Douglas Caddy

Sun has questions to answer on phone hacking, claims Labour's Tom Watson Phone-hacking scandal 'far beyond News of the World', alleges MP, calling for James Murdoch to resign as BSkyB chairman By Hélène Mulholland, political reporter guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 September 2011 07.48 EDT A Labour MP has alleged that phone hacking at News International has gone "far beyond the News of the World" as he claimed that the Sun newspaper is also implicated in illegal practices. Tom Watson made the allegation during an emergency motion debate on the phone-hacking scandal at the Labour party conference which called for James Murdoch to stand down as chairman of BSkyB in the wake of the phone hacking scandal that rocked Rupert Murdoch's media empire this summer. The scandal took centre stage at the party conference on Tuesday morning as speakers took turn to lament Labour's past era of cosy relationships with media barons and called for measures to clamp down on bad practice by media companies and journalists. Watson warned Labour activists that the scale of phone hacking at the now closed News of the World could be the tip of the iceberg. "Do you really think that hacking only happened on the News of the World?" he said. "Ask Dominic Mohan, the current editor of the Sun. He used to joke about lax security at Vodafone when he attended celebrity parties. Ask the editor of the Sun if he thinks Rupert Murdoch's contagion has spread to other newspapers. If he gives you an honest answer, he'll tell you it's only a matter of time before we find the Sun in the evidence file of the convicted private investigator that hacked Milly Dowler's phone. "This month we learn that journalists at the Times are affected by this scandal. The paper is shutting down its BlackBerry phone network – I hope they aren't deleting the records." The emergency motion called for trade unions to have a role on the press watchdog and for the rules governing media ownership in Britain to be examined in the wake of the affair. Watson turned on the case for applying the "fit and proper" test to News International, a company he described as "sick" with corruption and criminality from "top to bottom". "Let's tell Ofcom what we think about James Murdoch," he said. "I wouldn't put him on the board of an ornamental garden. He's certainly not a fit and proper person to chair a major broadcaster." Watson was among a number of speakers who hailed the leadership of Ed Miliband following revelations over the summer of how widespread phone hacking had been at News international, and contrasted it to Labour's past closeness to Rupert Murdoch under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Watson, who received a standing ovation from delegates over his persistent questioning on phone hacking, said MPs had to "accept our shame of the blame" but that Labour had acted quickly in response to hacking allegations. He said that hacking had been allowed to take place because of "police failure, a newspaper out of control, politicians refusing to act". "There is no point in us glossing over it. We got too close to the Murdochs and allowed them to become too powerful," he said. "As a party, we got there in the end. When Ed [Miliband] got up at prime minister's question time and said what he said about the Murdochs, like you I thought, 'That is the leader I want'. This is the Labour party I want to be part of." He went on: "Now our leadership must spearhead seeing the reforms through. It is not just about the News of the World or just about phone hacking. Murdoch should also tell us about the computer hackers, the people who left Trojan devices on computer hard-drives enabling them to read emails." Chris Bryant told the conference that Labour's past relationship with the Murdoch empire was "not our finest moment" as he urged the party to "choose our bedfellows with a little more care" in the future. Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, underlined Labour's new approach to the media mogul as he told delegates that Labour would create "tougher" media ownership laws and a register which could see errant journalists barred from the profession. In a message to Rupert Murdoch, he said: "Mr Murdoch: never again think you can assert political power in pursuit of your commercial interests or ideological beliefs. This is Britain, Mr Murdoch, the integrity of our media and our politics is not for sale." Lewis said the history of the relationship between Labour and the Murdoch press was a "complex and tortuous one". "But what can never be complex or tortuous is the responsibility of politicians to stand up in the public interest without fear or favour." Setting out his reforms, he said: "Never again can one commercial organisation have so much power and control over our media. In the period ahead, Labour will bring forward proposals for new, tougher cross-media ownership laws." While a free press was "non-negotiable", Lewis said that with freedom also comes responsibility. "Neither the current broken system of regulation nor state oversight will achieve the right balance," he said. "We need a new system of independent regulation, including proper, like-for-like, redress which means that mistakes and falsehoods on the front page receive apologies and retraction on the front page. And as with other professions, the industry should consider whether people guilty of gross malpractice should be struck off." Lewis also said it was time David Cameron "came clean" about the appointment of former NoW editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief. Bryant, a former minister whose phone was hacked, told Labour delegates that he hoped those involved in phone hacking and the ensuing cover-up would go to jail. He hit out at those who had "lied and lied and lied" to parliament during the hacking investigation. Earlier this month, he claimed that he had tracked 53 lies told to parliament. But he said his tireless researcher had now tallied that a total of 486 lies had been told to parliament. "I hope that people will go to jail for the criminal cover-up that happened at News of the World," he said. "But there is a bigger scandal, because it is the monopoly that BSkyB have. The fact that they've got 80% of the pay-TV market and 95% in the pay-TV market in many places. They can hoover up television rights, and hardly produce a decent programme of their own. That is one of the things that we should be dealing with – the monopoly at BSkyB. Unite general secretary Len McCluskey pressed for a "long overdue" review of the rules governing media ownership in the UK and told the conference that there should be an element of "shame" in the party over the way past leaderships helped to "prop up" the Murdoch empire. In a swipe at former premier Tony Blair, he said: "The Labour party needs to learn lessons – and they won't be learned by standing down by the banks of the Jordan blessing Murdoch's children." "They will be learned by setting up the two commissions called for in this motion. One is for an overdue look at the rules controlling media ownership and the unacceptable concentration of power, of which the Murdoch empire is the worst example. And the second is to look at a still wider question – how independent trade unions are essential in ensuring that the rich and powerful do not get it all their own way. That they do not control our politics without the slightest counter-balance in society as a whole." Miliband has pledged to work with Hollywood star Hugh Grant on media reforms. The actor, who has become a champion for the Hacked Off campaign that is pressing for tougher sanctions and restrictions on the press, claims some newspapers will be "back to their old tricks" soon and questioned whether Labour MPs would still stand up to the media when the furore had died down. Grant met the Labour leader on Monday night to press his case at the party's conference in Liverpool. A senior Labour source said it was an "excellent meeting". "Ed expressed his thanks for Hugh's work in the Hacked Off campaign and they said they would work together in future." News International has hit back at Watson's allegations that staff on the Sun were implicated in illegal phone hacking and said if he had any evidence to suggest this was the case he should immediately hand it over to the police. In a statement it said: "Everyone should act responsibly regarding the current investigations to allow the police to get on with their important work. "If Mr Watson has specific information he should immediately hand it to the police and we urge him to do so. We are not aware of any evidence that the Sun engaged in activity as suggested by Mr Watson."

