Douglas Caddy

Buccaneer Murdoch does it again by striking back to save the empire By Roy Greenslade Sunday 19 February 2012 19.18 EST guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/feb/20/sun-rupert-murdoch When Rupert Murdoch began his counter-attack on Friday I quoted a wise old Sun staffer who said: "He's done it again." Well, he has done it yet again - surprising everyone by deciding to launch the Sun on Sunday next week. The wily old media tycoon has a habit of being at his best when he is at bay. I thought he had lost the plot when he appeared before the Commons select committee last year, especially after his sorry performance in the week following the Milly Dowler disclosure in July. Clearly, I was wrong because this gambit smacks of the Rupert of old. It will surely have his rivals gasping, leaving them little time to prepare. Undoubtedly, there will be more shocks along the way. Expect the first issue to be very cheaply priced indeed. Expect him to flood the market. Most of all, expect him to stay the course because this is about him rescuing his tarnished reputation. He knows that the arrests of 10 staff have not damaged the Sun in the eyes of the paper's 2.7m buyers nor has it prompted any revolt among advertisers. The Sun brand therefore remains a saleable item. The Sunday version will therefore be unlikely to look anything like the News of the World. It will draw on the Sun itself, using the same logo and design in order to reinforce the "distance" from the paper he was forced to close. Mind you, the Sun on Sunday will surely get to be known by its initials, SoS. That's apt, given that it is something of mayday rescue. The fact that Murdoch feels he can pull it off also shows the strength of buccaneers running papers rather than corporations. He might have to answer to shareholders in the States, but this is a backyard pastime as far as they are concerned. So he can do as he wishes. This astonishing initative is all about one angry man, having suffered a setback that looked as if it might end in him sacrificing his British media interests, striking back to save his empire. It's personal, not corporate. He wants to show his staff, the politicians, the rest of Fleet Street, the readers, News Corp's investors - indeed, the world - that he will not go quietly. Love him or hate him, you have to admire the chutzpah. What a guy!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/19/sun-sunday-launch-news-corp_n_1287988.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/richard-e-snyder-foreign-service-officer-who-handled-oswalds-attempted-defection-dies-at-92/2012/01/31/gIQAr7rIgQ_story.html

Adolf Hitler had a son with a French teenager while serving as a soldier during the First World War, according to new evidence. Hitler is said to have had an affair with Charlotte Lobjoie, 16, as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917 By Peter Allen, Paris Daily Telegraph 1:47PM GMT 17 Feb 2012 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9088865/Hitler-had-son-with-French-teen.html Jean-Marie Loret, who died in 1985 aged 67, never met his father, but went on to fight Nazi forces during the Second World War. His extraordinary story has now been backed up by a range of compelling evidence, both in France and in Germany, which is published in the latest edition of Paris's Le Point magazine. Hitler is said to have had an affair with Mr Loret's mother, Charlotte Lobjoie, 16, as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917. Although he was fighting the French near Seboncourt, in the northern Picardy region, Hitler made his way to Fournes-in-Weppe, a small town west of Lille, for regular leave. There he met Miss Lobjoie, who later told their son: "One day I was cutting hay with other women, when we saw a German soldier on the other side of the street. "He had a sketch pad and seemed to be drawing. All the women found this interesting, and were curious to know what he was drawing. "I was designated to approach him." The pair started a brief relationship, which resulted in the birth of Jean-Marie, who was born in March 1918 after being conceived during a 'tipsy' evening in June 1917. Miss Lobjoie later told Jean-Marie: "When your father was around, which was very rarely, he liked to take me for walks in the countryside. "But these walks usually ended badly. In fact, your father, inspired by nature, launched into speeches which I did not really understand. "He did not speak French, but solely ranted in German, talking to an imaginary audience. Even if I spoke German I would not be able to follow him, as the histories of Prussia, Austria and Bavaria where not familiar to me at all, far from it. "My reaction used to anger your father so much that I did not show any reaction." Jean-Marie was, like thousands of other French children with German soldier fathers, badly treated by his peers at school. He was referred to as 'the son of the Bosh', and often had fights as he tried to defend his father, who had by now disappeared over the border back to Germany. Miss Lobjoie, meanwhile, refused to discuss Jean-Marie's father, and ended up giving her only son away for adoption in the 1930s to a family called Loret. His real father would not recognise Jean-Marie, but continued to stay in contact with Miss Lobjoie. Incredibly, Mr Loret went on to fight the Germans in 1939, defending the Maginot Line before it was bypassed during the Nazi invasion which resulted in France being occupied from 1940 until 1944. Mr Loret even joined the French Resistance, and was given the codename 'Clement'. Just before her death in the early 1950s, Miss Lobjoie finally told Jean-Marie that his father was arguably the most infamous dictator in human history. Mr Loret said: "In order not to get depressed, I worked non-stop, never took a holiday, and had no hobbies. For twenty years I didn't even go to the cinema." Mr Loret recently began investigating his past in great detail, employing scientists to prove that he has the same blood type as Hitler, and that they even have similar handwriting. Photographs of the two also reveal an astonishing resemblance. Other elements which corroborate the story are official Wehrmacht, or German Army, papers which show that officers brought envelopes of cash to Miss Lobjoie during the Second World War. When Miss Lobjoie died, Mr Loret also found paintings in her attic which were signed by Hitler, who was an accomplished artist. In Germany, meanwhile, a picture of a woman painted by Hitler looked exactly like Miss Lobjoie. Francois Gibault, Mr Loret's Paris lawyer, said: "He first came to see me in 1979, but was a bit lost and did not know whether he wanted to be publicly recognised as Hitler's son, or to erase all that completely. "He had the feelings of many illegitimate children: the desire to find a past, however heavy, but also the fear of returning to the old routine. "I talked with him a lot, playing the role of psychologist rather than lawyer." Mr Gibault said that Mr Loret's own children might now be in a position to claim royalties from Mien Kampf ('My Struggle'), Hitler's famous book which has sold millions of copies around the world. Mr Loret wrote a book called 'Your Father's Name Was Hitler' in 981, and it is now set to be re-published with all the new evidence. Hitler, who was born in an Austrian village, frequently spoke of his love for France, and especially for Paris. In December 1940, he paid an emotional visit to the capital city, where he was pictured saluting Napoleon's tomb in front of his bemused generals. More intriguingly still, Hitler transferred from Vienna part of the remains of Napoleon II, Napoleon Bonaparte's son with Marie Louise of Austria. Hitler often enthused about the greatness of Napoleon, saying that he wanted to have as big an impact on history as the Frenchman. Although he never officially had any sons or daughters of his own, Hitler often spoke of his love of children and animals. He married his mistress, Eva Braun, as the Red Army shelled his bunker in Berlin, in 1945, and committed suicide shortly afterwards.

Poster's note: This turn of events supports John Dolva's astute assessment in his recent posts that this criminal case is about to get more complicated. ------------------------------- International staff 'full of legal errors' Human rights lawyer says media mogul is not legally obliged to hand over evidence to police, and that doing so is unethical By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 February 2012 07.53 EST Rupert Murdoch is not legally obliged to hand over evidence of wrongdoing in his newspapers to the police, contrary to claims he made in a letter to News International staff, a leading human rights lawyer has said. Geoffrey Robertson has said that Murdoch's letter in relation to this issue "is full of errors, both of law and history". He added that the media baron was "ill-advisedly and unethically throwing away the shield that parliament gave to journalists in 1984 so they could protect their sources". On Friday, Murdoch told staff that his internal investigations unit, which had already handed over evidence that has led to the arrest of nine Sun journalists in the past month, would continue to disclose material to the police because the company was "obligated" to do so. "We will turn over every piece of evidence we find – not just because we are obligated to but because it is the right thing to do," Murdoch's email said. He said he would "continue to ensure that all appropriate steps are taken to protect legitimate journalistic privilege and sources" but warned he "cannot protect people who have paid public officials". Robertson said: "Apparently, he thinks it is right to hand over confidential source material – including the names of whistleblowers – to police without them even asking. This is a breach of the most fundamental ethic that journalists must not betray their source and there is no law that requires it. "On the contrary, the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act defines confidential journalistic material as 'excluded material', which police cannot seize at all, other than in a few cases such as official secrets, when they have to get an order from a circuit judge." In 1984, a delegation from the press, led by Lord MacGregor and including James Evans, the then-solicitor for Times Newspapers, and Geoffrey Robertson saw the home secretary in order to ensure that the 1984 Police Act provided a special procedure whereby confidential journalistic material could only be obtained by police applying to a circuit judge with proof that the public interest required them to have it. This doesn't apply, however, if a voluntarily give their documents to the police or invite police into their offices to take what they want." News International insiders have expressed concern that Murdoch's letter to staff means that his policy of voluntarily handing over documents to the authorities has not changed, and it will continue to disclose sources in breach of the code of practice for journalists. Robertson added: "What is so unattractive about Mr Murdoch's behaviour is that he is handing over journalists without ever asking them, or their editors, or their executives who must have signed off on the payments, what they were doing and whether they were genuinely pursuing a public interest story. Any significant payment must have been approved by executives, and News Corp does not appear to have turned them over." He added: "The real danger of this behaviour is that it is a blow to investigative journalism, which depends on the cultivation of sources. "Whistleblowers will be much less likely to come forward, however much they trust the journalist, if they fear that his proprietor may turn them over to police." "Everyone seems to have forgotten that over 200 years ago John Wilkes went to prison to stop government agents getting hold of his journalistic material without a specific warrant. He sued the government and won a great constitutional case. He would be turning in his grave."

