Douglas Caddy

As the scandal grows, could Murdoch exit Britain altogether? A faction within the tycoon's empire has long wanted him to shed News International. Now they smell blood, says Ian Burrell The Independent Tuesday, 12 July 2011 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/as-the-scandal-grows-could-murdoch-exit-britain-altogether-2312102.html Will Rupert Murdoch abandon British newspapers entirely? After the dramatic demise of the News of the World, speculation was rife last night that the News Corp media empire might seek to sell off News International to protect the rest of its business from the fallout of the hacking scandal. Rupert Murdoch's media empire: what News Corp owns - click here to download graphic (170k) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/as-the-scandal-grows-could-murdoch-exit-britain-altogether-2312102.html With a tsunami of bad publicity threatening the company's bid to take control of BSkyB, the News Corp board in New York is likely to face questions from shareholders on the business case for retaining the News International stable of mostly loss-making titles. Pressure increased yesterday with news that a group of American institutional investors had brought new charges against the company over the phone-hacking affair. The investors, who are critical of Rupert Murdoch and his son and deputy, James, accused News Corp of "rampant nepotism and failed corporate governance". Beyond the chairman and chief executive himself, who has a long and sentimental attachment to the UK newspapers on which he built his fortune, News International has few friends at News Corp in the US where it will be held responsible for reducing the company's share price, which was down 6 per cent yesterday. "There has long been a faction within News Corp which says 'Why do we have these newspapers?'" notes Michael Wolff, contributing editor to Vanity Fair and Rupert Murdoch's biographer. He said that the former president and chief operating officer, Peter Chernin, had taken such a view, and that the current chief operating officer, Chase Carey, the most likely non-family member to succeed the ageing chairman, "has never had any involvement in the newspapers". Wolff said it was conceivable that News Corp would attempt to put the phone-hacking scandal behind it by selling News International. "It's quite possible that at some point one of the fall-back positions is to blame it all on the newspapers: 'It's newspaper culture and newspapers which are the problem here, not the company, which is a modern media company.' The newspapers were once the motor of this company but they have not been certainly in half a generation. In New York no one has heard of the News of the World." He said that the board of the US-listed company needed to show that it did not simply act at the behest of the chairman. "As boards of major companies go, this is one of the most docile and least independent. One of the themes that is going to be taken up there is of corporate governance and that these people are not accountable. That's a board-level question and I think the board is going to come under increasing pressure to realise that." The Times and Sunday Times made losses of £87.7m in the year to 28 June 2009. News International, including The Sun and News of the World, made an overall loss of £925,000 in 2010. The Sun is still profitable but its circulation of 2.8 million is down 3 per cent on last year. The closure of the News of the World is set to significantly reduce UK newspaper revenues which, at £1bn last year, are dwarfed by the £5.9bn made by BSkyB (of which News Corp takes 39 per cent), and represent a small slice of the £21bn revenue which News Corp makes worldwide. Douglas McCabe, of the media analysts Enders, said the News Corp board would not normally take a great deal of interest in the UK newspapers given their "relatively trivial" contribution to global revenues. "The News Corp accounts are very largely biased towards screen-based media," he said. "Newspaper media have for some time been a declining part of the portfolio. When there are no additional factors [the board] wouldn't spend much time thinking about [uK newspapers], either considering whether