September 23, 2011 By JOHN DEAN Published in VERDICT HTTP://VERDICT.JUSTIA.COM/2011/09/23/GAMING-AMERICAN-DEMOCRACY Gaming American Democracy: How New Republican Techniques Seek to Change the Political System Itself This is the first in a series of columns by Mr. Dean, which will examine the new techniques being employed by Republicans to alter the political landscape. – Ed. Conservative operatives with almost unlimited money (provided by wealthy supporters) have been very busy, over the past few years, changing American political processes and, thus, the way politics and government are undertaken, to favor Republican policies and candidates. So far, they have been remarkably successful and they may even be able to change the political playing field in time for the 2012 presidential election, tilting the landscape to favor a GOP candidate. There is only one problem with what they are doing, which is the way they are doing it. Most Americans, unfortunately, are unaware of these activities. Voters and the Media Are Largely Ignoring the Return of Nixonian Politics, on Steroids While the so-called Tea Party’s antics always attract public and media attention, the heavy lifting in the effort to change our political processes is being accomplished mostly behind closed doors, through the efforts of experienced conservative GOP operatives. These men and women have been quietly and steadily going after what they want: control of the political processes, which they can then translate into greater political power. To reach their goals, conservative leaders are blatantly gaming the system. They are going where they have never ventured before, and conducting politics in a way that has never been seen before in America, by exploiting constitutional gaps, working in the crannies and crevices of our system, and proceeding both openly and privately to empower themselves in a manner that would never succeed at the ballot box if it were fully understood. The story about these activities has been largely ignored, or at most incidentally reported, by the mainstream news media. While some of this activity is merely hard-nosed, real-world politics at its ugliest, other undertakings are conspicuously abusive, and, indeed, reminiscent of what I saw when inside the Nixon White House. Watergate ended most of this kind of political activity, at least for a while, but now it has returned with a vengeance. It’s Nixonian no-holds-barred-style politics, on steroids. For this reason, in this, and periodic subsequent columns, I plan to set forth reports of the remarkable, often unseemly, and at times illegal assault that conservatives have launched to alter our political practices and procedures to favor conservative candidates, policies and programs. With this first column, I hope to provide an overview and introduction to this subject. Later columns will examine the details. So stay tuned. FYI: I have previously worked out my research and thinking for three New York Times best-selling books in my columns. Whether this current effort will become a book, I do not know, because publishers are never sure about these types of stories—a fact that I believe encourages this type of behavior. So I will proceed a step at a time. Nonetheless, I enjoy writing on topics about which I have strong feelings when others are ignoring the matter, and that is the situation here. The Reasons This Attempt to Profoundly Transform Our Political System Is Receiving Only Incidental News Coverage This story—the story of the attempted transformation of our political system itself—has been mostly ignored for two reasons. First, because it deals with political and governmental process. It is conventional wisdom among news people (in both print and television journalism), as well as among many mainstream book publishers, that the American public does not care to be told about so-called “process issues.” This is apparently true, notwithstanding the fact that the political party that controls the processes can control the policy and government. Authors who have written about process issues tell me that not only have they had difficulty getting published, but if they do, readers are, in fact, hard to come by. Because I know the importance of process, and its overriding influence on politics and government, I am very interested in these matters, so I do not understand the general disinterest that authors face when they seek to write about these vital topics. There is a second reason for the disinterest, too—and an even more troubling one. Today’s mainstream news organizations are largely controlled by major corporations, which are profit-driven like never before. Most members of corporate management lean toward Republican views, and while top corporate executives typically give their news editors and producers great leeway, news organizations do not go out of their way to annoy their corporate bosses. The big money that is involved in reshaping America’s political processes has been, and will continue to be, a wonderful source of revenue for these organizations. News organizations need advertisers, and they love all the disingenuous advertisements that this political undertaking is generating. Given these attitudes and institutional realities, the mainstream news media could care less about the impact, meaning, and means involved in changing the political processes to favor conservatives. (Ironically, Watergate, too, was initially a non-story with the national press, and it continued on that way for almost ten months after the arrests of burglars in the Democratic National Committee—because much of the story involved process, at first, and also because news organizations did not want to annoy a mean-spirited sitting president.) I can think of no better place to start telling the story of how America’s political processes are being co-opted and transformed, than with the Tea Party, which is the tip of the conservative iceberg that is now floating through our political waters. The Tea Party Facade I addressed the Tea Party movement in an earlier column, reporting that there is little that is new about the Party’s players, a collection of existing conservative groups who have long resided at the radical fringe of the Republican Party. They are the authoritarian followers, plus a few of their leaders, who can, together, accurately be described by their personalities and political dispositions as authoritarian conservatives. (Not all conservatives are authoritarians, but virtually all authoritarians are conservatives.) The Tea Party is more a rebranding, than a genuinely new movement. When you study the poll numbers, it is clear that only a small number of conservatives consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement. These fringe groups have always been fringe groups, but they form the activist base of the GOP. According to Gallup, 41 percent of Americans consider themselves conservatives; 36 percent, moderates; and 21 percent, liberals. Yet a contemporaneous New York Times poll shows that only 20 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the Tea Party, while 40 percent have an unfavorable view. And, more tellingly, only 18 percent of Americans identify themselves as Tea Party supporters, with only 4 percent of Americans having ever attended a Tea Party meeting or given money to the Tea Party. In light of its small numbers, what accounts for the Tea Party’s prominence? It is the result of the handful of always-camera-ready political figures and candidates who claim allegiance with the movement. These include Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rand and Ron Paul, Christine O’Donnell, and Sharon Angle—to name a few. CNN (oddly and inexplicably) recently chose to partner with the Tea Party Express to present a CNN/Tea Party Presidential Debate, a decision that gave the Tea Party added publicity and credibility. (I was surprised to find CNN so hard-up for a debate partner.) Former Republican leader of the House of Representatives Dick Armey has been active with the movement through Freedom Works, which appears well funded. But there is no Tea Party per se, only a disjointed movement that has served, and continues to serve, as a nice façade—deflecting and diverting public attention while true leaders, and the major players in the conservative movement, have plotted and executed their efforts to change the political landscape. The real story here is not the Tea Party; rather, it is the actions of conservative Republican mayors, governors, state legislators, members of the U.S. Congress, former federal officials (from mid-level and high-level posts) now working on behalf of conservative causes, and of conservative lobbyists and lawyers, both in Washington and scattered around the country. These people surely find the Tea Party useful as a distraction from what they are trying to do. The New Conservative Power Game Contemporary GOP heavies, the men, and a few women, who understand how the game can be played, appreciate that our democracy is fragile, and that it operates largely on the good will of everyone, which makes it easily susceptible to abuse. As conservative operatives have undertaken nationwide efforts to adjust and change the political processes to their advantage, they have taken advantage of the good will of others, disregarding the regular order and the assumptions of regularity that have long prevailed in America’s politics and governance. This approach caught opponents flatfooted, totally off-guard. Interestingly, as best I can tell, these disruptive moves and changes are, in only a few instances, centralized and highly coordinated. More often, these efforts are simply sua sponte—a case of like minds thinking alike, or noticing what other others are doing. To the best of my knowledge, this is not a conspiratorial undertaking, nor the work of a closed and well-connected network. Yet these people do appear to keep others who are interested well informed. For me, understanding what had been going on has been like assembling a jigsaw puzzle without a picture. So far, I have found no mastermind or master plan, but there is no question that those who are part of this loose coalition are working like beavers, and pursuing any opportunity that arises. Some of the techniques are old, while others are very new. What has become conspicuous from this inquiry, so far, is that conservatives are now operating with new political norms, and at levels that were once considered extreme, but are now standard operating procedure. This does not bode well for our system. Some Examples of How Extreme Tactics Are Being Adopted by Republicans as Merely Standard Operating Procedure A few examples from my growing catalogue should make the point: Conservatives are now demanding and enforcing absolute GOP party discipline, and trying to impose it at all levels of government, tolerating no exceptions. They are willing to shut down any and all government operations if that is needed to serve their interest and get their way. They recognize no comity or courtesy in any cross-party situations that are not to their advantage. They have made civility the exception, rather than the rule. They will lie and mislead to accomplish what is necessary and conservative “thinkers” have abandoned intellectual honesty for the cause. They are hell-bent on changing as many processes of government as possible to always favor Republican rule, whether they are in the minority or majority. They are changing the rules by which we elect officials to favor the election and selection of conservative Republicans. They are making it more difficult for anyone who is not a Republican to vote. They are blatantly engaging in extreme obstructionism to damage any non-Republican incumbent office-holder’s ability to perform in office. They operate behind closed doors whenever possible and always when in power. To accomplish their goals, they are raising and injecting literally countless billions—I repeat, billions—of dollars into manipulating local, state, and national legislative actions and elections to their advantage. Finally, they have—almost inconspicuously—altered every branch and level of government as they have proceeded. No one has seriously challenged these efforts, but surely others can see the activities I have noticed, and the pattern they reveal. Democrats, it appears, have decided to look the other way, and only when public outrage has erupted—as happened in Wisconsin, when Governor Scott Walker’s efforts to change the process became conspicuous—has there been any effort to prevent them from operating outside traditional conventional constitutional boundaries. So they continue, and in some areas, they are becoming increasingly aggressive. As I report on such developments in this series of columns, I will share my thoughts about possible countermeasures. But for many of these actions, there is no easy fix, because those who perpetrate them are exploiting the flaws, and working in the underbelly, of our system. A Closing Thought: Federalist No. 10’s Solution Is Not Applicable Here When you delve into any radical conservative activity, you quickly become drenched in all their constitutional rhetoric, for it is endless. The GOP’s radical fringe worships our Constitution—or what they believe our Constitution says, which has little to do with reality. Thus, in tracking their new power plays, I found myself thinking about James Madison’s warning in Federalist No. 10, a warning that contemporary conservatives ignore. Madison, it will be recalled, addressed what conservatives are now doing when he discussed the threat that factions pose to our constitutional system. Madison described a faction as “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or of interests, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interest of the community.” Madison found factions to be incapable of self-restraint, and pointed out that, for them, “neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control.” He believed that the danger from factions was very real, since they foster “the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.” Madison concluded that it was inevitable that factions could not be eliminated, because America could only do so at the expense of freedom itself. Rather, he believed that the effects of factions would be controlled by the very nature of a representative system, where interests are delegated to representatives, and those representatives then deliberate away from local concerns. When there are a sufficient number of representatives, who cover a large and growing country, Madison felt, these representatives would be thinking of the greater good. And, that emphasis on the greater good—the good of the whole nation—would check factional thinking. Madison’s thinking, however, did not contemplate the arrival of political parties, nor did he conceive of a party’s becoming so tightly controlled that it could operate to serve only a narrow self-interest, rather than the public interest. In short, we do not have an institutional check, deriving from the Constitution or any other source, on today’s activities. Nor do I have answers yet, but I am looking. Actually, I am still gathering facts, and will be doing so for months to come. If you have thoughts or information about the matters that I have broadly described here, I hope you will share them. Please tweet me. Based upon the thoughts and information of a few who are very concerned, we might clarify this matter for all. John W. Dean, a Justia columnist, is a former counsel to the president.