The old monster Rupert Murdoch finds his elixir with his back against the wall Who could fail to be impressed with Murdoch the adrenaline junkie, handbrake-turning into the offices of the Sun? By Marina Hyde guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 February 2012 13.20 EST It normally requires historical perspective to be amused by the monsters of an age. When Caligula was killing for fun – on one occasion finding himself so bored by the lack of condemned criminals to enliven the intermission during a spectacle that he ordered several rows of spectators to be tossed into the arena and fed to the lions and tigers – it seems unlikely that the people of Rome could have found it in themselves to unleash much mirth at his expense (and by extension, their own). Time is a great desensitiser, though, and even the Russians eventually developed a whole joke shtick about Stalin's capacity for randomly shooting their ancestors. In the case of Rupert Murdoch, however, the pleasure is being able to have a giggle while the News Corp overlord is still in post. Don't mistake me – I still wouldn't risk a friendly tour of his cage, certainly not without four layers of protective clothing and afterwards participating in an ablutionary ritual known as the Karen Silkwood Memorial Shower. But for someone long held to be stifling the nation, Murdoch has begun adding to its gaiety. The obvious explanation for the merriment is that people aren't frightened of him any more. But after the indignities of the past few months, there is another, more curious sort of amusement to be had: watching how revitalised the old boy appears to be by having his back against the wall. Compare today's bullish announcement that the Sunday Sun was on its way with that doddery appearance before the select committee last July. It goes without saying that his suggestion that "this is the most humble day of my life" was the worst piece of acting of 2011 – including anything accomplished by The Only Way is Essex cast. And there was something embarrassingly unwatchable about his willingness to play the fond old man, shielded from a slapstick attack by his young missus. Yet just look at the life in him now, virtually handbrake-turning into the offices of his beleaguered Sun yesterday and announcing that the paper was "part of me" in the familiar tones of a man who'd sell it in a heartbeat if it was necessary to his survival. (As his daughter Elisabeth recalled to Tatler, she once raced home from school to her beloved pony only to be informed by her father that he'd given it away in a News of the World competition.) Why, it's almost infectious – almost – and if I weren't wearing my protective suit I'd swear his story was taking on some of the characteristics of the sort of crime caper where you almost find yourself rooting for the villain. But again, only almost. Consider giddy scramble, which saw him arrive at News International to tackle the crisis at the Sun. Contrary to demonic lore, Murdoch does not simply apparate through the portrait that always used to grace the building's lobby. Instead, his Range Rover careened into the company's underground parking garage yesterday morning as though it were being driven with the cavalier ineptitude of Monty Burns himself. "I'll take the wheel, Smithers!", he might have been rasping, as the wind rushed through his shaven hair. Even that non-hair is part of Murdoch's re-emergence after the undignified follies of recent years. Few historical figures have made themselves more endearing by choosing to become skinheads, but in Murdoch's case, the transition marked a clear attempt to reclaim some dignity. No longer would he stalk the Pantone spectrum between Reagan Raven and Macca Mahogany – and who knows, were he to have his time again he might even have thought better of getting done up in age-inappropriate white casualwear for his daughters' christening on the banks of the Jordan. (In attendance: Mr Tony Blair and Wolverine.) Rumour has it that he regretted the excruciating footage from a 2002 BBC documentary which showed him participating in a boxing workout with a flattering courtier of a personal trainer, while the voiceover solemnly intoned "he believes he will live to be 100". As well he now might, and not just because his mother is still going at 103. In that first scene of The Godfather, in the darkened inner sanctum at his daughter's wedding, Vito Corleone seems tired by the family business. But the amateur physiologist in me suspects that this late-surge energy rush will add years to Murdoch's life. After all, the character trait he is least able to disguise, even behind blacked-out windows, is his enduring relish for the chaos and drama of such times. Seeking historical episodes that illuminate the man, people often cite 1991, when News Corp's aggressive expansion had led to it becoming so overloaded with debt that the advertising recession would have toppled it had even one of the many banks extending short-term loans to the company held out. But Murdoch survived a game of hair-raising brinkmanship, and at some level it's impossible not to admire the adrenaline-junkiness of it all. A repeat of that stunning comeback seems impossible with his current problems – but in the necessity to fight for his life's work once more, the old monster might have found that unlikely and elusive elixir

Rupert Murdoch's email to staff announcing Sun on Sunday launch – full text Read the full email sent by Murdoch to News International staff, as he visits Wapping in the aftermath of journalists' arrests guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 February 2012 10.02 EST Rupert Murdoch has emailed staff about a Sun on Sunday launch. Dear colleagues: I've worked alongside you for 43 years to build the Sun into one of the world's finest papers. It is a part of me and is one of our proudest achievements. The Sun occupies a unique and important position within News Corporation. I have immense respect for our heritage, your exceptional journalism and, above all, you, the talented women and men who work tirelessly every day to ensure our readers have access to such a trusted news source. I believe this newsroom is full of great journalists and I remain grateful for your superb work and for the stories you uncover to inform and protect the public. None more so than over the last three weeks. My continuing respect makes this situation a source of great pain for me, as I know it is for each of you. We will obey the law. Illegal activities simply cannot and will not be tolerated – at any of our publications. Our board of directors, our management team and I take these issues very seriously. Our independently chaired management & standards committee, which operates outside of News International, has been instructed to co-operate with the police. We will turn over every piece of evidence we find – not just because we are obligated to but because it is the right thing to do. We are doing everything we can to assist those who were arrested – all suspensions are hereby lifted until or whether charged and they are welcome to return to work. News Corporation will cover their legal expenses. Everyone is innocent unless proven otherwise. I made a commitment last summer that I would do everything I could to get to the bottom of our problems and make this company an example to Fleet Street of ethical journalism. We will continue to ensure that all appropriate steps are taken to protect legitimate journalistic privilege and sources, which I know are essential for all of you to do your jobs. But we cannot protect people who have paid public officials. I am confident we can live by these commitments and still produce great journalism. We will build on the Sun's proud heritage by launching the Sun on Sunday very soon. Our duty is to expand one of the world's most widely read newspapers and reach even more people than ever before. Having a winning paper is the best answer to our critics. I am even more determined to see the Sun continue to fight for its readers and its beliefs. I am staying with you all, in London, for the next several weeks to give you my unwavering support. I am confident we will get through this together and emerge stronger. Thank you, Rupert Murdoch

From New York Times article of February 17 posted above: Mr. Kavanagh and the National Union of Journalists have said that they are considering a lawsuit against News International and the management committee for revealing journalistic sources to the police a violation of the European human rights laws provisions on press freedom, they say. But the committee, responding to the attacks by Mr. Kavanagh and others, said in a statement that it was not betraying legitimate investigative journalism, but seeking to root out criminality. It is not about lunch or drinks, the statement said. That is a complete red herring. This is about significant payments to a number of public officials that appear to be in breach of the law.