to sell or anything else. But when they are brought very much into relief by a situation like this, then you are forced to carefully consider what value they have in the overall portfolio." Despite the efforts of executives with responsibility for the London operation, such as James Murdoch and News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, the scandal has crossed the Atlantic, being seized on by the US media and threatening to infect other prestigious News Corp brands. Les Hinton, who runs The Wall Street Journal, is expected to be called to give evidence to a public inquiry on hacking and asked to explain why he failed to appraise himself of the extent of the malpractice when he held his previous position as executive chairman of News International. Brian Cathcart, professor of journalism at Kingston University, agreed that it was getting harder to maintain a business case for News Corp retaining its interests in the British press. "If you were a shareholder in News Corp you might be looking at it and thinking: 'This is just a small limb of the organisation, we want this BSkyB deal, how can we have allowed this to screw it up?'" he said. He added that people who had purchased shares in News Corp had essentially made a decision to back the judgement of one man. "News Corp is not a normal business, it has grown on the genius of one businessman and if you are a shareholder you are just someone who is betting on Rupert Murdoch." Mr Murdoch had shown in his purchase of The Wall Street Journal that he still believes in newspapers but, having recently celebrated his 80th birthday, he may soon hand over to a successor who is less enamoured of having ink on his fingers. James Murdoch showed in folding the News of the World that he had limited sentimental loyalty for a paper that his father bought in 1969. Chase Carey may have even less of an attachment to News Corp's British prints. Professor Cathcart said: "The Times is a good newspaper now and better than it has been for most of Rupert Murdoch's ownership. Is The Times ever going to find another owner with pockets as deep as the Murdochs'? It's very hard to imagine." Murdoch's US circle Chase Carey As chief operating officer, he is Rupert Murdoch's No 2, running the day to day business of the company. He was brought back to News Corp in 2009 from a US satellite firm it had previously sold. In years past, Murdoch entrusted him with building satellite operations in Europe and Asia. Joel Klein He has been handed the task of overseeing the internal investigation into the hacking scandal. Until last year, he was running the New York schools system for mayor Michael Bloomberg. Murdoch hired him as a non-executive for his ties to the Democratic party establishment. Viet Dinh The Vietnamese immigrant to the US was Assistant Attorney General under President George W Bush. He is the other News Corp non-executive working on the hacking investigation and public relations fallout. Arthur Siskind If anyone knows where News Corp's bodies are buried, he knows, because he buried them. He was Mr Murdoch's senior in-house lawyer for 13 years, and stayed on after retirement in 2004 as "senior adviser to the chairman". Robert Thomson Mr Murdoch's last great adventure in the newspaper business, the acquisition of The Wall Street Journal, was cooked up with the former editor of the Times. Now Mr Thomson is editor of the WSJ and remains a trusted adviser.

Just 170 hacking victims contacted The Independent Tuesday, 12 July 2011 The police chief leading Scotland Yard's phone hacking probe has revealed just 170 of more than 4,000 potential victims have been contacted. The full scale of the long-running operation was laid bare as Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers admitted "confidence has been damaged" by previous failures. She admitted there was an "awful lot to do" after saying police had compiled a list of more than 12,000 names and numbers. Evidence from News International details 3,870 names along with 5,000 landline numbers and 4,000 mobiles, she told the committee of MPs. She gave MPs her "guarantee" that she would oversee a thorough inquiry, adding: "I hope that I do not have come back here in five years time."