Trader Alessio Rastani To BBC: 'Governments Don't Rule The World, Goldman Sachs Rules The World' The Huffington Post by Jillian Berman First Posted: 9/26/11 03:13 PM ET Updated: 9/26/11 03:16 PM ET http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/trader-to-bbc-goldman-sachs-goldman-sachs-rules-the-world_n_981658.html Goldman Sachs rules the world and the Euro zone is poised to crash, according to trader Alessio Rastani. "This is not a time right now for wishful thinking that governments are going to sort things out," Rastani said on an interview with BBC on Monday morning. "The governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world." The statement came towards the end of an almost three and a half minute interview in which Rastani warned viewers to "get prepared" for the inevitable: "The savings of millions of people are going to vanish" in less than a year, he said. "This economic crisis is like a cancer, if you just wait and wait thinking this will go away, just like a cancer it's going to grow and it's going to be too late," he continued.' Fear over the fragility of the European economy has become pronounced in recent weeks. Prompted in part by concerns that the region could enter recession and affect the global economy, stocks composing the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered their worst week since 2008 last week, according to Reuters. In spite of statements like Rastani's, Euro policymakers continue to press ahead with possible reforms. Currently, they are working to bolster their 440 billion-euro rescue fund, after being criticized by leaders from both China and the U.S. for letting Greece's debt crisis already wreak havoc on global stocks, according to Reuters. But the crash will be good news for traders, Rastani told the stunned BBC anchors. "For most traders we don't really care about having a fixed economy, having a fixed situation, our job is to make money from it," he said. "Personally, I've been dreaming of this moment for three years. I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession." Rastani said traders aren't the only ones who can benefit from the crisis. "When the market crashes... if you know what to do, if you have the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this."

Phone-hacking claims mount up at News International• Former deputy editor 'was paid by NoW' while at Yard • Goody among alleged phone hacking victims • Coulson sues News Group for breach of contract By Lisa O'Carroll, Ed Pilkington and James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 September 2011 17.14 EDT [Jade Goody arriving in Mumbai in 2008 to take part in the Indian version of Big Brother. Max Clifford said she believed a call she made from India to her mother, telling her she had cancer, had been hacked. Photograph: Pal Pillai/AFP/Getty Images] News International is facing fresh phone-hacking controversies after a series of claims and counter claims involving half a dozen figures including Jade Goody, Alastair Campbell and two of the most senior former staff of the News of the World. In just a few hours on Friday, it emerged the media group was facing five court actions including a possible action in the US targeting Rupert Murdoch and his son James, plus allegations that the Sunday tabloid may have hacked Goody's phone while she was dying of cancer. One of the most damaging revelations was a claim that the former deputy editor of the now defunct tabloid had secretly received £25,000 from News International for "crime exclusives" while working as a PR consultant for Scotland Yard. The details of the payments emerged in billing records obtained by detectives investigating the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World. The former newspaper executive Neil Wallis received the money in 2009 and 2010 when his PR firm Chamy Media had a two-day-a-month contract to work as PR consultant for Scotland Yard, according to an investigation by the Daily Telegraph. One story reputedly earned him a single payment of £10,000. One of the stories he was paid for was about a suspected assassination attempt on the pope during his visit to the UK last year, according to the Telegraph. A spokesman for Scotland Yard declined to comment, other than to say that its contract with Chamy Media "had a confidentiality clause, a data protection act clause and a conflict of interest clause within it". A spokesman added that Wallis did not have access to the Met's IT systems. The revelations will raise new questions about conflicts of interest in public office. Last month, it emerged that Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, continued to receive payments from News International as part of a severance deal after he was employed by the Tory party as its director of communications. Coulson, who quit the News of the World in 2007 after his then royal editor was jailed for phone-hacking offences, on Friday launched his own legal action against his former employer. He is suing for breach of contract after the company notified his solicitors it was no longer going to fund his legal defence. It is believed this was communicated to Coulson's law firm as recently as August. That Coulson's fees were being paid four years after he quit as editor will surprise many. He resigned as David Cameron's press chief in January and was arrested in July as the phone-hacking scandal deepened, with allegations that the News of the World had hacked into murder victim Milly Dowler's phone. Pressure on News International continued to pile up on Friday as it emerged that the Met is to be asked to investigate allegations that reality TV star Jade Goody's phone was hacked while she was dying of cancer. It is understood Charlotte Harris, the Mishcon de Reya lawyer representing several phone-hacking claimants, has been asked to represent her and to go to the Met with the allegations made by Goody's mother, Jackiey Budden. Budden believes both her phone and her daughter's were hacked, but did nothing about it until July this year when she read about murder victim Milly Dowler's phone messages being intercepted by the News of the World. She could not understand how journalists were getting hold of information and, when she read the Dowler story, believed it could have been through phone hacking. "She [Jackiey] will be going to the police. She believes her phone was hacked by the News of the World, and Jade's. Jade told me, 'I'm convinced my phone is being hacked'," said Max Clifford, who handled Goody's PR after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in August 2008. The solicitor who represented the Dowlers in their phone-hacking claims upped the ante significantly on Friday when he announced he had teamed with US lawyers with a view to initiating proceedings targeting Rupert Murdoch and his son James. Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton has instructed Norman Siegel, a New York-based lawyer who represents 20 9/11 families, to seek witness statements from News Corp and its directors, including Rupert and James Murdoch, in relation to allegations that News of the World staff may have bribed police. "The allegations of phone hacking and bribery against News Corporation are serious and substantial, and we will approach this initial exploration with that same seriousness," Siegel said. The legal action was just one of five that have piled up against the Murdoch operation in the past few days. Also suing News International is Tony Blair's former director of communications Alastair Campbell, who is alleging his phone was hacked by News of the World. His solicitor, Gerald Shamash, confirmed he had just begun legal proceedings on behalf of Campbell and two others – the agent of George Best, the football star who died in 2005, and Elliot Morley, the former Labour MP jailed for expenses fraud, who has just been released from prison after serving a quarter of his sentence for fiddling his expenses. News International refused to comment on any of the developments, but said it was co-operating fully with all police investigations

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml You can listen to the BBC program on the above link. Article from Harper's Magazine: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651

Jackie Kennedy’s flawed memory Washington Post By Richard J. Tofel, Published: September 23, 2011 The recently released 1964 interviews of Jacqueline Kennedy by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. make for fascinating reading. But if the one subject on which I have some detailed knowledge is any indication, historians will need to be careful about putting too much stock in what Mrs. Kennedy said. The subject is President John F. Kennedy’s writing partnership with Theodore Sorensen, his close aide and White House special counsel, once referred to by JFK as his “intellectual blood bank.” Mrs. Kennedy portrays her husband as the principal author of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Profiles in Courage,” as well as his inaugural address. Sorensen is depicted as having untruthfully claimed credit for the book, and then having greedily and ungratefully accepted all the proceeds it generated. But the facts on these matters are known — and vary strikingly from what Mrs. Kennedy concluded. As historian Herbert Parmet demonstrated more than 30 years ago, Sorensen was the principal author of most of “Profiles in Courage.” There is no question that then-Sen. Kennedy read widely for the book as he recovered in Florida from a back operation. He also wrote first drafts of some portions of the book in longhand on legal pads, which accounts for Mrs. Kennedy’s recollections. Sorensen said in his 2008 memoir that John Kennedy wrote the first draft of the book’s first and last chapters. But as Parmet established, there is no evidence that the senator drafted the case-study chapters that comprise the bulk of the book — and plenty of evidence that Sorensen did so. The book’s preface refers to Sorensen as Kennedy’s “research associate” who provided “assistance in the assembly and preparation of the material upon which [the] book is based.” Mrs. Kennedy’s interviews add an unpleasant twist by raising the issue of money. Unbeknown to almost everyone (including, presumably, Mrs. Kennedy), JFK and Sorensen agreed in 1953 that Sorensen would receive half of all proceeds of material he wrote in his boss’s name. This agreement, not unusual in Washington at the time, was followed by the two men for four years. But then came “Profiles in Courage” and the Pulitzer Prize it was awarded in May 1957. That same month, 16 months after the book’s publication, apparently acting on instructions from JFK’s father, Joseph Kennedy, the senator’s lawyers drafted a formal agreement giving Sorensen a larger share of the book royalties for a period of years. Mrs. Kennedy recalls this as “Jack gave him all the money . . . because he felt Ted worked so hard.” Sorensen’s account of this deal in his memoir is uncharacteristically elliptical, and the share may have been 100 percent, as Mrs. Kennedy recalls. Moreover, Sorensen also conceded late in life that he might have boasted in private, before this settlement, that he had written the book. This would have understandably sparked Mrs. Kennedy’s resentment if she believed the boast to be false. Such boasts may have been what led columnist Drew Pearson to claim on ABC, in late 1957, that Sorensen had written “Profiles in Courage.” Both Kennedy and Sorensen denied this, Sorensen in a carefully crafted affidavit, and ABC and Pearson issued a retraction. All of this comes up again in the question of who wrote Kennedy’s inaugural address. Again, the record is clear. There can be little doubt that Mrs. Kennedy saw her husband composing parts of the speech in longhand. But the documentary record also establishes that many of the most famous phrases were crafted by Sorensen — while others came from John Kenneth Galbraith and Adlai Stevenson. The surest indication that Mrs. Kennedy had a strong sense of this being the case was her request, not long after her oral-history interviews were concluded, that Sorensen destroy his own, handwritten first draft of the inaugural address — a request with which Sorensen complied. On Jan. 17, 1961, President-elect Kennedy, seeking to impress (and perhaps mislead) Time magazine reporter Hugh Sidey, staged a scene aboard his airplane in which he purported to be drafting his inaugural address on a legal pad, reading three pages aloud to the reporter, according to Sidey’s account. In fact, JFK was almost certainly copying the material from the typescript of a dictation session held a few days earlier, in which he had been working from a Sorensen draft. The speech had been nearly completed before Kennedy and Sidey got on the plane (Mrs. Kennedy was not aboard). That handwritten “draft,” however, has long been presented as Kennedy’s “first draft” of his immortal speech. Mrs. Kennedy ensured that it went on public display a few weeks after her interviews with Schlesinger. She whispered to reporters that it was hardest for her, in looking over the preview of what would become the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, to see “his inaugural address in his own handwriting.” Whether or not she believed this, how ironic to read now her oral account of how she pitied Stevenson because “he’d carefully take something typewritten and copy it in longhand because he was so proud of everyone saying he wrote all his speeches — I don’t know, poor man. It’s sort of sad.” John Kennedy need not be pitied. He gave voice to the aspirations of a generation — in some respects to America’s enduring aspirations. He had help in doing that, as nearly everyone in politics does. But we were reminded this month that he was reluctant to acknowledge that help, perhaps even to his wife. Richard J. Tofel is the author of “Sounding the Trumpet: The Making of John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address.”