Murdoch to Try to Quell Anger in Sun Newsroom The New York Times By JOHN F. BURNS February 17, 2012 LONDON — In his 60 years in the newspaper business, few moments can have been as charged for Rupert Murdoch as the one he seems likely to confront on Friday when he is scheduled to visit the London headquarters of his British newspaper arm, News International, where reporters and editors are said to be in a state of civil war against Mr. Murdoch and his executives. Scotland Yard jolted the Murdoch empire when it mounted dawn raids last weekend on the homes of five senior newsroom staff members from The Sun tabloid who were questioned on accusations of paying police officers and other public officials for leaking confidential information for the paper’s scoops. After that, News International spokesmen said Mr. Murdoch, who is 80, would fly to Britain this week from his base in New York on what they described as a previously scheduled visit to review the company’s British operations. These include The Sun and two upmarket titles, The Times and The Sunday Times, whose mounting losses, said to have totaled more than $260 million in the past three years, have been effectively subsidized by The Sun and its sister tabloid, The News of the World. The Sun, with a circulation of more than 2.7 million copies, has been nurtured by Mr. Murdoch from modest beginnings in the 1960s to its present status as Britain’s highest-selling daily newspaper. The News of the World was the country’s richest weekend paper when it was hastily closed by Mr. Murdoch in July amid mounting revelations about the paper’s pattern of illegally hacking into cellphone voice mail messages. But the Murdoch trip seems likely to be far from routine, going to the heart of what many media pundits, lawyers and politicians in Britain have come to see as a battle for the survival of his embattled newspaper operations in Britain — and perhaps, ultimately, a fight to shore up Mr. Murdoch’s control of the News Corporation, the American-based media conglomerate that owns the British papers and tens of billions of dollars of other assets, including Fox News and the Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox. News Corporation executives have been reported to be bracing themselves against the possibility of eventual criminal action against the corporation in the United States under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits American corporations or their subsidiaries from bribing foreign officials. They are also concerned about restive stockholder groups in the United States and Britain that have challenged the Murdoch family’s control of the News Corporation and, in particular, the position of James Murdoch, the 39-year-old son of Mr. Murdoch and, until recently, his presumptive heir, who heads corporation’s operations in Europe and Asia and oversees the British newspapers. But for now, the focus is on disentangling the Murdoch empire in Britain from the criminal investigations swirling around it here, and demonstrating, as Mr. Murdoch has said, that the News Corporation is determined to root out wrongdoing in the British papers once and for all. The Sun journalists arrested on Saturday — among them the deputy editor, the deputy news editor, the chief reporter, the chief foreign correspondent and the photo editor — brought to 21 the number of Murdoch-employed journalists from The Sun and The News of the World who have been arrested in parallel investigations by Scotland Yard into the bribery of police officers and other public officials. Staff members in The Sun’s newsroom said they were told on Thursday to expect Mr. Murdoch to stage a walk-through on Friday in an effort to quell the ferment. The anger, these sources have said, has been stirred by the actions of a Murdoch-appointed “management and standards” committee that has been acting, effectively, as Scotland Yard’s tipster on cases in which The Sun and The News of the World have made corrupt payments or hacked cellphones. Reporting directly to the Murdoch hierarchy in New York, it has been working from an archive of 300 million e-mails from the two newspapers. Mr. Murdoch’s visit to The Sun’s headquarters, one Sun reporter said, was explained to the journalists there as an opportunity for Mr. Murdoch to reassure them that the paper would not be closed as a result of the corruption scandal, as The News of the World was. The chief executive of News International, Tom Mockridge, addressed the staff members’ concerns in an internal memorandum on Thursday. “I understand the pressure many of you are under and have the greatest admiration for everyone’s continued professionalism,” he wrote. “The Sun has a proud history of delivering groundbreaking journalism. You should know that I have had a personal assurance today from Rupert Murdoch about his total commitment to continue to own and publish The Sun newspaper.” “He wants to lift morale,” the Sun reporter said of Mr. Murdoch, speaking on terms of anonymity out of concern that his job might be at risk. But nothing at this stage, he said, was likely to lift the gloom that has settled on the paper. “People are pretty much in a state of shock at what has happened and are wondering where all of this will end.” The police raids on Saturday were in many respects the rudest blow yet suffered by the Murdoch papers in months of police inquiries. The manner of the round-up and the searches of Sun employees’ homes embittered their colleagues. Trevor Kavanagh, the paper’s former political editor and now its associate editor, accused the police of treating The Sun’s journalists “like members of an organized gang” and as “threats to national security” simply for doing their jobs. He and others at The Sun said that the police tactics had included rousting children from their beds, “ripping up floorboards,” pulling car doors apart and delving into cereal boxes. But Mr. Kavanagh, a confidant of Rupert Murdoch’s for years, reserved some of his harshest condemnation for the Murdoch-appointed inquiry committee, which said in its own statement that the arrests had resulted from information the committee had passed to Scotland Yard. Describing the mood at The Sun as “a feeling of being under siege,” Mr. Kavanagh said that his Sun colleagues saw the continuing arrests as a “witch hunt” in which the Murdoch hierarchy was seeking to evade corporate accountability by shifting responsibility for criminal wrongdoing to individual journalists. The Scotland Yard unit investigating the corruption accusations, known as Operation Elveden, declined to give any details of the payoffs that are under scrutiny. But the Guardian newspaper reported that payments of £1,000 to police officers — equivalent to nearly $1,600 — have been common, and that some police officers may have been on what the paper called “retainers” of £10,000 a year, about $16,000. But Mr. Kavanagh, among others, defended the practice that has become known in Britain as checkbook journalism, saying that some payments to public officials were legitimate. “These stories sometimes involve whistle-blowers. Sometimes money changes hands,” he said. “This has been standard practice as long as newspapers have existed, here and abroad.” Mr. Kavanagh and the National Union of Journalists have said that they are considering a lawsuit against News International and the management committee for revealing journalistic sources to the police — a violation of the European human rights law’s provisions on press freedom, they say. But the committee, responding to the attacks by Mr. Kavanagh and others, said in a statement that it was not betraying legitimate investigative journalism, but seeking to root out criminality. “It is not about lunch or drinks,” the statement said. “That is a complete red herring. This is about significant payments to a number of public officials that appear to be in breach of the law.” Ravi Somaiya contributed reporting from London, and Amy Chozick from New York.

Rupert Murdoch 'tells journalists Sun on Sunday will launch soon' Daily Telegraph By James Orr 6:30AM GMT 17 Feb 2012 Rupert Murdoch has told staff at The Sun that a Sun on Sunday paper would be launched "very soon", according to reports Employees were also told in an email that those who had been arrested would be allowed to return to work, it was claimed. Mr Murdoch was visiting The Sun's newsroom today in an attempt to reassure staff that he will not close or sell the paper following the arrest of senior staff members over alleged corrupt payments. The chairman of News Corporation flew in to Luton airport last night and was pictured leaving a London address in a Range Rover this morning clutching a copy of The Sun. He later arrived in Wapping at the headquarters of the company's subsidiary, News International, which publishes The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times. Nine journalists were arrested this month after information was passed to the police by an internal body set up to deal with inquiries into telephone hacking and police corruption. The actions of the independent committee - known as the Management Standards Committee (MSC) - has angered staff at the paper and led to allegations of a “witch-hunt”. Five Sun journalists, including the deputy editor, picture editor and chief reporter, were held by Scotland Yard detectives on Saturday on suspicion of making improper payments to police and public officials. Four current and former employees of the paper were arrested a fortnight earlier, and a senior reporter was detained in November. They have all been bailed and none has been charged. Trevor Kavanagh, associate editor of The Sun, which is Britain's top-selling paper, has strongly criticised the Metropolitan Police's handling of the arrests and voiced concerns about the MSC's actions. "There is unease about the way some of the best journalists in Fleet Street have ended up being arrested on evidence which the MSC has handed to the police," he said on Monday. The MSC was set up at the height of the earlier furore over phone-hacking at the now defunct News of The World. It was designed to rescue the company's reputation and show publically that it was cooperating fully with the police. The close relationship between the MSC and the police, whose officers work out of a building adjacent to journalists at The Sun, has infuriated the paper's staff who feel they have been hung out to dry. Several journalists at the tabloid are preparing a legal challenge to News Corporation, Mr Murdoch’s US-based parent company, for handing details of confidential sources to police. It is understood they are keen to hire Geoffrey Robertson QC, who used a column in The Times earlier this week to call on journalists to fight for their human rights. However, a source close to the investigation said: “This is not about sources or expenses, this is an investigation into serious suspected criminality over a sustained period. “It involves regular cash payments totalling tens of thousands of pounds a year for several years to public officials, some of whom were effectively on retainers to provide information. In totality it involves a six-figure sum.” Mr Robertson, a leading human rights lawyer, recalled a European Court ruling which stated that the protection of journalistic sources was one of the basic conditions for press freedom. He said: “By revealing journalistic sources, the committee is not so much 'draining the swamp’, as one member described it, as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” Journalists “with a sense of humour” could formally complain to the Press Complaints Commission that News Corp was breaching its own code of practice, Mr Robertson added. The MSC has defended its actions, insisting that it has to work within the confines of the law and that material derived from “lawful” journalistic practices was being redacted to protect sources. The National Union of Journalists said it had been approached by “more than a dozen” journalists from The Sun who were concerned about the disclosure of sources. A spokesman said: “We are very seriously looking at the legal redress regarding the management and standards committee’s activity. We support Geoffrey Robertson’s view that the committee has conveniently forgotten the relevant section of the Human Rights Act and will pursue the case on those grounds.” Mr Robertson said the journalists would have to pursue a breach of confidentiality action in Britain before taking their case to Europe. Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the NUJ, called on Sun journalists who feared their confidential sources had been compromised to get in touch. “The protection of sources is an essential principle which has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the European Court of Human Rights as the cornerstone of press freedom and the NUJ shall defend it,” she said