Poster's note: I always suspected that Murdoch's illlegal wiretapping would eventually lead of his activities in the U.S. More bombshells should be forthcoming. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone hacking: 9/11 victims 'may have had mobiles tapped by News of the World reporters' by David Collins, Daily Mirror 11/07/2011 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/07/11/phone-hacking-9-11-victims-may-have-had-mobiles-tapped-by-news-of-the-world-reporters-115875-23262694/#ixzz1RoIjV6FM DESPERATE Rupert Murdoch yesterday flew to London to try to save his ¬crumbling empire. He arrived in a cowboy-style hat to be hit by claims News of the World reporters hacked the phones of 9/11 victims. Murdoch held talks with News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, amid fears nine staff and three cops may face jail. HIS media empire is crashing around him, he’s just shut down a scandal-hit newspaper and his BSkyB bid is in tatters, but Rupert Murdoch still came out grinning yesterday. And this cosy picture of him giving his backing to smiling Rebekah Brooks will no doubt infuriate the 200 loyal staff at the defunct News of the World who were ¬sacrificed while she clung to her job. As Labour leader Ed Miliband vowed to scupper Mr Murdoch’s bid to own all of BSkyB, the News Corp boss seemed to brush off his troubles to joke with the under-fire News International chief executive – who was editor when murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked. Asked what his first priority was, he gestured at Mrs Brooks and said: “This one.” Mr Murdoch arrived in London yesterday, wearing a Panama hat and clutching a final copy of the News of the World, in a bid to save his crumbling organisation after the phone-hacking scandal saw the 168-year-old paper axed. But he flew straight into another storm as it was claimed 9/11 victims may have had their mobiles tapped by News of the World reporters. And there was more bad news when it was revealed nine reporters -allegedly at the centre of the phone scandal and claims of police corruption could face jail, along with three officers. After he spent time at News International’s Wapping HQ in East London, 80-year-old Mr Murdoch held crisis talks with Mrs Brooks, 43 - who denies any knowledge of the Milly phone tapping - at his home in Mayfair. The pair chatted behind closed doors as a former New York cop made the 9/11 hacking claim. He alleged he was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead. Now working as a private ¬investigator, the ex-officer claimed reporters wanted the victim’s phone numbers and details of the calls they had made and received in the days leading up to the atrocity. A source said: “This investigator is used by a lot of journalists in America and he recently told me that he was asked to hack into the 9/11 victims’ private phone data. He said that the journalists asked him to access records showing the calls that had been made to and from the mobile phones belonging to the victims and their ¬relatives. “His presumption was that they wanted the information so they could hack into the ¬relevant voicemails, just like it has been shown they have done in the UK. The PI said he had to turn the job down. He knew how insensitive such research would be, and how bad it would look. “The investigator said the ¬journalists seemed particularly interested in getting the phone records belonging to the British victims of the attacks.” The News of the World was shut after 11,000 documents seized from a private investigator revealed the ugly truth behind many of its scoops. One police source said: “These documents show the hacking was not just one or two attempts at accessing voicemails. More than 4,000 people had their phone hacked. This was hacking on an industrial scale.” Mr Murdoch’s son James, who is chairman of News International, admitted to approving out of court settlements to hacking victims and misleading Parliament – which he claims was not deliberate. The fresh tapping claims prompted Mr Miliband to declare war on Mr Murdoch’s bid to control BSkyB. In his most outspoken attack on the media mogul yet, he said yesterday: “The idea that this organisation, which has engaged in these terrible ¬practices, should be allowed to take over BSkyB... without that criminal investigation having been completed, and on the basis of assurances from that self-same -organisation… frankly that won’t wash with the public.” Labour will table a motion on Wednesday calling on Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to delay signing off the takeover deal until the criminal investigation into the hacking allegations is wrapped up. Lib Dem -ministers are thought to be prepared to back the Labour leader. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Business Secretary Vince Cable are said to be “totally united” against the bid. Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes lent his support yesterday. He said: “I will be suggesting to my colleagues that we as a party, a party that’s never been close to Murdoch, should make clear that we think there should be a postponement of the decision.” Mr Murdoch also owns the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times. Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, 43, was arrested on Friday over phone hacking and police corruption ¬allegations. Ex-royal editor Clive Goodman, 53, was also held along with a unnamed 63-year-old man. All three were freed on police bail after being quizzed by officers. Mr Coulson was hired as David Cameron’s press aide, despite warnings to the PM over his possible knowledge of the hacking while at the News of the World. And last night criticism of Mr Cameron’s judgment grew louder as senior political figures lined up to reveal they had urged him not to take Mr Coulson into government. Lib Dem Lord Paddy Ashdown and Energy ¬Secretary Chris Huhne claimed they warned the PM after the election - but were ignored. Mr Huhne said: “Well I raised it with Nick and Nick raised it with the Prime Minister and it was made clear to us that this was a personal appointment to the Prime Minister. “It wasn’t a Government appointment and therefore we didn’t have any standing to object to it, but it was very clear from what I had said previously that I think there were big reputational risks. “The Prime Minister has said that he wanted to give Andy Coulson a second chance and that’s very commendable. The reality is that there were very serious risks being run there. We knew with Andy Coulson that anybody in charge of a ¬newspaper needs to know what’s going on and at the very least either Andy Coulson was complicit in criminal acts or, alternatively, he was a very incompetent editor by the ¬standards of Fleet Street.” Milly Dowler’s parents Sally and Bob and sister Gemma are due to meet Mr Clegg today. They will also see Mr Cameron later in the week, Downing Street has said. Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/07/11/phone-hacking-9-11-victims-may-have-had-mobiles-tapped-by-news-of-the-world-reporters-115875-23262694/#ixzz1RoIjV6FM

I was targeted too, Gordon Brown to say The Independent By Martin Hickman and Cahal Milmo Monday, 11 July 2011 Gordon Brown will today break his silence over the News International scandal by accusing Rupert Murdoch's organisation of targeting his personal information, The Independent has learnt. In a dramatic intervention in the deepening scandal, the Labour former Prime Minister is understood to be about to claim that private investigators working for the UK's largest newspaper group are believed to have accessed details relating to his personal bank account. It is also alleged that he and his wife featured in Glenn Mulcaire's records. It is claimed that material based on some of the illicitly-obtained information was subsequently used by one of News International's titles. Mr Brown's decision to make the accusations is the latest extraordinary twist in a tumultuous seven days which has shaken Mr Murdoch's British newspaper empire and almost certainly killed his £9bn bid for BSkyB. In a separate development, the Metropolitan Police today effectively accused News International of undermining Operation Elveden, its new inquiry into alleged corruption of police officers by journalists. In a statement, the Yard said it was "extremely concerned and disappointed that the continuous release of selected information - that is only known by a small number of people - could have a significant impact on the corruption investigation." News International is understood to have said that no information about emails supplied to Scotland Yard relating to the alleged payments would be made public prior to early August.

July 11, 2011 A Detective Alleges the News of the World Spied on Him With Impunity The New York Times By JO BECKER and SARAH LYALL LONDON — On Jan. 9, 2003, Rebekah Wade, until recently the editor of The News of the World, was summoned to an unusual meeting at Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service here. Detective Superintendent David Cook, the lead investigator in a gruesome cold-case killing of a man found with an ax in his head, confronted Ms. Wade with a worrying accusation: He and his family were being followed and photographed, he said, by people hired by her newspaper. Detective Cook said the police had evidence that one of The News of the World’s senior editors, Alex Marunchak, had ordered the illegal surveillance as a favor to two suspects in the case — Sid Fillery and Jonathan Rees, private investigators whose firm had done work for the paper. The lawyer for Mr. Cook, Mark Lewis, said in an interview that the detective believed that Mr. Fillery and Mr. Rees were seeking help in gathering evidence about Detective Cook to derail the murder inquiry. What happened at the meeting, a less detailed account of which appeared in The Guardian, provides a window into the extraordinary coziness that long existed between the British police and The News of The World, as well as the relationship between the paper and unsavory characters in the criminal world. None of the parties to this alliance has escaped the stain. The paper, at the center of a widening scandal over phone hacking and corruption, was shut last week by News International, its parent company, in an effort to limit the already extensive damage done to the reputation and business interests of Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation. Scotland Yard has admitted that it accepted News International’s explanation that the hacking was the work of one rogue reporter, and that some police officers had accepted substantial payments in exchange for confidential information. The News of the World remains the target of several criminal investigations. A number of its former editors and reporters have been arrested, including Andy Coulson, who most recently worked as the chief spokesman for Mr. Cameron, but