We were addicted to Murdoch like crack cocaine, admits Jowell The Indepent By Jane Merrick, Brian Brady, and Matt Chorley Sunday, 25 September 2011 Labour lost the confidence of voters after 13 years in power because it was addicted to the "crack cocaine" of courting media barons such as Rupert Murdoch rather than listening to the public's concerns, a senior member of Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet says today. In a frank assessment of the mountain the Opposition has to climb if it is to win the next election, Tessa Jowell warns that "nobody is listening" to Labour because of a breakdown in trust with the public on the economy, its relations with the media, and a failure to talk about welfare and immigration. Voters can only hear "white noise", she says, and Labour must promise to open the "gilded cages" of the Westminster, media and City establishments. As Labour's conference opens in Liverpool today, the shadow Olympics minister is joined by the party's policy chief, Liam Byrne, and former home secretary Alan Johnson in calling for Mr Miliband to apologise for Labour's mistakes on the economy. All three senior figures, from the Blairite wing of the party, use interviews with The Independent on Sunday to urge Mr Miliband to "cleave to the centre ground" to win back the voters who handed Labour three election victories and be honest about mistakes made on the deficit. But while the Labour leader is expected to admit there is a "long way to go" to repair the party's credibility on the economy, aides said the time had passed for him to say sorry for the previous government's economic legacy. However, in a sign that the Labour leader is responding to concerns that the party has lost touch, Mr Miliband last night secured a deal to give 50,000 "registered supporters" a say in choosing the Labour leader. He said: "I want to change the party to make us more outward looking and talk to the public." Ms Jowell will today build on her message in a speech to a rally of Progress, representing New Labour modernisers, by saying that Labour can rebuild confidence with voters by reaching out to communities "street by street". In an interview with The IoS, she says: "What we've got to accept is that in the country more widely, nobody is listening. The biggest battle that Labour has at the moment is to be relevant and to be heard... For so many people, it's just white noise. "If we are to become a more meritocratic country where there really is a sense that opportunity is there, if you have the initiative and the will to seize it, then we've got to open up these gilded cages." Asked whether she believes the Labour government should have been more robust with News International over phone-hacking allegations, Ms Jowell, who was a victim of hacking and will be a core participant in the Leveson inquiry, says: "I think that the mistake that we made – it's a bit like the crack cocaine of politics, isn't it? Getting a good write-up, or the horror of a bad write-up. At its worst, Westminster politics is like a private conversation between Westminster media and Westminster politicians, and the rest of the world are eavesdroppers on a private conversation, and that's got to change." In a sign that the party is desperate to make a clean break with News International, Labour activists will vote on a joint motion from the Unite union and MP Tom Watson calling for James Murdoch to quit as chairman of the group. Under the party rule change, "registered supporters" will be given their own electoral college with 10 per cent weighting. The other three colleges – unions, MPs and MEPs, and party members – will have 30 per cent each. Multiple votes will also be banned, and talks will begin on allowing registered supporters to decide party policy.

News International 'continued to pay Neil Wallis after he joined Met' Former deputy editor received £25,000 from News of the World publisher after starting work as consultant with police force By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 September 2011 14.29 EDT The relationship between the police and the News of the World has come under fire again amid revelations that Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, was paid by the paper's publisher for "crime exclusives" while working for the Metropolitan police. Wallis was secretly paid more than £25,000 by News International after he left the paper and got a contract to work two days a month as a PR consultant with the Met. One story earned him a single payment of £10,000. The Daily Telegraph claims that internal records obtained by Scotland Yard show that he was paid for providing News International with details of a suspected assassination attempt on the Pope during his visit to the UK last year. A spokesman for Scotland Yard said the contract it had with Wallis's PR firm, Chamy Media, "had a confidentiality clause, a data protection act clause and a conflict of interest clause within it". He added that Wallis did not have access to the Met's IT systems. The revelations that Wallis received money from News International while working for Scotland Yard will raise questions about conflicts of interest. Last month, it emerged that Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, continued to receive payments from News International as part of a severance deal after he was employed by the Tory party as its director of communications. Wallis's solicitor has made a complaint alleging that the police had leaked the information regarding the payments.

Phone hacking: News International paid Neil Wallis while he was at Scotland Yard The former News of the World executive employed by the Metropolitan Police was secretly paid more than £25,000 by News International during his time at Scotland Yard, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Former Deputy Editor of The News Of The World Neil Wallis leaves Hammersmith Police station after being questioned by police over the phone hacking scandal Photo: WARREN ALLOTT By Robert Winnett, and Mark Hughes Daily Telegraph 6:17PM BST 23 Sep 2011 Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the tabloid newspaper, was paid the money during late 2009 and 2010 for providing “crime exclusives” including details of Scotland Yard investigations. At the time, he was working as a police consultant working closely with Sir Paul Stephenson, the then commissioner. Mr Wallis was also paid £24,000 from taxpayer funds for his work at the force. The details of his News International payments have emerged in billing records obtained by detectives investigating the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World. It is understood that Mr Wallis was also selling crime stories to other newspapers during his time at Scotland Yard. The legality of Mr Wallis, who was effectively working as a police employee, selling potentially confidential police information to tabloid newspapers is not clear. Mr Wallis, who was arrested in July on suspicion of intercepting phone messages, worked as deputy to Andy Coulson at the News of the World during the period when phone hacking took place. Known as the “wolfman”, he then became executive editor after Mr Coulson resigned before leaving News International in August 2009. After leaving the News of the World he set up a public relations company and, a month after leaving journalism, was controversially hired by Scotland Yard on a two day a month contract advising the Met’s top officers. He left the Metropolitan Police last September after damaging allegations were made in the New York Times which alleged that knowledge of phone hacking by reporters at the News of the World had been widespread. When details of his employment by Scotland Yard emerged in July, it forced the resignation of the force’s two most senior officers, Sir Paul Stephenson and John Yates. The Daily Telegraph has now established that during his time at Scotland Yard, Mr Wallis received payments totalling more than £25,000 from News International – including a payment of £10,000 for a single “crime” story. Internal records obtained by the police show that he was paid for providing News International with details of a suspected assassination attempt on the Pope during his visit to London last year. Last night, when asked about the News International payments, Mr Wallis’s solicitor issued a statement alleging that information about his client had been leaked by Scotland Yard. Phil Smith of Tuckers Solicitors said: “I confirm that we have today complained formally to The Metropolitan Police over the leaking of information from Operation Weeting to The Daily Telegraph. “We object to the publication of any story based on this information which has been obtained from a source with no authority to place such information in the public domain. We will be pursuing this matter further.” A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed that Mr Wallis’s contract at Scotland Yard included a confidentiality clause, a data protection act clause and a conflict of interest clause. All of these clauses would prohibit him selling any information he was privy to while working at Scotland Yard. The spokesman said that, during his employment, Mr Wallis was not given access to any Metropolitan Police computer systems. He was also never security vetted as he was always accompanied while inside New Scotland Yard. Last month, it emerged that Mr Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, continued to receive payments agreed as part of a severance package after he was employed by the Conservatives as the party’s director of communications. The disclosure led to allegations that Mr Coulson had a conflict of interest during his employment by the Conservatives. He resigned as Downing Street’s head of communications earlier this year and has also been arrested as part of the police’s phone hacking investigation. Mr Coulson and Mr Wallis were close colleagues and good friends and arranged for senior Metropolian Police officers to meet the Prime Minister’s chief of staff. It is understood that Mr Wallis also made informal representations to Mr Coulson about Scotland Yard’s views on Conservative law and order policies.