Gotcha! The Sun sinks Murdoch By Philip Stephens Financial Times February 16, 2012 7:26 pm Now you know what it’s like. So a politician friend chuckled the other day after police roused several journalists from their beds for questioning about the alleged bribery of public officials. Not so long ago Britain’s parliamentarians were excoriated for fiddling their expenses. Now the nation’s press is in the dock. At Westminster you can cut the Schadenfreude with a knife. The expenses scandal shredded the reputation of Britain’s political class. Some went to jail and others were shamed into retirement. Politicians had never been held high in public esteem but billing taxpayers for the cost of cleaning out the moat at the family estate was a claim too far. News International, the British subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, is at the centre of the bribery scandal. A furore about voicemail interceptions has already forced the closure of the best-selling News of the World. This has merged into an even more damaging investigation into illegal payments to police officers and civil servants. The reckoning for Mr Murdoch has been brutal. A year ago the British outpost of the mighty News Corp empire was unassailable. Politicians of all stripes and seniority doffed their caps in deference to Mr Murdoch’s power and ruthlessness. News Corp was close to securing full control of the highly profitable British Sky Broadcasting. Now, all looks close to ruin. The political doors have slammed shut. There are questions among MPs and regulators not just about the future of the newspapers, but whether News Corp is a “fit and proper” owner of its sizeable stake in BSkyB. The Sun, the jewel in the empire’s tabloid crown, is under investigative siege. All in all, about 30 former and serving News International executives and journalists have been arrested. News Corp has already paid out nearly $200m in legal fees and compensation payments to victims of phone hacking. The final figure could be many times higher. The merciless irony of the latest arrests is that they spring from Mr Murdoch’s efforts to draw a line. The alleged bribery evidence was handed over by the independent standards committee he set up to clear up the phone-hacking affair. Journalists complain they are being thrown under a train by their own management, while confidential sources are compromised. Humming away in the background to all this is the Leveson inquiry, the public hearings into media regulation set up by the government. This reaches beyond News Corp, and the evidence offered to the inquiry by a procession of witnesses – some celebrities, others caught by accident in the public eye – has been less than flattering. The old system of press self-regulation, where insiders and newspaper editors dominate, has been exposed as a sham. Indignation among journalists extends beyond The Sun. Even among those eager to kick Mr Murdoch while he is down there is unease at the sight of reporters being hauled off to police stations. Isn’t that what happens in places like Russia? When politicians were brought before the mob to explain their expenses their answer was that it had ever been thus. Governments had not raised their pay for fear of angering voters. The quid pro quo had been an overgenerous and under-policed expenses system. Their media tormentors would have none of this. Yet now they are mounting much the same defence: handing over brown envelopes to useful contacts has happened since time immemorial. Cash for tips can be a vital lubricant of press freedom. How else can the media shine a light along the corridors of power? This might be half convincing were it shown that bribes had been instrumental in exposing corruption and malfeasance. My hunch is that most were handed over in return for gossip about the mishaps and misdemeanours of celebrities or for the inside track on crime stories. Politicians and the press have been caught in the same trap. The days when MPs could charge maintenance of tennis courts and duck ponds to the public purse, and reporters could pay friendly coppers are gone. It is odd that journalists should complain given the treatment they meted out to others who had imagined that things could continue as they were. We live in an age of accountability. Standards of behaviour once deemed acceptable as long as they stayed out of sight are now beyond the pale. Even those at the sharpest end of national security – soldiers fighting foreign wars and spooks conducting clandestine operations against terrorists – find themselves under an unforgiving glare. The media has played a big part in this change, so can scarcely exempt itself. By the time the myriad investigations end quite a few journalists may have gone to jail. The process will raise justified concerns about press freedom. For all their flaws, Britain’s rumbustious newspapers are a vital check and balance on the abuse of power. The big challenge, however, does not lie in the prosecution of those who hacked phones or paid bribes. The British media are being throttled by a draconian libel law designed to protect the rich and powerful. State regulation would tighten the noose. The economics of the digital age meanwhile conspire against expensive investigative journalism. As for Mr Murdoch, the game is up. Investigators at The Sun are talking about “serious suspected criminality over a sustained period”. The swashbuckling style of News International was rooted in an age when proprietors told politicians what to do, journalists did what they liked, and police officers were on cash retainers. Those days have passed. So has Mr Murdoch’s dominion. This need not mean the end of a free press

http://ctka.net/pr1197-jfk.html http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CI168U/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_ZZCppb10BVSFV

I have posted a link to this new topic on my Facebook page, where it will be read and shared by other Facebook members.