no one has yet been formally charged. And Prime Minister David Cameron has announced he will appoint a judge to examine both the tabloid’s hacking and its close relationship with the police. Also present for the meeting that day in 2003, said a spokesman for Scotland Yard, were Commander Andy Baker, who was Detective Cook’s boss, and Dick Fedorcio, Scotland Yard’s chief public relations officer. According to an account Detective Cook provided to Mr. Lewis and others, Ms. Wade excused the surveillance by saying that the paper’s action had been “in the public interest” — the argument British newspapers typically make to justify using underhanded or illegal methods to, say, expose affairs by public officials. Ms. Wade said that the paper was tailing Detective Cook because it suspected him of having an affair with Jackie Haines, host of the Crimewatch television program on which he had recently appeared. In fact, the two were married to each other, as had been mentioned prominently in an article about them in the popular gossip magazine “Hello!” Scotland Yard seems to have been satisfied with the explanation of Ms. Wade, now known as Rebekah Brooks and the chief executive of News International. Her paper’s editors and reporters had a long history with the police — paying for tips and sometimes even serving as quasi-police investigators themselves, in return for confidential information (many News of the World stories about criminal matters used to include a reference to the paper’s handing “a dossier” of its findings to Scotland Yard). It is the closeness between the paper and the police that, it seems, led Scotland Yard to what officials have retrospectively admitted was a major misstep: the decision not to adequately pursue the initial phone-hacking investigation in 2006 and again in 2009. It was in 2006 that members of the royal household notified the police that they believed their cellphone messages were being intercepted by The News of the World. The subsequent police “raid” at the paper consisted of rummaging through a single reporter’s desk and failing to question any other reporters or editors. Two people were subsequently jailed: Clive Goodman, The News of the World’s royal reporter, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator hired by the paper. Even when The Guardian reported that the hacking had extended far beyond the pair, and that thousands of victims might be involved, the police and the newspaper insisted repeatedly that the wrongdoing had been limited to a single “rogue” reporter. This weekend, Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who was in charge of the initial inquiry and who in 2009 declined to reopen it, said that the police response had been inadequate. “I have regrettably said the initial inquiry was a success,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. “Clearly, now it looks very different.” After the meeting at Scotland Yard, Detective Cook left “with the impression that the meeting was arranged to placate him and let him get it off his chest, but that nothing else was going to happen,” Mr. Lewis said. “And nothing did.” A spokesman for Scotland Yard said that “the matter was raised at the meeting at a senior level with the relevant people, and it was dealt with.” When asked how it was dealt with, the spokesman added: “The response to those concerns was the meeting.” But a former senior Scotland Yard official said that the tailing of Detective Cook should have prompted a full-scale inquiry. “I’m amazed that wasn’t done,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. A spokeswoman for News Corporation, the parent company of News International, said the company “had not been previously made aware of the allegation that Ms. Brooks had known about the matter but done nothing, but that they will investigate any allegations that are put to them.” Mr. Rees and Mr. Fillery could not be reached for comment because their locations are unknown. Through his lawyer, Paul Jonson, Mr. Marunchak denied any wrongdoing. No one has ever been convicted in connection with Mr. Martin’s death, despite five police investigations in 24 years, in which Mr. Fillery and Mr. Rees have been repeatedly arrested and charged. The most recent case collapsed this spring. Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Tom Watson, a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party, said that the meeting showed the extent of the corrupt relationship between The News of the World on the one hand, and the police and the shady underworld of private investigators with criminal connections on the other. “News International was paying people to interfere with police officers and was doing so on behalf of known criminals,” he said. (Mr. Fillery was convicted in 2003 of making indecent images of children; Mr. Rees of planting cocaine in a woman’s car to discredit her a child-custody case.) Speaking of Ms. Brooks, he said: “Rebekah Brooks cannot deny being present at that meeting when the actions of people whom she paid were exposed. She cannot deny now being warned that under her auspices unlawful tactics were used for the purpose of interfering with the pursuit of justice.” As for Detective Cook, it appears that he, too, was a victim of phone hacking around the same time that the paper had his house under surveillance. But Scotland Yard notified Mr. Cook only eight weeks ago that his name had been found among the papers seized in 2006 in Mr. Mulcaire’s home.

