Hacking probe extends beyond Murdoch papers

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Hacking probe extends beyond Murdoch papers

By Sam Reeves (AFP) – 6 hours ago 

LONDON — More newspapers became embroiled in the phone-hacking scandal on Thursday as the deputy prime minister said the crisis was a chance to clean up "murky" ties between politicians, police and the media.
After hacking allegations at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World closed the Sunday tabloid, it emerged that police have asked for files from a regulator which exposed the use of private investigators by other rival papers.
The scandal has also engulfed Prime Minister David Cameron, who faces questions over discussions he had on Murdoch's failed bid for pay-TV giant BSkyB, and his employment of former Murdoch editor Andy Coulson as his media chief.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said a forthcoming judge-led public inquiry into the scandal, now widened to include broadcasters, should take strong measures.
"We have a once in a generation opportunity to really clean up the murky practices and dodgy relationships taken root at the very heart of the British establishment between the press, politicians and the police," he said.
But the Liberal Democrat leader said Cameron had been "very categorical that no inappropriate discussions took place" with Murdoch's aides over the BSkyB bid, which collapsed earlier this month.
Opponents have seized on Cameron's comments as an admission that he did have conversations of some kind with Murdoch's lieutentants over the deal for full control of Britain's biggest satellite broadcaster.
Public outrage has until now focused on Murdoch. with public revulsion at claims that the News of the World hacked the voicemails of murdered teenager Milly Dowler.
The ageing tycoon was hit with a foam pie during a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday.
The crisis has also prompted Australia to move to introduce a legal right to privacy and in the United States spawned an FBI probe into Australian-born Murdoch's US-based News Corp. empire.
But other media groups are now under the spotlight after Britain's Information Commissioner's Office said police had requested files from a 2006 inquiry into the use of private investigators by newspapers.
That inquiry found that the Daily Mail had made 952 requests to private detectives for confidential details; The People made 802 requests, the Daily Mirror 681 and The Mail on Sunday 228. The News of the World was in fifth place with 228.
"The information was handed over to the police three months ago. It was at their request," a spokesman for the Information Commissioner's Office told AFP.
Scotland Yard said it would not discuss specific lines of inquiry.
The BBC quoted the Daily Mail as saying the information obtained may have been used for reasons of public interest.
The Trinity Mirror group, which owns the Mirror and The People, told the BBC its journalists worked within the law.
The scandal has been threatening to move onto other papers for some time.
On Tuesday an MP at the hearing which quizzed Murdoch claimed former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan had admitted to phone-hacking. Morgan, now a CNN presenter, has strongly rejected the allegation and demanded an apology.
Actor Jude Law is meanwhile suing The Sun, Murdoch's top-selling British daily, for allegedly hacking his phone. The Sun denies it.
The News of the World's former royal editor and a private investigator were jailed in 2007 for phone hacking but despite mounting evidence the practice was widespread, London police did not reopen their investigation until January.
Police have since arrested, questioned and then released 10 people over the affair.
They include Coulson, a former News of the World editor who quit in 2007 and months later become Cameron's communications chief. Coulson resigned from Downing Street in January.
Cameron told an emergency parliamentary session on Wednesday that "with 20-20 hindsight" he would not have hired Coulson.
A former deputy to Coulson at the News of the World, Neil Wallis, was previously the editor of The People, one of the papers named in the report on the use of investigators.
Wallis was arrested earlier this month but in another twist it emerged that he had been employed by the police in 2009-10 -- a revelation which forced Scotland Yard chief John Stephenson and top police officer John Yates to resign.
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.