Phone hacking: Dowler lawyer pursues US legal action against News Corp Mark Lewis instructs lawyer of 20 9/11 families over allegations News of the World staff may have bribed police By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 September 2011 08.53 EDT The solicitor who represented the family of Milly Dowler in their phone-hacking claims against News Corporation on Friday announced he has teamed up with US lawyers with a view to initiating proceedings targetting Rupert Murdoch and his son James. Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton has instructed Norman Siegel, a New York-based lawyer who represents 20 9/11 families to seek witness statements from News Corp and directors including the Murdochs in relation to allegations that News of the World staff may have bribed police. He says he intends to assess whether he can launch a class action against News Corp using American foreign corruption laws, which make it illegal for US companies to pay bribes to government officials abroad. "There is a provision within US law, before you start an action to seek depositions from individuals, in this case, such as James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch and other directors of News Corp," said Lewis. He added Siegel would examine allegations of not just police bribery but also phone hacking and "foreign malpractices." The move will be a fresh setback for News Corp which has been trying to insulate itself against contagion from the UK phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed its British publishing empire. Separately, it emerged that this week US prosecutors at the Department of Justice have written to Murdoch's News Corporation requesting information on alleged payments made to the British police by the News of the World. The DoJ is looking into whether the company may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Under FCPA laws, American companies are banned from paying representatives of a foreign government to gain a commercial advantage. The decision to co-ordinate legal efforts on both sides of the Atlantic comes just days after News International confirmed it was in settlement talks with the parents of the murdered 13-year-old schoolgirl. News International is discussing a total package of around £3m including a personal donation from Rupert Murdoch of £1m to a charity of the Dowler's choice. News Corp declined to comment but it is understood that senior executives question whether there is any basis for Lewis's actions.

Relax, no one is going to shoot me, JFK told secret service agents after 1960 election By Daniel Bates Daily Mail (U.K.) Last updated at 12:16 AM on 20th September 2011 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039383/Relax-going-shoot-JFK-told-secret-service-agents-1960-election.html#ixzz1YhGMIaCL President John F Kennedy ridiculed the idea of being shot – just three years before he was assassinated. Following the 1960 election he told one of his aides that Secret Service security was excessive and he was not at risk. Kennedy insisted: ‘They’re making me uncomfortable. Nobody is going to shoot me, so tell them to relax.’ In November 1963, however, Kennedy was gunned down by Lee Harvey Oswald in an assassination that would change the course of history. Kennedy’s concerns emerged in a series of audio tapes made in the 1960s by his aide Kenneth O’Donnell and recently unearthed by O’Donnell’s daughter. The tapes also include an eerie premonition from Kennedy about his son, John Jnr, and how his love of flying could end in disaster. He said: ‘John (Jr) loved helicopters. ‘He would race over and get on a helicopter, and when it was time for us to leave, he refused to get out of it. ‘The poor Secret Service would take John kicking and squabbling off the helicopter or the plane. ‘The president said to me: ‘The real question I’m going to have to face is when he’s old enough and wants to learn to fly’’. In 1999 his father’s concern proved accurate when JFK Jr died in a plane crash. John F Kennedy was shot dead whilst his motorcade drove though Dallas in Texas on November 22 1963, sparking a string of conspiracy theories. They centered around the idea of a second shooter who may have fired on the president as well as Oswald. Premonition: The President said that his son John F. Kennedy Jr's love of flying could end in disaster. He was killed when piloting a plane which went down over the Atlantic in 1999 Footage of the incident appears to show smoke from a gun rising out of a grassy knoll close to where he drove by. There has also been the suggestion that two men could have been moving around on the sixth floor of the book depository where Oswald fired from. An initial inquiry, known as the Warren Commission, concluded that the killing was his work alone. It also found that Jack Ruby, who shot Oswald dead before he could stand trial, was not part of a cover-up. In 1979, however, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations found that the killing of the president was in fact probably the work of a conspiracy. The Kennedy family has recently been rocked by the death of Kara Kennedy, the oldest child of the late Senator Edward Kennedy. There has also been renewed interest in its affairs after the release of seven controversial interviews that Jackie Kennedy recorded in 1964. Her criticism of Martin Luthur King and conservative views on the role of women have shocked liberal America, which regarded her as one of its heroines. She also revealed that after the Cuban missile crisis ended in 1962 he darkly joked that if anyone was going to shoot him ‘this would be the day they should do it’. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039383/Relax-going-shoot-JFK-told-secret-service-agents-1960-election.html#ixzz1YhGMIaCL

I am not sure that was a good idea. John, I concede your point. And I struggled with it awhile but felt ultimately that she made a very persuasive case in "Me and Lee" which made me a believer, irrespective of whatever changes have been made in her story over the years. She had ample reason to fear becoming involved in disclosing her story for at least the first three decades, and I know I would have some difficulty in writing about the details of what I had done that long ago, so I gave her some latitude with respect to previous inconsistencies. I was impressed by all the old photos too I guess, even though it sure would have helped to have one with her beside Lee somewhere there. Regardless, those citations are not really critical to my book and I believe the details she has provided in each case make sense; I have also couched citations to her book thusly: "Judyth Vary Baker, who persuasively claims to have been Oswald's lover during the summer of 1963 in New Orleans, stated . . . " I felt that this avoided a grant of 100% credibility to her story, considering that it is highly controversial, yet allowed me to include some more details of those specific areas, both of which have appeared to be a big void in any other accounts, including the WCR. Again, as I stated in the last edition as well as the new one, as I take away Johnson's cloak of "the benefit of the doubt" that has been liberally given to him for over five decades, I extend to all of the witnesses who have been subjected to ridicule and abuse (you know all the names, like Jean Hill, Roger Craig, et.al. ad infinitum) a bit more credibility just to even the scales. Time will tell whose stories will eventually be vindicated. I believe mine (the overarching one) will eventually be, regardless of these two citations. I, too, believe that your chronicle of LBJ's role in the assassination of JFK will be ultimately be vindicated by history and I congratulate you on devoting the time and energy that was required to marshal the credible evidence.

Exclusive: Murdoch execs told of hacking evidence in 2006 Police warned Rebekah Brooks practice likely to be in wider use The Independent By James Cusick and Cahal Milmo Thursday, 22 September 2011 Up to a dozen News International executives, including Rebekah Brooks, were told in 2006 that the Metropolitan Police had evidence that more than one News of the World journalist was implicated in the phone-hacking scandal. New information obtained by The Independent challenges the timetable, as publicly stated by Rupert Murdoch's newspaper group, of when and how it first became aware of the extent of illegality at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid. Senior figures from NI have repeatedly stated to Parliament that the company had no significant evidence until 2008 that illegal voicemail interception went beyond the NOTW's jailed royal editor, Clive Goodman. The new evidence, which is likely to be central to the investigations into the Murdoch empire, reveals that police informed the company two years earlier that they had uncovered strong "circumstantial evidence" implicating other journalists. A senior police officer held a meeting with Ms Brooks in the weeks after the arrest in August 2006 of Mr Goodman and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. The officer who met Ms Brooks – a former editor of the NOTW who at the time was editing The Sun – told her that detectives sifting through a vast cache of documents seized from Mulcaire's south London home had uncovered evidence that Goodman was not the only individual on the paper involved in criminal activity. Information was disclosed about the nature of that evidence. Tom Crone, News International's legal manager, contacted executives from the company in early autumn 2006 informing them of the Met's meeting with Ms Brooks. The information passed on by Mr Crone to senior NI executives states that the Met investigation had gathered substantial "circumstantial evidence" that other journalists at the NOTW were involved in hacking phones. It has already been reported that Mulcaire was in the habit of writing the name of the NOTW journalist who commissioned him to intercept voicemails in the top corner of his notes. It has been confirmed to The Independent that among those contacted by Mr Crone was the NOTW's then-editor Andy Coulson. The Labour MP Tom Watson, a leading campaigner on the hacking scandal, said: "If these allegations are true, then Parliament was not given the full facts of the case when senior executives appeared before MPs. "We also need to know who it was in the Metropolitan Police that was informing News International of the conduct of a criminal inquiry that was taking place. How could it be that NI were aware of the conduct of a police inquiry almost in real time?" The revelation that the upper echelons of the Murdoch empire were told of police evidence in 2006 raises questions about the persistent denials by executives that they knew phone hacking was being widely practised. In July 2008, footballers' union chief executive Gordon Taylor received a £700,000 out-of-court settlement approved by News Corp's European boss, James Murdoch, following the discovery of a damaging email which suggested that knowledge of hacking at the NOTW went beyond Goodman. The deal included a confidentiality clause which kept hidden the wider use of phone hacking inside the paper. As recently as this month, Mr Crone insisted there was "no evidence beyond Goodman" until negotiations in 2008, when Mr Taylor's legal team produced an email intended for Neville Thurlbeck, the NOTW's chief reporter, containing transcripts of Mr Taylor's phone messages from 2005. The 2006 meeting between Ms Brooks and the Met also raises fresh questions about the closeness of the relationship between NI and Scotland Yard, which was heavily criticised for the failure of its original investigation to uncover the wider practice of hacking inside the tabloid, and the fact that no one at the NOTW beyond Goodman was interviewed by officers. The former NOTW editor was in charge of The Sun at the time of the encounter, meaning she would have had no direct responsibility for how the Sunday title handled its response to the arrest of Goodman on 8 August 2006. In her appearance before the Commons Media Select Committee in July, Ms Brooks nonetheless confirmed that her role involved regular meetings with senior officers, adding that she had been informed by the Yard in 2006 that her own voicemails had been targeted by Mulcaire. It is unclear whether the information implicating named additional NOTW journalists was provided at the same meeting. The Independent understands that Andy Hayman, then the Yard's head of counter-terrorism who was in overall charge of the original hacking inquiry, was informed of the Met's meeting with Ms Brooks and that Mr Crone had subsequently informed key NOTW executives of the force's evidence. Mr Coulson resigned following the convictions of Goodman and Mulcaire in 2007 and was subsequently hired by David Cameron as the Conservative Party's director of communications before resigning this January. He was arrested in July on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemails and making corrupt payments to police officers. He told the Commons Media Select Committee in 2009: "During that time [as editor] I neither condoned the use of phone hacking, nor do I have any recollection of instances when phone hacking took place." Representatives of Ms Brooks and Mr Coulson declined to comment. A News International spokeswoman said last night: "News International continues to co-operate fully with the Metropolitan Police Service in its investigations into phone hacking and police payments. We are eager to assist it in any way possible to ensure that those responsible for criminal acts are brought to justice." A spokeswoman for the Met said: "The new evidence provided by News International continues to be considered alongside material already in the Metropolitan Police Service's possession. At the same time, all actions and decisions taken by the previous investigation are being reviewed. It would be inappropriate to discuss any further details regarding this case at this time." Why chronology is crucial in this scandal The closure of the News of the World has not been enough to quell the phone hacking scandal. A public appetite, a keen public interest, knowing exactly when the illegal practices began, is still there. Questions remain of who knew and what steps were taken, if any, to deal with criminality within. Until now there have been key disclosures that from the outside take on the appearance of code-breaking, perhaps only of interest to a new class of Murdoch Kremlinologists. But the timing of what happened within the defunct Sunday tabloid has become crucial to this Fleet Street saga. Two documents have so far dominated the who-knew-what timeframe. The Commons culture committee regards the "For Neville" email as crucial. NI only decided in 2008 to settle, secretly, with Gordon Taylor, the footballers union boss, when Taylor's lawyers revealed that hacking went beyond one "rogue" reporter. Tom Crone, NI's legal manager, was colloquial in his language to parliament: "Listen, it was the reason we had to settle the case... and we had to explain the case to Mr Murdoch [James] and get his authority to settle." A year earlier, in May 2007, Clive Goodman, out of prison, wrote to Daniel Cloke, the company's human resources head, describing "other News of the World employees as clients for [Glenn] Mulcaire's solo subversive charges". Goodman's assertion was that hacking was a culture at the NOTW. Now, despite subsequent open verdicts on NI-ordered inquiries with limited remits, and internal probes that backed the "rogue reporter" claim, NI can no longer pretend hacking was not endemic. Nevertheless the battle for who-knew-and-when continues. The Independent's latest revelation pushes back the previous timeline by two years. It opens up a new line of questions that will be of interest to MPs when they next speak to James Murdoch and Les Hinton, who at the time of Goodman and Mulcaire's adventures was NI's chairman.