News International knew hacking was widespread in 2007 Evidence of cover-up emerges as Murdoch's bid for BSkyB looks doomed The Independent By Martin Hickman, Cahal Milmo, Oliver Wright and Ian Burrell Monday, 11 July 2011 Rupert Murdoch's takeover of BSkyB appeared to be dead in the water last night after proof emerged that executives at his British newspaper empire mounted a cover-up of the full scale of alleged criminal wrongdoing at the News of the World. In another extraordinary day in the phone-hacking scandal, Downing Street sources confirmed that Government lawyers were drawing up a strategy to halt the £9bn deal which looked a certainty only a week ago. As Nick Clegg threatened to split the Coalition by siding with a Labour plan to block the takeover, a senior Government source said last night: "We are working on a plan to suspend the deal while the police investigation is taking place. But we have to ensure it doesn't get thrown out by judicial review." The U-turn came after one of News International's own papers revealed that an internal report carried out in 2007, after the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman was jailed, had found evidence that illegally accessing voicemails was more widespread at the paper – and that payments had been made to police officers. An anonymous executive was quoted as saying that the report had been like a "ticking time bomb". The report suggests there was a deliberate cover-up by unidentified executives at News International, which had told Parliamentary inquiries in 2007 and 2009 there was no evidence journalists other than Goodman had been involved in phone hacking, nor that it had attempted to suppress evidence of illegality. The collapse of the cover-up came as: * Rupert Murdoch flew into London and was seen entering News International's Wapping HQ carrying a copy of the last ever News of the World. * Labour leader Ed Miliband confirmed his party's opposition to the BSkyB bid and won backing from senior Lib Dems. * One of Scotland Yard's most senior officers, John Yates, admitted that his decision to fend off demands for a re-opening of the criminal investigation into the NOTW had been "pretty crap". * The parents of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose phone was targeted by the paper, prepared to travel to Downing Street to demand action over the growing scandal. * The News of the World published its final edition after 168 years with the headline "Thank You & Goodbye", and and an apology for having "lost its way". * An audacious bid was being made by to resurrect the Sunday paper. The Government's U-turn over its backing for the BSkyB deal is a humiliation for the Prime Minister, who last week said he was powerless to stop it. Liberal Democrat officials revealed Nick Clegg would back a Labour parliamentary motion calling for the takeover to be suspended, unless Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt acted before a Commons debate on Wednesday. Ministers are thought to have been hoping Ofcom would block the deal under its "fit and proper persons" test for broadcasters, but with that looking unlikely before the end of the criminal investigation, they are taking action themselves. Lawyers in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport are thought to be looking at whether the assurances given by News Corporation on plurality can be trusted in light of the growing evidence of corporate wrongdoing. Yesterday, Mr Miliband warned Mr Cameron that unless there was action before Wednesday, he would force the issue to a vote in Parliament. He said: "I say this to the Prime Minister: over the next 72 hours I hope he changes his position." Hours after flying into Britain, Mr Murdoch continued his support of Rebekah Brooks, the embattled chief executive of News International and former News of the World editor. But the company came under further pressure as it emerged that unidentified NI executives knew as far back as 2007 that criminality at the title was apparently widespread. It subsequently insisted that only Goodman had been to blame, telling Parliament that there was no evidence other journalists were involved. Following allegations that the victims of phone hacking spread far beyond royal aides and the five individuals identified at the trial of Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, News International carried out a "thorough investigation" in 2009. Apart from Goodman and Mulcaire, it said there was no no evidence that "News of the World journalists have accessed the voicemails of any individual" or "News of the World or its journalists have instructed private investigators or other third parties to access the voicemails of any individuals". Scotland Yard, whose Assistant Commissioner John Yates said in an interview that he had failed to carry out a proper review of the evidence in 2009, now concedes that there are almost 4,000 victims of phone hacking. Company sources last night said that neither Ms Brooks nor James Murdoch, News Corp's European chief executive, had seen the 2007 report until April. Today the family of Milly Dowler will meet Mr Clegg. The paper that hacked their daughter's phone printed its last edition yesterday, saying it had carried out important investigative journalism. Its front page said: "After 168 years, we finally say a sad but very proud farewell to our 7.5m loyal readers." How Murdoch's lieutenants pleaded ignorance 06.03.2007 John Whittingdale (DCMS Select Committee chairman): "You carried out a full, rigorous internal inquiry, and you are absolutely convinced that Clive Goodman was the only person who knew what was going on?" Les Hinton: "Yes, we have and I believe he was the only person, but that investigation, under the new editor, continues." 