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Rupert Murdoch attacked at Parliament, appears unharmed

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Rupert Murdoch attacked at Parliament, appears unharmed

July 19, 2011 |  9:17 am

 

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News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch endured not only verbal blows but also an attempted physical attack Tuesday during his historic appearance before a committee of the British Parliament to account for the alleged illegal activities of reporters at his newspapers accused of hacking people's cellphones.
The hearing was interrupted when it appeared that someone tried to strike Murdoch, perhaps with shaving cream.
The crowd gasped, and his son James Murdoch -- who was sitting next to him at the witness table -- leaped to his father's defense. Rupert Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, who was sitting behind the aging mogul, jumped up and reached out to slap the offender.
Murdoch's glasses appeared to come off and his ever-present gray-haired bodyguard jumped to help police apprehend the person trying to accost the mogul.
PHOTOS: British phone-hacking scandal
The disruption occurred during the final questions. The television feed did not show what exactly happened, but a CNN reporter in London said the offender, a young man, approached Murdoch and splashed his face with some substance, perhaps shaving cream, and accused him of being "a greedy billionaire."
Murdoch and his son appeared uncomfortable in the opening minutes of Tuesday's hearing, with Murdoch sometimes cupping his hand to his ear to better hear questions and interrupting his 38-year-old son.
"This is the most humble day of my life," the powerful mogul said.

But Murdoch -- wearing a blue pinstripe suit and blue tie -- a few minutes later told members that he did not think he was ultimately responsible for the phone-hacking scandal that brought down the News of the World tabloid, a 168-year-old institution, and now threatens his global media empire.
If not him, then, who was responsible, Murdoch was asked.
"The people I trusted and the people they trusted," Murdoch said emphatically, alluding to the people he felt should take the fall for the crisis that has torn through the United Kingdom, led to the closure of a tabloid a week ago and derailed a $12 billion-dollar deal. The out-of-control crisis has led to two high-level resignations and even an arrest of a top executive at News Corp.
British residents lined up for eight hours on Tuesday for a seat in the committee room, according to British press reports. They came to see the two Murdochs grilled by members of Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee -- an event televised around the world on cable TV.
Britain has been gripped by the drama unfolding over charges that News of the World routinely engaged in hacking into the voicemail accounts of celebrities, the royal family and even victims of crime and terrorism and their families.
During questioning, Murdoch appeared to try to distance himself from the imbrogilio.
"Perhaps I lost sight," he said when asked how hands-on he was with regards to the operations of News of the World. Murdoch tried to defend his lack of knowledge of what was happening at one of the biggest newspapers his company owns because ultimately the now defunct tabloid accounts for "less than 1% of our company."
"I may have been lax for not asking more," Ruupert Murdoch said.
James Murdoch, who has been in charge of News Corp.'s European operations since 2007, was put on the spot when one Parliament member asked him, "Are you familiar with the term "willful blindness?"  James Murdoch, smiled, hesitated, and then asked the member to elaborate.
Rupert Murdoch interjected, "I am aware of the term and we were not ever guilty of that."
The senior Murdoch said he works 10 to 12 hour days and "can't tell you the multitude of issues that I have to handle every day" adding that if he was blind to what was going on at News of the World, it was because the paper is "so small in the general frame of our company."
That proved to be a hard sell to some members.
"It is revealing in himself what he doesn’t know and what executives chose not to tell him,” said committee member Tom Watson of Murdoch's seeming lack of detailed knowledge as to what transpired at the paper.
It appeared that James Murdoch, who wants to one day succeed his father to run the global empire, was trying to play the dual role of protector of his gray-haired father and the executive in charge of knowing all the details of the inner operations of News of the World.  In addition, he tried at times to persuade lawmakers that much of the revelations regarding the culture inside News of the World was news to him.
"We are trying to establish the fact," he said, adding later that he was "surprised" to learn that the company had been in paying legal fees to two former News of the World operatives who had been convincted of phone hacking.
Father and son were not always on the same page. Asked by a committee member if News Corp. planned to launch a new tabloid to replace News of the World, James rushed to say no while his father indicated that no decisions on that subject had been made. James Murdoch then concurred.
James Murdoch tried to explain that many of the events being probed happend prior to his assuming oversight of News Corp.'s European operations. Soon after he arrived in late 2007, he learned some of the sordid details about how at reporter and private investigator hacked into emails.
At that point, Rupert Murdoch, interrupted.
"My son had only been with the company for a few weeks at that time," he said.
Said James, "It was a few months."
Asked later if he would resign, Rupert Murdoch said no, adding that he was "the best person to clean this up."