Woman Spurned? JFK's Teenage Mistress's Tale Falls on Deaf Ears When the President Was a Sex Predator by STEWART LAWRENCE www.counterpunch.org February 16, 2012 Mimi Alford, the grandmother of five who claims in her new memoir to have been President John F. Kennedy’s mistress as a 19-year old White House intern, made the rounds of some of America’s leading talk shows last week. But you’d hardly know it from the contemptuous response she received. In Alford’s appearance on “The View,” co-host Barbara Walters, no stranger to adultery herself (her own highly-publicized affair with former Sen. Ed Brooke is the stuff of legends), bristled with condescension, demanding to know what took the 69-year-old retired church administrator so long to write her book, Once Upon a Secret – and whether she was just “in it for the money.” Alford’s answer - that she was hoping to get a long-buried secret off her chest, and to heal – seemed eminently reasonable on its face. But no one, it seems – least of all Whoopi Goldberg, who’d threatened to boycott the interview, perhaps out of sympathy for the surviving Kennedy relatives – was in the mood to listen. Chris Matthews, meanwhile, could barely get a rise out of his assembled panel of JFK experts, who quickly dismissed Alford’s salacious tale as “irrelevant.” One panelist even feigned an exaggerated yawn when asked to comment on the book and its implications for Kennedy’s “legacy.” At one level, can you blame them? After all, JFK’s penchant for womanizing is already part of the official presidential record, and is deeply ingrained in our national psyche. How many more details about his sexual adventures do we really need? Moreover, Alford’s story has surfaced previously. JFK biographer Robert Dallek, in his 2003 book, JFK: An Unifinished Life, all but “outed” Alford without actually mentioning her by name. He describes a “tall, slender, beautiful nineteen-year-old college sophomore” who was JFK’s mistress, and his account matches Alford’s perfectly. In fact, after Dallek’s book appeared, a number of journalists managed to track the former intern down. Asked to elaborate on Dallek’s account, and to confirm a separate one by journalist Sally Bedell Smith, she demurred. That was her right, of course. But the media – like selfish boys who one day grow up to be president – often punishes those who hold out. There’s also the fact that we’re in an election year, with an embattled Democratic president in the midst of a fierce re-election campaign. Obama may be above reproach, but dredging up JFK and his peccadilloes could remind voters that a number of other Democratic figures, including former president Bill Clinton, have carried on in much the same fashion. “Social issues” seem to be gaining influence inside the GOP again, and could end up shaping broader voter preferences in November. Of course, Democrats aren’t the only ones with cause to worry. GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is fending off the snide insinuations of his rivals that he’s a shameless adulterer unfit for the presidency – for which there is ample evidence. And members of both parties in Congress – most recently House Democrat Alcee Hastings, and before him Rep. Anthony Wiener – face constant scrutiny, and pressure to resign, as their sexual indiscretions become known. It could just be that the country – and the media – are inured to reports of sexual transgression by politicians, even if, Alford’s 50-year old case – one of the most detailed accounts of presidential philandering anywhere – stands as something of a Rosetta stone for what has since come to pass. It might even have led to an interesting discussion about how our standards and attitudes toward politicians and sex have – or haven’t – changed, and why. Alford’s story, viewed in-depth, is deeply troubling, in fact. It’s clear from listening to her that the affair, if it happened – and no one has any real reason to doubt that it did – profoundly affected her life, and though consensual in the strict sense, it represented an enormous abuse of power. Alford hadn’t been in her job 4 days before JFK lured her to the presidential bedroom and bedded her down. She was a virgin at the time, and it’s clear, at least from her telling (there are no independent witnesses) that the president could have cared less what the impact of his actions might be on a young woman in his charge. Kennedy, it seems, was in full predator mode, and though he seems to have developed some real affection for Alford over time, he ended up treating her like a call girl, summoning her at all hours, and leaving her to languish in hotel rooms or presidential limousines when it turned out that he couldn’t get away. (Incredibly, he did make time for her at the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and during other key moments in his presidency). In fact, listening to Alford talk about the affair, one can see, or sense, that she never really got over it, and retains deeply conflicted feelings. When she talks about JFK, she doesn’t sound like a grown woman reflecting wistfully on her early loss of innocence, but a still-fragile girl remembering the powerful male figure who overwhelmed her. In interviews, she seems frozen in time, still blushing at the thought that “such a handsome man picked me,” which JFK did, of course, just as he picked so many others. Alford says she’s alright today, and we have no real reason to doubt her, except that her recounting of her experience, both in her book, and in person, seems to betray a longing, and an unresolved grief. No one was available to listen to her story at the time, and it’s unclear whether she ever got or needed counseling or therapy to move on with her life. She eventually stopped seeing Kennedy to get married, but he insisted on seeing her even after she got engaged, and her marriage didn’t last. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to figure out why. Of course, there’s another reason Alford might have gotten such a cold reception last week. She reminds so many women, including national journalists, about how things used to be, in the pre-feminist era, for women. Her story, if probed, might lead to uncomfortable questions about what others would have done, then or now, at such a tender age. Perhaps they’d rather not know the answer to that — or worse, they’ve had similar experiences they’re not prepared to divulge. Alford never resisted Kennedy’s charms, and she says that she couldn’t imagine having escaped their first sexual encounter – which, by today’s standards, constituted workplace sexual harassment, and coercion, if not rape – unless she’d been brave enough to scream. She also submitted to at least one incredibly humiliating episode, when JFK on a whim induced her to perform oral sex on one of his top aides, which she did — far too willingly, it seems. But she also remembers fondly her bathtub romps with the president and describes him with a smile as a “playful” lover – as if it all happened yesterday, rather than a half century ago. Alford, who coincidentally attended the same Rhode Island finishing school that Jackie Kennedy once did, looked coiffed, poised and elegant, and seemed eager to tell her story. But despite the big-time bookings she received, it was clear that no one really had time for her. They listened, not always politely, asked a few perfunctory questions, and then dismissed her with a hint of condescension – and confusion. Maybe she should have skipped the media tour altogether. At least with JFK, she occasionally had more fun. Stewart J. Lawrence can be reached at stewartlawrence81147@gmail.com

February 15, 2012 Nixon and Friends, Stalked With Literary License The New York Times By JANET MASLIN WATERGATE By Thomas Mallon 432 pages. Pantheon Books. $26.95. In this stealth bull’s-eye of a political novel, Thomas Mallon invests the Watergate affair with all the glitter, glamour, suave grace and subtlety that it doesn’t often get. His cleverly counterintuitive “Watergate” even has the name-dropping panache of a Hollywood tell-all. In one typically well-waltzed episode the guests at an Oct. 20, 1973, birthday party for the columnist Art Buchwald include The Washington Post’s editor, Ben Bradlee, “with an attractive, sharp-eyed girlfriend, apparently a reporter”; “Lyndon’s little poodle, Jack Valenti — now a miniature, silver-haired version of the MGM lion, cheerleading the movie business on”; ancient Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the most caustic party guest in town; and the network television newscaster Roger Mudd. Only when a loudspeaker begins paging Mudd does it become apparent that this is that Saturday night: the night of President Richard M. Nixon’s dismissal of Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor; and the departures of Elliot Richardson, the attorney general, and William Ruckelshaus, the deputy attorney general, who both refused to fire Cox. These events, which earned the sobriquet “Saturday Night Massacre,” happen almost casually in the midst of Mr. Mallon’s fine, boisterous historical tableau. How accurate will hair splitters find this episode? “The text contains deviations from fact that some readers will regard as unpardonable and others will deem unworthy of notice,” Mr. Mallon writes blithely in an afterword. So readers who deem the book’s liberties too free can stick to the tonnage of Watergate memoirs, transcripts, investigative reports and marginalia. More fun-loving types can take “Watergate” as lively, witty drama and give Mr. Mallon a pass on the grueling fact-checking his story might otherwise warrant. Mr. Mallon, the director of the creative writing program at George Washington University, recently talked to the student newspaper there about his research process. At a certain point he began investigating on a need-to-know basis for fear of bogging down in details and giving “Watergate” the feel of a dissertation. He also felt free to make things up, so a few characters — like an old flame of the first lady, Pat Nixon — are clearly inventions. But most of the time the book is laced together so seamlessly that it’s impossible to be sure where the reality leaves off and the fabricating begins. A couple of tactical conceits work very well here. One is Mr. Mallon’s decision to zero in on Watergate’s most colorful characters and give each of them a distinct point of view. Most of them are women: even when the book follows the worried thoughts of Attorney General John Mitchell, it offers a sad but riotous depiction of his loose-cannon wife, Martha, to whom he is still deeply, romantically attached. But the book’s uncontested star is Alice Longworth, who remembers the Teapot Dome scandal and certainly knows how to put this one in perspective, and who is never at a loss for a scorching one-liner. “I believe she’s to be released back into the wild after the benediction,” she says of the singer Ethel Merman. The gentleness with which Mrs. Longworth makes Nixon a confidant and tries to help him are especially touching, given what a she-demon she is to everyone else. Mr. Mallon also reanimates Rose Mary Woods, the president’s fiercely loyal secretary, whose way with a tape recorder became the centerpiece of the Watergate investigation. Here she’s very human indeed: tipsily fun loving, easily flattered and sharply opinionated about other White House personnel. (She hates H. R. Haldeman but loves the macho good cheer of Alexander Haig.) Dorothy Hunt, the tough, stubborn wife of the ex-C.I.A. man E. Howard Hunt, is also made three-dimensional, and her husband’s pain over her death becomes palpable on the page. Refreshing note: The Watergate burglars themselves, so often a source of confusion in unraveling the story’s criminal aspects, are mere walk-ons to Mr. Mallon. G. Gordon Liddy, a character who could wear out his welcome in no time, is just the butt of occasional jokes. The other smart tactic on display in “Watergate” is Mr. Mallon’s understated way of working vital information into his account. Important events — like the discovery that Woods somehow erased part of a crucial White House recording — are mentioned almost in passing. (“The story of the blank stretch had broken yesterday,” the book simply says.) Veteran Watergate watchers will also notice Mr. Mallon’s unusual way of dealing with the press: he ignores it. There is a reference to “Bernstein and Woodward,” who were not a brand name to the White House then. And there is an apt jibe at broadcast journalists for using the word “unprecedented” until it “seemed a synonym for ‘routine.’ ” In “Watergate” the news media are most alive in the pipe dreams of those characters who imagine the laurels that await them after this little historical blip has run its course. The most wickedly drawn is Richardson, a k a “the Former Everything” because of all the cabinet-level posts he has held. It is he who, for all his patrician bonhomie and very false modesty, harbors the most vanity and ambition in this story. Mr. Mallon mocks him mercilessly, never more so than when Richardson is indulging his habit of painting bird watercolors while Rome, figuratively, burns. Richardson is on the extreme other side of the sympathy scale from Fred LaRue, the moneyman from Mississippi who served as deputy director of the infamous Committee for the Re-Election of the President. LaRue is made to seem a hapless dupe caught up in scandal on a scale he could never have imagined. An envelope of his, labeled “moot,” serves as the “Rosebud” of Mr. Mallon’s story. Then of course there’s Nixon himself. Mr. Mallon wastes no time on the familiar caricatures of a sloshed, foul-mouthed chief executive and his wooden wife. His Nixons are an affectionate couple, surprisingly relaxed (she calls him “pal”) and intimate after three decades of marriage. And the president’s public awkwardness masks something more human. “Nixon’s self-pity was a mere overlay, a kind of plastic transparency protecting the authentic anguish visible beneath,” Mr. Mallon writes. Even a cap on his teeth poignantly appears to be “infinitesimally whiter, and curiously more sincere, than the rest of his smile.” This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: February 15, 2012 An earlier version of this review misstated the circumstances under which Elliot Richardson left his post as attorney general. He resigned; he was not dismissed.