Richard C. Hoagland appeared on the international radio program coasttocoastam on Tuesday night, September 20, 2011. Below is the coasttocoast report on what he said: Comet Elenin Final hour guest Richard C. Hoagland shared his thoughts on Comet Elenin, Friday's impending satellite re-entry, and 2012. He decried the hysteria surrounding Elenin, declaring that he'd "never seen any object so hyped and so lied about than this little nothing, wimpy thing." Hoagland also voiced suspicions over the origins of the comet's discovery, noting that Leonid Elenin, the man who discovered it, has seemingly rebuffed nearly all press surrounding the object. He encouraged listeners to avoid what he sees as "fear conditioning" by the media surrounding Elenin and surmised that something about the approaching comet threatens the world elite. As such, Hoagland mused that "someone in power is deathly afraid of it, so it must be a good thing."

Poster's note: If this is an apology, it is artfully done and does not appear explicitly to repudiate his earlier comments. He is still a real patriot in my opinion. --------------------------- Tony Bennett apologizes for 9/11 comments www.rawstory.com By Andrew Jones Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 -- 10:51 am 0 The next time Tony Bennett performs his song "This is All I Ask," requesting that an apology be accepted for his comments on 9/11 maybe included. The 85-year-old singer apologized for his comments made on Howard Stern's Sirius XM radio show Monday evening after the host asked him how he would deal with terrorists. "Who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists, or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don't make a right," Bennett said. "They flew the plane in, but we caused it. We were bombing them, and they told us to stop." On his Facebook page Tuesday afternoon, Bennett issued a statement of penitence. "There is simply no excuse for terrorism and the murder of the nearly 3,000 innocent victims of the 9/11 attacks on our country," he wrote. "I am sorry if my statements suggested anything other than an expression of my love for my country, my hope for humanity and my desire for peace throughout the world." "9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation" director Ed Kowalski, told Newsday, "Tony should stick to singing songs rather than making an unintelligent statement about U.S. foreign policy." Republican presidential candidate and Texas congressman Ron Paul has expressed a similar opinion virtually ever time he's asked about the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have been explicit, and they wrote and said that we attacked because you had bases on our holy lands in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians a fair treatment," he told a Republican debate audience earlier this month.

MPs summon Met police to explain bid to force Guardian to reveal sources Deputy assistant commissioner to be called before Commons committee that investigated phone hacking By Owen Bowcott, Vikram Dodd and Lizzy Davies guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 September 2011 07.09 EDT The Commons home affairs committee has decided to summon the Metropolitan police to explain its actions, after its bid – and subsequent climbdown – to make Guardian reporters disclose their sources for articles relating to the phone hacking of the murder victim Milly Dowler. The deputy assistant commissioner, Mark Simmons, will be called before the committee to answer questions this Friday – the same day his officers had intended to take the Guardian to court. The briefing will be held in private, it has emerged, although the committee may issue a statement later. The powerful committee of MPs has already investigated phone hacking and lambasted the Met for its failings. Keith Vaz MP, chair of the home affairs committee said: "I have asked the Metropolitan police to give the committee a full explanation of why they took this action and to provide us with a timeline as to exactly who was consulted. "It is essential that we get the full facts." It came after Simmons, who is head of professionalism issues at Scotland Yard, admitted that invoking the Official Secrets Act in attempts to make the Guardian reveal its confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal was "not appropriate". He defended the police's duty to investigate "robustly" leaks of information to the media. But he said claims that Amelia Hill, one of the reporters who broke the scandal, could have incited a source to break the Official Secrets Act – and broken the act herself – should not have formed a part of Scotland Yard's strategy. The Met had been due to apply on Friday for a production order to obtain all the material the Guardian holds that would help identify sources for the phone-hacking stories. "The view I came to when I looked at the matter was that the Official Secrets Act was not an appropriate element of the application," Simmons told the BBC. "We have acknowledged, and I have acknowledged, the role the Guardian has played in the history of what brought us to where we are now both in terms of its focus on phone hacking itself and indeed its focus on the Met's response to that. "But in all the glare that's been thrown on to our relationships with the media, we have had to ask ourselves the question about how do we do more to ensure that public confidence in our officers treating information that is brought to them in confidence … is maintained." Simmons said that, although he had been aware that an application was under way, he had not been aware of its detailed content or of the reference to the Official Secrets Act. After an intervention by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Scotland Yard abandoned its bid to force the Guardian to disclose its sources on Tuesday night. Simmons said: "What I have clearly done is taken a view, based on consultation with the DPP [director of public prosecutions], based on, as I say, our own legal advice, that the use of the Official Secrets Act this time … was not appropriate, and that's the basis for withdrawing the application." The statement put out by the Met announcing its retreat left open the possibility that the production order could be applied for again, but the Guardian's lawyers have been told that the police have dropped the application. A senior Yard source said: "It's off the agenda." The Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, cautioned against moves to curb responsible journalism. "I just hope that in our effort to clean up some of the worst practices we don't completely overreact and try to clamp down on perfectly normal and applaudable reporting," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "This was a regrettable incident, but let's hope it's over." The police application was formally made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, but with an assertion that Hill had committed an offence under the Official Secrets Act by inciting an officer from Operation Weeting – the Met's investigation into phone hacking – to reveal information. The Yard source said: "There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. Obviously, the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists. In hindsight, the view is that certain things that should have been done were not done, and that is regrettable." Many lawyers had expressed astonishment at the police resorting to the Official Secrets Act. Their surprise was reinforced on Monday when the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, revealed that the CPS had not been contacted by officers before the application was made. Neil O'May, the Guardian's solicitor, said: "This was always a misconceived application for source material. Journalists' sources are protected in law. For the Metropolitan police to turn on the very newspaper which exposed the failings of the previous police inquiries and reported on hacking by the News of the World was always doomed to failure. The Metropolitan police need to control the officers who are involved in these sensitive areas." In a statement, the CPS said: "[On] Monday the Metropolitan police asked the CPS for advice in relation to seeking a production order against Guardian Newspapers. "The CPS has asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and has said that more time will be needed fully to consider the matter. As a result, the scheduled court hearing will not go ahead on Friday. [The Metropolitan police] will consider what application, if any, it will make in due course, once it has received advice from the CPS." The Met said in a statement: "The Metropolitan police's directorate of professional standards consulted the Crown Prosecution Service about the alleged leaking of information by a police officer from Operation Weeting. "The CPS has today asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter. In addition the MPS [Metropolitan police service] has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday 23 September. We have agreed with the CPS that we will work jointly with them in considering the next steps. "This decision does not mean that the investigation has been concluded. This investigation, led by the DPS [directorate of professional standards], not Operation Weeting, has always been about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that. Despite recent media reports, there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists' obligations to protect their sources." The picture painted by Met insiders is that a relatively junior officer took the decision to take on the Guardian without consulting his superiors, setting off a calamitous chain of events that saw the Met condemned for an attempted assault on press freedom. The senior source said: "There were not a lot of happy people at our place over the weekend because it was a decision made by the SIO [senior investigating officer]. There was no referral upwards, and you would have thought on something as sensitive as this there would have been."