What Murdoch Faces Now

Ken Auletta
New Yorker
July 17, 2011
For nearly two weeks, Rupert Murdoch and his people have claimed that the newspaper scandal in London was caused by a few rotten apples. Now that a very large apple, Rebekah Brooks, has been arrested, it is clear that it is the entire barrel that is rotten. Since many editors had to have known of the illegal hacking, and many people on the business side would have had to sign off on large, illegal payments to the police for information, more apples will drop in coming days. And not only at News Corp.: Sir Paul Stephenson, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, resigned Sunday. The best public-relations advice in the world will not help contain what is, for Murdoch, a spreading contagion that is no longer confined to London.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t
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In the United Kingdom, Murdoch and his son James will have to tell a Parliamentary committee on Tuesday what they knew and when they knew it. More than that, they will have to try to rescue their company from multiple government onslaughts and criminal investigations from members of Parliament who think they must impose curbs on News Corp.’s ownership of newspapers and television and sports in England, and from shareholders who claim they have been cheated.
In the United States, News Corp., as an American company, will, among other things, have to explain why it has not violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it unlawful to pay bribes to government officials overseas—a proscription that includes the London police; whether the New York Post (or any of the company’s British newspapers) hacked into the mail or phone calls of celebrities in this country or of the families of 9/11 victims; and why their unethical behavior does not disqualify them under F.C.C. rules that require that those who license TV stations must be of solid moral character. Les Hinton, the head of Dow Jones and one of Murdoch’s senior executives in this country, has already resigned. (I wrote about Hinton’s departure on Friday.)

News Corp. Hacked by LulzSec, Top Witness in Hacking Case Found Dead

Internet News Corp. Hacked by LulzSec, Top Witness in Hacking Case Found Dead
Jason Mick (Blog) - July 19, 2011 8:37 AM

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LulzSec hacked into servers owned by Rupert Murdoch to post fake stories of the death of the embattled media mogul.

Meanwhile News Corp. whistleblower Sean Hoare was found dead under unexplained circumstances in England.  (Source: BBC)

The News of the World scandal continues to grow and astound

Things are looking very bad for Rupert Murdoch and his son James, masters of the media empire News Corp. (NWS).  When one of his tabloids News of the World was caught not only reportedly bribing English police officers, but also hacking into the phone accounts of celebrities, politicians, murder victims, and family members of dead soldiers, it caused an ever-expanding firestorm of wrath and criticism by the English public and caused Mr. Murdoch's advertisers to start dropping like flies

The last couple weeks have brought plenty of developments.  The London police chief resigned, amid allegations he was involved with the bribery schemes.  Mr. Murdoch has officially shuttered News of the World, formerly England's best-selling tabloid.  Its chief Rebekah Brooks has been arrested.  And Mr. Murdoch is set to be grilled today by England's Parliament.  But even wilder events have occurred within the last 24 hours.

I. Rupert Murdoch Dead?  Those LulzSec Scoundrels...

On Monday the homepage of The Sun, another English News Corp. tabloid, was hacked by famed hacker group LulzSec [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14].  The group hacked servers of The Times, the local New Corp. newspaper and then used them to host a fake version of The Sun, finishing the hack by forcing the homepage to redirect to The Times servers.

The cheeky hackers then posted a fake version of the tabloid which proclaimed:

Media moguls body discovered

Rupert Murdoch, the controversial media mogul, has reportedly been found dead in his garden, police announce.

Murdoch, aged 80, has said to have ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden...

The first sentence contains what may be a shout-out to top Anonymous/LulzSec member "Topiary".

After the traffic to the story overwhelmed The Times servers, LulzSec redirected The Sun homepage to their Twitter account.  The group brags in a Twitter post:

This was the work of Lulz Security, dear media. We would like to give a shout-out to our bros at @AnonymousIRC though, we love those guys!