Sun staff line up human rights challenge to News Corp inquiry team Journalists approach NUJ with view to hiring leading lawyer to question legality of internal investigation ByJosh Halliday guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 February 2012 08.57 EST Senior journalists at the Sun are preparing to launch a legal challenge to the News Corporation unit that disclosed confidential sources to the police, leading to the arrest of nine of the paper's current and former staff this month. Journalists at the News International red-top have approached the National Union of Journalists with a view to hiring the leading human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson QC, to question the legality of parent company News Corp's management and standards committee. The NUJ has been contacted by more than a dozen journalists from the Sun with concerns about the protection of sources, it is understood. The potential legal challenge represents a dramatic new front in the civil war at Rupert Murdoch's Wapping newspaper headquarters on the eve of his arrival in London to deal with the crisis at the Sun. Robertson used a column in the Sun's News International sister paper, the Times, on Wednesday to urge journalists to protect their sources using clause 14 of the Press Complaints Commission's newspaper industry code of practice. The leading lawyer, who has fought on behalf of publishers for press freedom throughout his career, suggested in the column that News Corp's MSC should "be required to learn by heart" a passage from the European court of human rights' ruling in the case of Goodwin v UK, which predates the Human Rights Act and affirms the importance of protection for journalists' sources. This passage states: "Protection of journalistic sources is one of the basic conditions for press freedom... without such protection, sources may be deterred from assisting the press in informing the public on matters of public interest. "As a result the vital public watchdog role of the press may be undermined and the ability of the press to provide accurate and reliable information may be adversely affected." Robertson had not been formally approached by the NUJ at the time of publication. The NUJ has signed up a number of Sun journalists as new members since the arrest of five of the newspaper's senior journalists on Saturday, it is understood. Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the NUJ, is due to meet lawyers on Wednesday about a challenge to News Corp's MSC. Stanistreet said on Wednesday that "Sun journalists have approached the NUJ with concerns about sources being compromised." Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: "We have been approached by a group of journalists from the Sun. We are now exploring a number of ways to support them, including discussing legal redress. "We recognise that [News International Staff Association] officials are trying their best for staff, but they have no chance because they are seen as creatures of Rupert Murdoch's management. The NUJ can defend staff at the Sun, and elsewhere in News International, and represent them against a management that seems prepared to throw them to the wolves. It is not an exaggeration to say that if journalists are not allowed to offer protection to their sources – often brave people who are raising their heads above the parapet to disclose information – then the free press in the UK is dead. "The protection of sources is an essential principle which has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the European Court of Human Rights as the cornerstone of press freedom and the NUJ shall defend it. In 2007 a judge made it clear that journalists and their sources are protected under article 10 of the Human Rights Act and it applies to leaked material. "I will be writing to News Corp's management and standards committee asking what authority it had to disclose this information. I will also be writing to staff at News International to invite them to join the NUJ." The Wapping-based MSC on Tuesday defended its decision to disclose sources to the police, with a contact close to the committee saying that it would not disclose the names of police officers or other public officials simply because they appear to have socialised with journalists.

Police investigating 'suspected criminality over sustained period' at Sun Daily Telegraph 3:28PM GMT 15 Feb 2012 The investigation into payments by Rupert Murdoch's Sun journalists to police and other officials is looking into "suspected criminality over a sustained period of time" involving tens of thousands of pounds, it can be disclosed. Police have arrested nine former and current senior Sun staff in recent weeks in an investigation looking into payments to police and public officials. The move however has resulted in a backlash from staff who have accused police and Murdoch's News Corp management from conducting a witch hunt into journalists and their sources. "This is not about sources or expenses, this is an investigation into serious suspected criminality over a sustained period," a source with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "It involves regular cash payments totalling tens of thousands of pounds a year for several years to public officials, some of whom were effectively on retainers to provide information. In totality it involves a six-figure sum." The civil war in Rupert Murdoch’s empire deepened on Tuesday after The Times raised concerns that the internal investigation is risking journalists’ sources. The newspaper reported that names of public officials were being passed to the police on the grounds they do not deserve protection because there is evidence they may have been paid for information. The Times said it was not clear whether the investigation had identified the sources without considering “whether the publication of stories based on their information was in the public interest”. The story came a day after one of The Sun’s most senior journalists said the internal inquiry was a “witch hunt” designed to protect News Corporation, Mr Murdoch’s parent company in the US. It also emerged that the investigation by News Corporation’s Management and Standards Committee (MSC) also includes The Times and The Sunday Times after the main focus was on The Sun and the now defunct News of the World. The National Union of Journalists said it had received calls from reporters on the Times titles who were concerned that their reputations could be damaged. The reporters said they felt they were being offered as a “sacrifice”. The MSC is examining more than 300 million emails, expenses claims and payment records to identify any unlawful activity, including payments to police officers and other public officials. The Times reported that the investigation by the MSC included looking for keywords such as “bribe” and “bung”. It said the MSC had reassured staff that the names of confidential sources would be redacted if any details were passed to the police but that would not apply if the source was a public official who may have been paid. A source close to the MSC insisted payments to public officials were illegal and there was no public interest for bribing people. It is another sign of the growing tensions between staff at News International, which runs Mr Murdoch’s UK newspapers, and the parent company News Corporation. The MSC answers to News Corporation and has been instructed to co-operate fully with the police investigating the fallout of the hacking scandal and alleged payments to police and other informants. On Monday, Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun’s associate editor, described the recent arrest of Sun journalists as a “witch hunt” and suggested members of the MSC were revelling in the crisis. He said staff felt “under siege” following the arrest this weekend of five more senior members of staff and admitted: “There has never been a bigger crisis than this.” The MSC source said The Times and The Sunday Times had always been included in the review but admitted The Sun had been the initial focus. Source: Reuters