It has been several years since I last watched this video. I viewed it again today and was again struck by its integrity and power. It is a masterpiece and will have lasting influence on history. I have often thought that when the Vietnam protesters outside the White House each day shouted, "Hey, hey, LBJ, who you going to kill today?" that unknown to the protesters Johnson's mind immediately recalled his killing of JFK -- and that this eventually led to his derangement and mental illness. It would be the type of drama that Shakespeare would have recognized and appreciated. Who knows: maybe Johnson even believed he saw the ghost of JFK at times watching him inside the Oval Office and in his bedroom upstairs? Perhaps even the ghosts of other Presidents may have joined JFK's ghost, each pointing an accusing finger at LBJ.

A patriot speaks out: http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/20/7863717-tony-bennett-catches-heat-for-911-remarks

US prosecutors write to News Corp as part of payment inquiry – reports Justice department writes to News Corp to determine whether it violated US laws on foreign corrupt practices, say reports By Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 September 2011 16.34 EDT US prosecutors have written to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation requesting information on alleged payments made to the British police for tips for stories, according to reports. A confidential letter has been sent from the US justice department in an effort to determine whether News Corp violated American laws on foreign corrupt practices. The US justice department said it had no comment on the report, carried by Bloomberg, which cited "a person with knowledge of the matter" as its source. Shares in News Corp fell 1.7% on the news. The company did not return calls for comment. It is believed the letter relates to allegations of payments made to police by News of the World staff in the UK. If staff were found guilty, they may also fall foul of American law, because the parent group is based in New York. Under US law, it is a crime for a business or their employees to pay off representatives of a foreign government to gain commercial advantage. "The inquiry seems to be following the typical pattern for one of these investigations," said professor Mike Koehler of Butler University and author of FCPA Professor blog. He said the US authorities would be interested in a "very broad spectrum" of News Corp employees. "It's very typical for payments in these cases to have been made by employees of US firms who are not in the US and who are not US citizens," Koehler said. News Corp, whose US newspapers include the tabloid New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, is already under investigation following allegations that victims of September 11 had their phones hacked. This claims appeared in the Daily Mirror, a rival title to News International's Sun newspaper, and have yet to be substantiated elsewhere. Nonetheless, the allegations are being taken seriously. In July, News Corp retained Mark Mendelsohn of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind & Garrison – an attorney who had previously overseen the foreign corrupt practices investigations unit in the US justice department – to help it deal with the phone-hacking scandal. News Corp is conducting its own internal probe and has pledged to assist the US authorities in their inquiries.

Murdoch will have to step down CNN founder and rival media mogul says News Corp head should take responsibility for crisis By James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 September 2011 11.00 EDT CNN founder Ted Turner said on Tuesday that rival media mogul Rupert Murdoch would "have to step down" in the wake of the phone-hacking controversy that has thrown News Corporation into crisis. Turner who has clashed with Murdoch repeatedly throughout his career, told Bloomberg Television: "I think he's going to have to step down. He hadn't survived anything like this. This is serious." Murdoch, who is chairman and chief executive of News Corp, has consistently denied any knowledge about the alleged extent of phone hacking at the News of the World, which the company was forced to close in July. Turner said: "Well, he should have known. He was chairman of the board. He's responsible. I took responsibility when I ran my company. You never heard me say 'well, I didn't know'." Turner's rivalry with Murdoch is well-known. Although the American sold his company Turner Broadcasting, which owned CNN, to Time Warner in 1996, he continued to be involved with the cable channel at a time when Murdoch launched competitor Fox News. Fox was soon challenging CNN for viewers and has consistently won a bigger audience share than the Atlanta-based channel in recent years, becoming a springboard for politicians associated with the Tea Party movement and the rightwing of the Republican party. Turner's yacht was famously sunk in a Sydney-to-Hobart boat race by a vessel sponsored by a Murdoch company yards from the finishing line, an incident which prompted Turner to challenge the News Corp founder to a fight.

Phone hacking: how the Met came to the Guardian looking for evidence Scotland Yard claimed that that article about Milly Dowler, and others, had been one of a number of 'gratuitous' leaks By Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 September 2011 16.57 EDT The Milly Dowler phone hacking story prompted the closure of the News of the World, the resignation of Rebekah Brooks and is expected to lead to a near £3m apology payout to the family involved. Yet, when officers from the Metropolitan police came to the Guardian last week, they offered a different view: that it was not an example of journalism in the public interest, but, in effect, a product of espionage. The officers demanded evidence – specifically notebooks and other information held by Guardian journalist Amelia Hill, one of the authors of the Milly Dowler story, in an effort to discover its source. Their claim was that that article, and others about Operation Weeting, the police investigation into phone hacking, had been one of a number of "gratuitous" leaks from the enquiry team. Indeed, so gratuitous were the leaks that the police demand for evidence indicated they believed there may have been a breach under the Official Secrets Act. The demand was so unusual that it was not just the Guardian that was scrambling to comprehend the law. The police demand for evidence, a production order under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), came with the allegation that there were breaches of the obscure sections 4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act. The right to preserve the anonymity of sources is enshrined in law, and there is a public interest defence against a (normal) Pace order. But there is no public interest defence to breaches of the Official Secrets Act. Lawyers have speculated that the almost unprecedented use of section 5 of the Official Secrets Act was to bolster the Met's argument for seizing the reporter's notebooks and records The results were all too predictable. Last Friday, the Guardian went public, revealing that the police had asked for a court ruling on the legality of the demand this Friday. Remarkably, support for the newspaper was widespread, with trenchant leading articles from the Financial Times and the Daily Mirror, which both recognised the importance of protecting journalistic sources. Meanwhile the Sunday Times, part of Rupert Murdoch's media stable, called on the Met to "call off its legal dogs". Even Richard Littlejohn, the Daily Mail columnist, announced, after advising his readers to "pour yourself a stiff drink", that he was "about to defend the Guardian" in a column. Politicians swiftly joined in. At their party conference, the Liberal Democrats were quick to voice support; asked by MP Don Foster at a fringe meeting attended by Hugh Grant whether there was a public interest in publishing the Milly Dowler story, every one of the 200 or so hands went up. On Monday, Labour followed suit – and both parties called on politicians or senior officials to intervene. As Fleet Street rallied around and politicians followed, the authorities struggled. So obscure were Sections 4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act that the office of the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, thought it had the power to review whether a prosecution under the act would be brought if the Guardian refused to comply with the request to produce evidence. In fact, the power as regards these clauses lies with Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, and it turned out that the police had failed to inform his officials until Monday. It was unclear, also, whether the new Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, was aware of his officers' threat to use the Official Secrets Act. Only days into his tenure, and the new commissioner suddenly found his force embroiled in an unnecessary controversy over the same issue that had forced the resignation of his predecessor, Sir Paul Stephenson. Ultimately, it was understood Hogan-Howe was not aware; that the request, it appeared, had come from a relatively junior level – although that did not mitigate the force or importance of the demand. Under such public pressure, the police decision to retreat is a relief. Through brilliant – or diabolical – legalism, the Met appeared to find a way to tear up the rights of journalists to protect their sources. That the Met chose not to proceed might deny a judge the chance to rule on a test case, but it is better to avoid setting a precedent if that precedent would have had the effect of putting every whistleblower from the public sector at risk of exposure, because they could be deemed to have breached the Official Secrets Act.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011, 7:59 P.M. ET Justice Seeks Info From News Corp. The Wall Street Journal By THOMAS CATAN And DEVLIN BARRETT U.S. prosecutors have sent News Corp. a letter seeking information about possible payments made by its U.K. tabloid newspapers to British policemen, according to people familiar with the matter. The letter of request, sent last week, is part of a Justice Department investigation, these people said, into whether the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. law that prohibits companies from bribing foreign officials. The fact the Justice Department chose to issue a "letter of request" rather than a criminal subpoena suggests the department has opted for a less confrontational approach to the matter, legal experts say. Several people familiar with the case described the letter as part of ongoing communications between the company and the government about producing documents related to possible violations of U.S. law. Earlier this year, News Corp. retained Mark Mendelsohn, the Justice Department's former head of FCPA enforcement, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported. During his time at the Justice Department, Mr. Mendelsohn encouraged companies to come clean about suspected FCPA violations in return for more lenient treatment by the government. He allowed many companies to conduct their own internal investigations using outside counsel under Justice Department oversight. Mr. Mendelsohn didn't respond to request for comment. The existence of the letter was earlier reported by Bloomberg News. Spokeswomen for both News Corp. and the Justice Department declined to comment on the letter. News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal. The Justice Department is conducting a separate investigation into allegations by a U.K. tabloid newspaper that a News Corp. publication tried to hack into the telephone accounts of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder met with victims' families who were concerned about the allegations. Investigators haven't found hard evidence so far in probing whether News Corp.'s U.K.-based journalists might have hacked the phones of 9/11 victims, people familiar with the matter have said. News Corp. says the kind of phone hacking that allegedly took place at its now-defunct U.K. newspaper News of the World didn't occur in the U.S. In July, a News Corp. spokeswoman said the company had "not seen any evidence to suggest there was any hacking of 9/11 victims' phones, nor has anybody corroborated what are clearly very serious allegations." There are a number of reasons the Justice Department might ask a company to submit information voluntarily rather than pursuing a criminal subpoena. Legal experts who work on FCPA cases say sending a letter of request is a way to seek information and put a company on notice without alarming shareholders in a case where evidence of wrongdoing isn't clear cut. A company would likely have to notify the Securities and Exchange Commission in a filing if it received a subpoena. Though responding to the request is theoretically voluntary, it's unlikely that News Corp would choose to ignore it, former Justice Department officials said. At a parliamentary hearing in 2003, Rebekah Brooks, then editor of The Sun newspaper, admitted to making payments to policemen for stories. "We have paid the police for information in the past," she said, in comments that touched off a raucous debate in Britain. In a March 2011 letter to a parliamentary committee, Ms. Brooks clarified that, in her 2003 testimony, she had merely intended to comment on the "widely-held belief" that payments had been made in the past to police officers. But she said she had no knowledge of any specific cases. The company quickly clarified that it wasn't its practice to pay policemen and Ms. Brooks has since changed her stance. At a new set of parliamentary hearings this year, Ms. Brooks said she had never made payments to police, or sanctioned payments, for information. Ms. Brooks was editor of the News of the World during the time when its reporters were alleged to have hacked into thousands of people's cellphone voice messages. She went on to become chief executive of News Corp.'s British newspaper unit, News International, before resigning in July amid the hacking scandal. News Corp. is still attempting to settle a stream of lawsuits that have followed the phone hacking revelations. The company's U.K. newspaper unit plans to pay about £3 million ($4.7 million) tied to recent allegations that News of the World hacked the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler in 2002.