21.07.2009 Tom Crone: "At no stage during their [the police's] investigation or ours did any evidence arise that the problem of accessing [voicemails] by our reporters, or complicity of accessing by our reporters, went beyond the Goodman/Mulcaire situation." Asked whether any journalists other than Goodman dealt with Mulcaire, he said: "No evidence was found." 21.07.2009 After Philip Davies MP suggested journalists other than Clive Goodman must have been involved, Myler said: "No evidence, Mr Davies, has been produced internally or externally by the police, by any lawyers, to suggest that what you have said is the truth, is the case." 21.07.2009 "As far as I am aware, there is no evidence linking the non-royal phone-hacking allegations that were made against Glenn Mulcaire to any member of the News of the World staff. I think that Clive was a rogue case on the News of the World." 15.09.2009 "... There was never any evidence delivered to me that suggested that the conduct of Clive Goodman spread beyond him."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c43aca6-ab18-11e0-b4d8-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1RkTY7iZK Dow Jones chief under hacking pressure By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York, Abeer Allam in Riyadh and Elizabeth Rigby in London Financial Times July 10, 2011 Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones, is being blamed by people close to News Corp, for failing to get to grips with the News of the World phone hacking scandal when he was in charge of Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper group. Mr Hinton, a loyal Murdoch employee for 52 years who had been expected to retire next year, could become the most senior casualty of the crisis, his friends fear, deflecting blame from James Murdoch, who runs News Corp’s European operations, and Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, which publishes Mr Murdoch’s UK papers. “Les [Hinton] will be sacrificed to save James and Rebekah,” one person familiar with the company said. “It happened on Les’s watch,” another added: “James was not even a director of News Corp at the time.” Rupert Murdoch, who arrived in London on Sunday to take charge of the crisis, is facing growing political opposition to his bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting, but received critical support from News Corp’s largest non-family shareholder. “This is the time for a loyal shareholder to stand by his friends and allies, the Murdoch family,” Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, chairman of Kingdom Holdings, which owns 7 per cent of the company, told the Financial Times. “This is a strong alliance. We do not chicken out when we face crisis; we get stronger,“ he said, adding that Mr Murdoch, his son James and Chase Carey, chief operating officer, made “an excellent trio” of managers. He added that he had urged Mr Murdoch for “a dramatic and fast decision” to end the News of the World “mini crisis” and focus on securing BSkyB. The backing came as David Cameron, the British prime minister, was scrambling to find a way to delay News Corp’s bid after Ed Miliband, the opposition Labour leader, announced Labour would call a parliamentary vote on the matter. The move was supported by some leading Liberal Democrats, who govern in coalition with Mr Cameron’s Conservatives. Mr Hinton “has questions to answer” about what he originally reassured a parliamentary committee had been a rigorous internal inquiry in 2007, people close to News Corp said. That inquiry had involved Colin Myler, editor of the News of the World, Daniel Cloke, News International’s former head of human resources, Tom Crone, general counsel for the News of the World, and Harbottle & Lewis, the law firm, they said. Mr Hinton declined requests for comment. Mr Hinton may not have seen all the evidence he needed to see in 2007, one person familiar with News International’s new internal inquiry said. Police are expected to ask some News International executives this week to give witness statements. News International had no comment. Mr Murdoch drove into News International’s Wapping offices for a series of meetings reading the final edition of the News of the World. He was later photographed with his arm around Ms Brooks, telling Reuters she was his first priority before dining with her. Keith Vaz, home affairs select committee chairman, said John Yates, Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner, would appear before MPs on Tuesday. Additional reporting by Ben Fenton and Salamander Davoudi in London