Investigators suspect ‘serious criminality’ at News Corp By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York and Salamander Davoudi in London Financial Times Last updated: February 15, 2012 9:08 pm Investigators looking into alleged corrupt practices at News Corp’s UK newspapers suspect that cash payments worth more than £100,000 were made to police officers and other public officials, one person familiar with the investigation said. News Corp’s management and standards committee, set up after the News of the World phone hacking scandal convulsed the News International newspaper division last July, has been under fire from reporters for passing information to police that has led to the arrests of nine journalists at The Sun. On Wednesday, a person with knowledge of the investigation dismissed claims that journalists were being penalised for innocuous lunches with sources. “This is not about sources or expenses,” he said: “This is an investigation into serious suspected criminality over a sustained period.” He added: “It involves regular cash payments totalling tens of thousands of pounds a year for several years to public officials, some of whom were effectively on a retainer to provide information. In totality, it involves a six-figure sum.” The comments came after the National Union of Journalists said it had taken advice from John Hendy QC about the legality of the committee handing over information, exposing confidential sources to the Metropolitan Police, and was considering whether to pursue legal action. The NUJ said it had been approached not only by journalists at The Sun but also by civil servant whistleblowers who are frightened about their confidential conversations with journalists being disclosed and who want to understand their legal rights. Writing in The Times, which is also owned by News International, Geoffrey Robertson QC, a leading human rights lawyer, said on Wednesday that members of the management and standards committee should be required to “learn by heart” a leading judgment of the European Court of Human Rights relating to the protection of journalistic sources. “If journalists cannot promise anonymity to sources and keep that solemn promise there would be a lot less news and what there was would be less reliable,” he wrote. “How else did the Daily Telegraph avoid prosecution for paying a substantial sum for details of MPs expenses?” The committee was not so much “draining the swamp”, as one representative had described its work, as “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”, Mr Robertson said, adding that tabloid journalists should “stop bashing the European Court of Human Rights” and start using it to protect their own rights and those of their readers. Both News Corp and the management and standards committee declined to comment. Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, called on Sun journalists to join the union, saying: “The NUJ can defend staff at the Sun, and elsewhere in News International, and represent them against a management that seems prepared to throw them to the wolves.” “We have been approached by a group of journalists from The Sun. We are now exploring a number of ways to support them, including discussing legal redress,” she said. “If journalists are not allowed to offer protection to their sources – often brave people who are raising their heads above the parapet to disclose information – then the free press in the UK is dead.”

Is Western Democracy Real or a Facade? The Divine Right of Money by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS February 14, 2012 http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/14/the-divine-right-of-money/ The United States government and its NATO puppets have been killing Muslim men, women and children for a decade in the name of bringing them democracy. But is the West itself a bastion of democracy? Skeptics point out that President George W. Bush was put in office by the Supreme Court and that a number of other elections have been decided by electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail. Others note that elected officials represent the special interests that fund their campaigns and not the voters. The bailout of the banks arranged by Bush’s Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs chairman, Henry Paulson, and Washington’s failure to indict any banksters for the fraud that contributed to the financial crisis, are evidence in support of the view that the US government represents money and not the voters. Recent events in Greece and Italy have created more skepticism of the West’s claim to be democratic. Two elected European prime ministers, George Papandreou of Greece and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, were forced to resign over the sovereign debt issue. Not even Berlusconi, a billionaire who continues to lead the largest Italian political party, could stand up to the pressure brought by private bankers and unelected European Union officials. Papandreou lasted only 10 days after announcing on October 31, 2011, that he would let the Greek voters decide in a referendum whether or not to accept the austerity being imposed on the Greek people from the outside. Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people. Consequently, Greeks have taken to the streets. The conditions accompanying the latest tranche of the bailout have again brought large numbers of Greeks into the streets of Athens and other cities. Citizens are protesting a 20 per cent cut both in the minimum wage and in pensions larger than 12,000 euros ($15,800) annually and more cuts in public sector jobs. Greek taxes were raised 2.3 billion euros last year and are scheduled to rise another 3.4 billion euros in 2013. The austerity is being imposed despite Greece’s unemployment rate of 21 per cent overall and 48 per cent for those under the age of 25. One interpretation is that the banks, which were careless in their loans to governments, are forcing the people to save the banks from the consequences of their bad decisions. Another interpretation is that the European Union is using the sovereign debt crisis to extend its power and control over the individual member states of the EU. Some say that the EU is using the banks for the EU’s agenda, and others say the banks are using the EU for the banks’ agenda. Indeed, they may be using each other. Regardless, democracy is not part of the process. Greece’s appointed–not elected–prime minister is Lucas Papademos, He is a former governor of the Bank of Greece, a member of Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission, and former vice president of the European Central Bank. In other words, he is a banker appointed to represent the banks. On February 12 the appointed prime minister, whose job is to deliver Greece to the banks or to Brussels, failed to see the irony in his statement that “violence has no place in a democracy.” Neither did he see any irony in the fact that 40 elected representatives in the Greek parliament who rejected the bailout terms were expelled by the ruling coalition parties. Violence begets violence. Violence in the streets is a response to the economic violence being committed against the Greek people. Italy has formed a second democratic government devoid of democracy. The appointed prime minister, Mario Monti, doesn’t have to face an election until April 2013. Moreover, according to news reports, his “technocratic cabinet” does not include a single elected politician. The banks are taking no chances: Monti is both prime minister and minister of economics and finance. Monti’s background indicates that he represents both the EU and the banks. He is former European advisor to Goldman Sachs, European chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a member of the Bilderberg Group, a former EU Commissioner, and a founding member of the Spinelli Group, an organization launched in September 2010 to facilitate integration within the EU, that is, to advance central power over the member states. There is little doubt that European governments, like Washington, have been financially improvident, living beyond their means and building up debt burdens on citizens. Something needed to be done. However, what is being done is extra-democratic. This is an indication that Western elites–the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg Group, the EU, transnational corporations, oversized banks, and the mega-rich–no longer believe in democracy. Perhaps future historians will conclude that democracy once served the interests of money in order to break free of the power of kings, aristocracy, and government predations, but as money established control over governments, democracy became a liability. Historians will speak of the transition from the divine right of kings to the divine right of money. PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached through his website.

Glenn Mulcaire granted hack case appeal The Independent By Jan Colley Wednesday, 15 February 2012 Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire has been given permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against orders that he cannot rely on privilege against self-incrimination in the phone-hacking proceedings. The two-day hearing is scheduled to begin on May 9. Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal rejected Mulcaire's challenge to rulings that he did not have the right to refuse to say who asked him to intercept voice messages. The orders were made in response to applications made by comedian and actor Steve Coogan and PR consultant Nicola Phillips in their civil damages claims for breach of confidence against both News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Mulcaire, whom NGN had exclusively retained. In a statement issued after that appeal failed, Mulcaire said there was no dispute that he was entitled to invoke the long-standing common law privilege against self-incrimination, subject to Section 72 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, on which the appeal hinged. "I am pleased that the Court of Appeal has recognised that this privilege remains a part of our common law. "It has also emphasised that it cannot be removed in civil proceedings without safeguards for the person at risk of prosecution. "Though it considered that the Act removed my privilege in these two cases, the Court of Appeal considered the arguments put forward on my behalf in great detail in its judgment. "It acknowledged that those arguments 'appear to be of some general significance'. "I intend to appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court, because this may affect my right to claim the privilege in other civil cases still being brought against me."

I cannot let Jim’s apparent homophobic slur against Ray Hill go unchallenged. I have known Ray as a close friend for the last decade. He is a skilled political activist in the mode of Saul Alinsky. He was arrested almost 30 years ago as a burglar specializing in fine antiques and sentenced to 160 years in prison. Before he starting his sentence, he and his father, both active Democrats, visited John Connally at the latter’s ranch in South Texas where they purchased from Connally a calf for $150. When Ray reported to prison, he was greeted personally by the warden and ultimately served only 4 ½ years, most of the time as a prison trustee. When he was released from prison he returned to Houston and was a founder of the Pacifica Radio Station, KPFT. For the next 27 years (until two years ago) he was the weekly host of The Prison Show on the station, for which both he and the program received numerous national and local civic awards. Although not a lawyer, he is well known for his legal acumen. The Houston Police Department has made the mistake of arresting him on several occasions. His most famous case, City of Houston V. Hill, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided in Ray's favor by a vote of 8 to 1. His lawyers were awarded $500,000. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=482&invol=451 Ray has been credited for guiding the famous case of Lawrence v. Texas from its inception a few year ago when two gay men were arrested in the residence of one of them for engaging in gay sex all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose decision overturned the Texas anti-sodomy statute, resulting in overturning the anti-sodomy statutes in all other states. About four months ago the Houston Police Department again made the mistake of arresting Ray. Ray,a diabetic man age 65 with a prosthetic leg, was brutally manhandled by the police officers who subsequently wrote up a police report that misstated what had actually occurred. Fortunately, Ray’s arrest was recorded by a video camera at the business establishment and directly contradicts the police report filed under oath by the police officers. Trial on this case is set for May and the Houston legal community and local media expect Hill once again to triumph against the police for their brutal actions, with the City of Houston again having to pay an award to Ray for wrongful arrest.