James Cusick: For those yet to settle, this will be a game-changer News Corp shareholders may soon be alerted to the legal reality that the damages fund of £20m is woefully short The Independent Tuesday, 20 September 2011 The scale of the settlement deal between News International and the Dowler family can be described as game-changing. NI has previously used its substantial financial muscle to secure confidentiality agreements and out-of-court deals, especially in the private phase of the phone-hacking scandal, when the company was effectively hiding the illegal practices in its newsroom. Lawyers representing the current queue of civil litigants, now standing at around 30, were not using the earlier NI payments to Gordon Taylor, Sienna Miller and Leslie Ash – all victims of News of the World phone hacking – as the benchmark for what the Murdoch empire was prepared to pay them in settlement. Most were instead looking to the hearings scheduled for January next year at the Royal Courts of Justice. Mr Justice Vos has been managing the group of six civil litigants who were expected to be the test cases determining the damages settlements for other victims. The cases include the actor Jude Law, the Labour MP Chris Bryant, the designer Kelly Hoppen, the former England footballer Paul Gascoigne, the football agent Sky Andrew, and Sheila Henry, whose 26-year-old son died in the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London. For those whose names were simply found in the archive of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator employed by NOTW, lawyers were expecting nothing like the scale of earlier settlements. The lack of evidence, at least so far, that NOTW used all the numbers, may have contributed to lowering expectations. News International itself, while expecting the Dowler settlement to be large, had set aside £20m to cover the total costs of damages that were still in the legal pipeline. However the £3m settlement for the Dowler family, which dwarfs earlier deals, sends a powerful signal to those still in the queue. As Tom Watson points out, News Corp shareholders may soon be alerted to the legal reality that the damages fund of £20m is woefully short. When Mr Justice Vos begins in January, it may not be wrong to assume that NI will have reduced the number of test cases before him. Lawyers for the victims of phone hacking want compensation. In or out of court, it doesn't matter. Paying seven-figure sums to one family, and seven figures to their designated charities, means that News International may have finally realised that its once-powerful defences are no longer as strong or as sustainable. The flood gates may just have opened.

Rupert Murdoch pays Dowlers £3m for phone hacking The Independent By Cahal Milmo and James Cusick Tuesday, 20 September 2011 The family of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler have been offered nearly £3m by Rupert Murdoch's News International as the company tries to draw a line under the single most damaging incident in the phone-hacking scandal. The huge payout, which The Independent understands is to be divided between Milly's family and charities designated by them, comes after Mr Murdoch held his head in his hands in a meeting with the teenager's parents this summer and repeatedly apologised for the interception of her voicemails by his News of the World. The revelation in July that the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire accessed Milly's mobile phone on behalf of NOTW after her disappearance in March 2002 – and that messages were deleted from her phone, giving her family false hope that she was still alive – was a tipping point in the hacking saga, unleashing a wave of public anger and revulsion which ultimately forced the closure of the 168-year-old tabloid. The revelation sparked an unprecedented risis in the Murdoch empire. The main principles of the settlement between NI and the Dowler family have been agreed and the package is expected to be finalised in the coming days. It is likely that Mr Murdoch personally approved the payment to the Dowlers. The cash sum will be divided between damages paid for the distress caused to her parents and sister, and a separate sum for charities chosen by the Dowler family. It is understood that Murdoch will personally sign the £1m cheque for the charities. Following a memorial service for their daughter in 2002, Sally and Bob Dowler set up Milly's Fund, a charity that aimed to promote public safety and was later wound into the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. The Dowlers will remain core participants in the Leveson inquiry into the media. Mark Lewis, the lawyer representing the Dowlers, was unavailable for comment last night. The settlement dwarfs other payments made so far in the scandal, including the £100,000 paid to the actress Sienna Miller. NI also paid £700,000 to the footballers' union boss Gordon Taylor in 2008 and £1m to the publicist Max Clifford last year. The settlement with the Dowlers, who this summer saw former bouncer Levi Bellfield convicted of Milly's murder, means the total cost to NI of paying damages to victims is almost certain to significantly exceed the £20m the company set aside to meet the burgeoning number of High Court lawsuits against it. News International has said it will offer settlements in all cases where it is accepted that there is evidence of phone hacking and is claimed to be tabling higher payments in return for the signing of a confidentiality clause by some victims. A spokeswoman for the company said yesterday: "News International confirms it is in advanced negotiations with the Dowler family regarding their compensation settlement. No final agreement has yet been reached, but we hope to conclude the discussions as quickly as possible." Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has been a vociferous campaigner on the issue, said: "There were other families of crime victims targeted by News International. News Corp shareholders were told that cleaning up the hacking cases would cost £20m in the civil courts. This settlement shows the final cost to shareholders will be considerably more than that. There will be questions to answer at the News Corp AGM next month." Chris Bryant, the Labour MP and one of the named litigants coming before Mr Justice Vos in January, said: "It the least they could do in the circumstances. Let us remember that News International have known all along that News of the World hacked into Milly Dowler's phone and deleted messages which led her family to believe their daughter was still alive. That is playing God with people's lives." The transformation of the phone-hacking scandal from a story about gathering gossip on celebrities to a firestorm about how Britain's biggest newspaper group interfered with a police investigation into the murder of a child was a nadir for Mr Murdoch. He requested a private meeting with Milly's parents and her sister Gemma at which he repeatedly told them he was "very, very sorry". Mr Lewis, speaking at the time, said: "He was very humbled and very shaken and very sincere. I don't think somebody could have held their head in their hands so many times and say that they were sorry." The Independent Police Complaints Commission last month launched an investigation into claims that a detective with Surrey Police passed information from the Dowler murder hunt to the NOTW. How the case unfolded 21 March 2002 Milly Dowler, 13, disappears after school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. 14 April 2002 The News of the World publishes a first edition story quoting from voicemails left on her mobile phone. The story is changed for later editions. 20 September 2002 Milly's remains are found in woods. September 2009 News International executives tell MPs phone hacking was an isolated incident, confined to royal editor Clive Goodman. 4 July 2011 A lawyer for the Dowler family reveals their intention to sue NI after The Guardian discloses Milly's phone was targeted and voicemails deleted. 10 July 2011 NI announces the closure of the NOTW, saying "mistakes" have been made. 15 July 2011 Rupert Murdoch meets the Dowlers and repeatedly apologises. 19 September 2011 NI agrees £3m financial settlement with the Dowler family.

http://www.conspiracy-cafe.com/apps/blog/show/8739547-9-11-photographer-shot-bobby-kennedy-too-