Jury Finds Bobbies Executed Brazilian
And then they lied about it.
Demonstrators who marched against an increase in college tuition, and antimonarchists who opposed April’s royal wedding, have both complained that officers used excessive force in containing their protests.
When disorder erupted in London on Aug. 6 - sparked by an initially peaceful protest over a rare fatal police shooting - the response appeared hesitant.
Officers avoided confrontation as a demonstration in the north London spiraled into widespread lawlessness, and it was three days before police chiefs flooded the streets of Britain’s capital with reinforcements.
Like the Police Federation, which represents about 125,000 rank and file officers, Punch believes a Royal Commission - the most rigorous form of British government inquiry - is needed to plot a way forward.
For Punch and others, one of the pressing issues is Britain’s rare use of weapons, still its most visible sign of policing restraint.
Of Britain’s current 144,000 police officers, only 7,000 are authorized to carry guns and almost never use them - firing on just six occasions between April 2009 and March 2010.
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Related: The Lessons of London
"UK, social media firms discuss ways to stop violent coordination" August 26, 2011|By Jill Lawless, Associated Press
LONDON - More than two weeks after riots, Britain’s government and police met social media executives yesterday to discuss how to prevent their services from being used to plot violence....
But if it is put out through a government mouthpiece to promote murder and war....
The acting chief of London’s police force, Tim Godwin, told lawmakers that the legality of such action was “very questionable’’ and that social networks were a useful intelligence asset....
Yeah, THAT is what I THOUGHT!
The issue of curbing communications is extremely sensitive for democratic governments.
Earlier this month, transit authorities in the San Francisco area cut cell phone and wireless data service in subway stations to disrupt plans for a protest.
See: Whaling Away in California
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"UK spy files reveal details of 1950s Guyana coup" by Jill Lawless Associated Press / August 25, 2011
LONDON—It was a very British coup. The warship slipped into the harbor, the soldiers landed in darkness -- and the diplomatic wives made sandwiches for the hungry troops.
Secret documents declassified Friday by Britain's MI5 security service reveal in dramatic and everyday detail how the U.K. under Prime Minister Winston Churchill overthrew the elected government of British Guiana -- now Guyana -- because he feared its left-wing leader and his American wife were leading the British colony into the arms of the Soviet Union....
The Jagans -- a U.S.-educated former dentist and his Chicago-born wife -- seem an unlikely threat. But the 39 folders of files released by Britain's National Archives are crammed full of tapped phone conversations, intercepted letters and accounts of physical surveillance over more than a decade....
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Sounds like something the Nazis would have done:
"UK pursued Nazi who spied in Hollywood" August 26, 2011|Associated Press
LONDON - At the end of World War II, British spies were in pursuit of a charismatic, multilingual German agent who had befriended Hollywood celebrities and persuaded British and American detainees to broadcast propaganda for the Nazis.
Secret files from the MI5 spy agency declassified today reveal the colorful story of Werner Plack, a German agent who moved from the film sets and nightclubs of prewar Los Angeles to the hotels of wartime Berlin and occupied Paris.
A Nazi interrogated by MI5 described Plack as a “freelance propaganda agent.’’
MI5 said it was eager to find him because he had “taken part in the recruitment of British renegades’’ who helped the Nazi war effort.
He was involved in persuading British comic writer P.G. Wodehouse to make radio broadcasts from Berlin for an American audience in 1941 - broadcasts that caused outrage in Britain.
MI5 sources filled in a vivid picture of Plack, described as having an “elegant appearance,’’ a “strong build,’’ and “good teeth.’’
US officials told the British he had lived for years in Los Angeles, where he worked as a movie extra....
He also “was engaged in selling German wines to well-known members of the film colony,’’ said the report, which added that Plack “was reported to drink alcohol to excess and to possess a poor credit record.’’
Questioned by MI5 near the end of the war, Wodehouse called the broadcasts a “hideous mistake’’ and said “I never had any intention of assisting the enemy.’’
The file ends in December 1945, at which point Plack’s whereabouts were unknown.
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Did you learn anything, readers?