News Corporation 'gives journalists’ sources to police’ The police, who have assigned 170 officers to three separate ongoing inquiries, face accusations they are carrying out a disproportionate and heavy-handed investigation Daily Telegraph 7:30PM GMT 14 Feb 2012 The civil war in Rupert Murdoch’s empire deepened on Tuesday after The Times raised concerns that the internal investigation is risking journalists’ sources. The newspaper reported that names of public officials were being passed to the police on the grounds they do not deserve protection because there is evidence they may have been paid for information. The Times said it was not clear whether the investigation had identified the sources without considering “whether the publication of stories based on their information was in the public interest”. The story came a day after one of The Sun’s most senior journalists said the internal inquiry was a “witch hunt” designed to protect News Corporation, Mr Murdoch’s parent company in the US. It also emerged that the investigation by News Corporation’s Management and Standards Committee (MSC) also includes The Times and The Sunday Times after the main focus was on The Sun and the now defunct News of the World. The National Union of Journalists said it had received calls from reporters on the Times titles who were concerned that their reputations could be damaged. The reporters said they felt they were being offered as a “sacrifice”. The MSC is examining more than 300 million emails, expenses claims and payment records to identify any unlawful activity, including payments to police officers and other public officials. The Times reported that the investigation by the MSC included looking for keywords such as “bribe” and “bung”. Related Articles News Corp descends into civil war after latest Sun arrests 13 Feb 2012 Kavanagh: Sun journalists treated like 'organised crime gang' 13 Feb 2012 Journalists breaking law to expose injustice spared trial 08 Feb 2012 It said the MSC had reassured staff that the names of confidential sources would be redacted if any details were passed to the police but that would not apply if the source was a public official who may have been paid. A source close to the MSC insisted payments to public officials were illegal and there was no public interest for bribing people. It is another sign of the growing tensions between staff at News International, which runs Mr Murdoch’s UK newspapers, and the parent company News Corporation. The MSC answers to News Corporation and has been instructed to co-operate fully with the police investigating the fallout of the hacking scandal and alleged payments to police and other informants. On Monday, Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun’s associate editor, described the recent arrest of Sun journalists as a “witch hunt” and suggested members of the MSC were revelling in the crisis. He said staff felt “under siege” following the arrest this weekend of five more senior members of staff and admitted: “There has never been a bigger crisis than this.” The MSC source said The Times and The Sunday Times had always been included in the review but admitted The Sun had been the initial focus. Michelle Stanistreet, the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: “We have had calls from people [on The Times and The Sunday Times] who are anxious about this potentially being expanded and we are likely to get more worried about their professional reputation. They are feeling they are being offered up as a sacrifice and feel betrayed.” The police, who have assigned 170 officers to three separate ongoing inquiries, face accusations they are carrying out a disproportionate and heavy-handed investigation. Scotland Yard insisted its operations were not “in any way disproportionate to the enormous task”.

News International staff demand openness over internal investigation unit Following Sun arrests, NI staff body writes to chief executive regarding remit and scope of committee, and status of sources By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 February 2012 13.45 EST The body representing News International staff is seeking an urgent meeting with chief executive Tom Mockridge, over the role played by the internal investigations unit set up by News Corporation in the recent arrest of 10 current and former Sun journalists. The News International Staff Association (Nisa) said there is an unprecedented sense of anger and betrayal on all three News International titles – the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times – and journalists want to know what their rights are in light of the recent arrests, which were made after the management and standards committee (MSC) handed information to the police. "We have written a letter asking questions about the remit, the brief and the scope of the investigation going on and what steps are being taken to protect the sources," said Nick Jones, a Nisa representative. "The anger on the editorial floors of all three titles is something I have never seen before. I've not seen this level of anger and sense of betrayal," he added. Nisa is also seeking assurances that the company is complying with its "duty of care" obligations towards those arrested, and is paying their legal fees. However, he said that journalists on the Sun are not going to down tools in protest at the arrests, as suggested in a Bloomberg TV interview by former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck. Nisa said the anger and sense of betrayal on the paper is palpable, but the last thing they want to do is jeopardise jobs especially when News Corp's shareholders in the US are looking on. "A strike is not on the horizon, it would harm the paper," he said. "Everyone is looking over their shoulder. No one knows what is going to happen. We would hope that the 10 arrests so far are it, but we don't know. One journalist on the paper, who asked not to be named, said "the truth is the mood is of grief, shock and desperate worry" about who else might get a 6am Saturday morning knock on the door from the Metropolitan police. Staff say the recent arrests have piled the pressure on an already stretched workforce, with people "scrambling to plug the holes" left by the suspension of staff who have been arrested and bailed on suspicion of corruption, aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office, and conspiracy in relation to both these offences. They include senior newsroom figures including executive editor Fergus Shanahan, news editor Chris Pharo, crime editor Mike Sullivan, deputy editor Geoff Webster, chief reporter John Kay, picture editor John Edwards, chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker and deputy news editor John Sturgis.

News Corp inquiry team defends policy over police disclosures Management and standards committee dismisses claims it is revealing names of officers who lunch or drink with journalists By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 February 2012 11.48 EST The News Corporation team responsible for investigating alleged illegal payments by Sun journalists has defended its activities, dismissing as a "complete red herring" the claim that it is passing information to the police about expenses claims for lunch or drinks with contacts. A source close to the News Corp's management and standards committee (MSC) said it will not be disclosing the names of police officers or any other public servants simply because they appear on expense claims for lunches or any other "socialising", amid fears that journalists' relationships with sources are becoming criminalised. "The information handed to police is [relating to] unlawful material. The information is redacted to ensure that lawful journalistic inquiries are not threatened," the source added. Information supplied by the MSC to the Metropolitan police has led to the arrest of nine current and former Sun journalists, two police officers, an MoD employee and a member of the armed forces in relation to alleged illegal payments to public officials in the past three weeks. The source said: "The work of the MSC is focused on payments that look unlawful on the advice of lawyers who are expert in these matters, where there is evidence which looks to be payments to public officials, policemen or others, that is deemed to be relevant to the Elveden inquiry. It is not about lunches or drinks. That is a complete red herring. "This is about significant payments to a number of public officials that appear to be in breach of the law." However, the source could not give reassurances that names would not be disclosed, even if stories that resulted from a public official being paid were in the public interest. "There is no public interest defence in law for public officials accepting bribes," the source said. The comments come amid fears that the release of material by the MSC, set up by News Corp in July last year to conduct an internal inquiry into phone hacking and other allegations of illegal practices by News International journalists, will put whistleblowers at risk. On Tuesday, the Times reported that the MSC had disclosed the identity of police officers, a civil servant and an army officer to Scotland Yard because it did not believe they were "legitimate sources". The National Union of Journalists said it was now considering writing to the MSC to seek reassurances that journalists' sources are being protected. The NUJ plans to get in touch with journalists from the Sun and appealed for staff on the paper to contact it to discuss concerns. The union is not recognised by News International, but said this would not prevent staff joining or talking to its officers. Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ general secretary, said it believed that newspapers should co-operate with the police where there is evidence of illegal activity, "but making this material available without consultation with the journalists involved is unacceptable". Stanistreet added: "We are receiving calls from whistleblowers who had been assured that they would be protected, and who now fear for their jobs and worse. Journalists at the Sun – who are offered no protection from a union independent from the News International management, which is now sacrificing them to appease America." Some newspaper industry insiders predict that legitimate sources with stories in key public sectors such as government, police and customs may now start to dry up amid a fear, however misplaced, that they may no longer have full protection. Journalists across News International's three titles – the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times – fear there are more arrests to come. "How do we know the names of people in emails written five or six years ago are not being handed to police? Or a lunch or drinks you might have had with a police officer now constitutes bribery?" said one senior News International journalist. The MSC protests that there is a misunderstanding about how its relationship with police officers, who are effectively in residence in the building it occupies in Wapping, works. According to the source familiar with the MSC operation, it is not trawling through internal email correspondence and other documentation and saying to police "we have a good one for you". "The police already have identified the areas" they are investigating and "only things that show prima facie evidence of criminality" are being shared with detectives, the source said

I agree with your comment, Rodney, which puts the controversy in proper perspective.