Arrest us. We dare you. We are the unstoppable hacking generation and you are a wasted old sack of shit, Murdoch. ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWER!

LulzSec also claims to have hacked into News of the World's mail servers.  They posted the phone numbers of a handful of high profile employees in their Twitter feed, and claim to be preparing a major release for today.

This is the second hack of News Corp. by LulzSec.  Early in its campaign, the group hacked the services of Fox in the U.S.

As of this morning The Sun was still down, another blow to Mr. Murdoch's media empire.

II. Top Whistleblower in Case Found Dead

In related news, Sean Hoare, a reporter who blew the whistle on many details of his former employer News of the World's misdeeds was found dead yesterday, in a scene straight out of a Francis Coppola novel.

British Police told The Guardian, "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after. The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

Mr. Hoare is reportedly known for a history of drug and alcohol issues, however, the timing of his death will surely delight conspiracy theorists as just early this week he was dishing dirt to The New York Times.

His death is unlikely to significantly affect the case against Mr. Murdoch's empire, though.

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News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead

Death of Sean Hoare – who was first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson knew of hacking – not being treated as suspicious

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• Amelia Hill, James Robinson, Caroline Davies
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 July 2011 18.04 BST
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Former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare has been found dead. Photograph: BBC
Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned. Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home. Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after. "The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing." Hoare first made his claims in a New York Times investigation into the phone-hacking allegations at the News of the World. He told the newspaper that not only did Coulson know of the phone hacking, but that he actively encouraged his staff to intercept the phone calls of celebrities in the pursuit of exclusives. In a subsequent interview with the BBC he alleged that he was personally asked by his then-editor, Coulson, to tap into phones. In an interview with the PM programme he said Coulson's insistence that he didn't know about the practice was "a lie, it is simply a lie". At the time a Downing Street spokeswoman said Coulson totally and utterly denied the allegations and said he had "never condoned the use of phone hacking and nor do I have any recollection of incidences where phone hacking took place". Sean Hoare, a one-time close friend of Coulson's, told the New York Times the two men first worked together at the Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At the News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of his activities. Coulson "actively encouraged me to do it", Hoare said. In September last year, he was interviewed under caution by police over his claims that the former Tory communications chief asked him to hack into phones when he was editor of the paper, but declined to make any comment. Hoare returned to the spotlight last week, after he told the New York Times that reporters at the News of the World were able to use police technology to locate people using their mobile phone signals in exchange for payments to police officers. He said journalists were able to use a technique called "pinging" which measured the distance between mobile handsets and a number of phone masts to pinpoint its location. Hoare gave further details about the use of "pinging" to the Guardian last week. He described how reporters would ask a news desk executive to obtain the location of a target: "Within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the news desk would come back and say 'right that's where they are.'" He said: "You'd just go to the news desk and they'd just come back to you. You don't ask any questions. You'd consider it a job done. The chain of command is one of absolute discipline and that's why I never bought into it, like with Andy saying he wasn't aware of it and all that. That's bollocks." He said he would stand by everything he had told the New York Times about "pinging". "I don't know how often it happened. That would be wrong of me. But if I had access as a humble reporter … " He admitted he had had problems with drink and drugs and had been in rehab. "But that's irrelevant," he said. "There's more to come. This is not going to go away." Hoare named a private investigator who he said had links with the News of the World, adding: "He may want to talk now because I think what you'll find now is a lot of people are going to want to cover their arse." Speaking to another Guardian journalist last week, Hoare repeatedly expressed the hope that the hacking scandal would lead to journalism in general being cleaned up and said he had decided to blow the whistle on the activities of some of his former News of the World colleagues with that aim in mind. He also said he had been injured the previous weekend while taking down a marquee erected for a children's party. He said he had broken his nose and badly injured his foot when a relative accidentally struck him with a heavy pole from the marquee. Hoare also emphasised that he was not making any money from telling his story. Hoare, who has been treated for drug and alcohol problems, reminisced about partying with former pop stars and said he missed the days when he was able to go out on the town.