John O'Connor: The suspects are in charge of the case News International and the Metropolitan Police are looking into corruption at Wapping. But face-saving is their priority The Independent Sunday, 10 July 2011 Scotland Yard is facing its worst corruption crisis since the 1970s, when senior police officers were found to be controlling London's pornography industry. The investigation and subsequent purge left many detectives out of a job and in some case serving prison sentences. The gloom that surrounded the Yard in those days is similar to the atmosphere that pervades it today. Each day reveals more details of misconduct by the press and the police. The investigation is going to be looking for heads to roll, and the higher the rank the better. This extraordinary state of affairs has its roots back in the Eighties, in the days when News International was dependent on the police to protect its new premises in Wapping. Violent demonstrations occurred each night and the police were able to assist News International in getting its product out on to the streets. This was a complete turnaround for The Times newspaper, which only a decade earlier had launched the huge inquiry into police corruption that shook Scotland Yard to its foundations. News International was now best friends with Scotland Yard, and senior executives and top policemen wined and dined together on a regular basis. Nobody could see the potential problems of a free lunch. This mutual admiration society worked very well for a time. Information passed freely both ways. The police benefited from undercover operations run by the newspapers, and in return the papers got their exclusive stories. This comfortable arrangement was cemented by regular briefings from Scotland Yard's press bureau to the national press directly and sometimes through the Crime Writers Association. The culture of police officers mixing with journalists was encouraged, and little thought was given to the potential of misconduct. Crime writers were expected to know lots of police officers, and there was great competition to get the inside story. If only things could have stayed the same. The News of the World began to pursue a strategy of aggressively targeting celebrities. The use of "the Fake Sheikh", Mazher Mahmood, was very effective, and produced some exclusive exposés on the greed and stupidity of people who should have known better. They were able to obtain confidential information on individuals including criminal records but they were in too much of a hurry to research public records. Some private detective agencies realised that there was money to be earned from celebrity stories and confidential crime stories. Some of these detective agencies were run by former Metropolitan Police officers who maintained good contacts with serving officers. Some ex-police officers set themselves up as stringers, and provided a conduit for confidential information supplied by officers directly to the press. Once the Rubicon had been crossed, it was comparatively easy for police officers to contravene the Data Protection Act and supply information from the Police National Computer. Short cuts adopted by the News of the World put them closer to the coalface. The strategy of using several intermediaries was abandoned and they employed private detectives such as Jonathan Rees of Southern Investigations and Glenn Mulcaire. This was clearly cheaper but the drawback was that if the private detectives came unstuck so did those who hired them. The Department of Professional Standards at Scotland Yard has not been standing idly by. A number of undercover operations were mounted against ex- and serving police officers who were suspected of receiving corrupt payments. Nobody in authority was prepared to recognise the endemic nature of this corruption and each case was dealt with as a stand-alone incident. Much the same attitude was adopted when Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman were convicted of hacking messages of members of the royal family. At this stage, the number of police officers involved is unknown. News International's attempts to switch the focus of the inquiry onto the police by releasing details of payments to officers raised more questions than answers. The obvious questions are "What about payments to intermediaries?" and "What were the payments for?" Hospitality and gifts must also be probed. The two organisations that are carrying out the investigations are... the Metropolitan Police and News International, both of whom are the subject of these allegations. It is with breathtaking cheek that News International announced its own investigation. It is quite clear that getting to the truth is not a goal, its real objective is damage limitation and face-saving. It is quite clear that any number of junior staff will be sacrificed in order the save the skins of the real decision-makers. The News International investigation should be laughed out of court, not that it is ever likely to get there. The new police investigation is even more curious. Everybody wants to know why the original hacking investigation was curtailed after the convictions of Mulcaire and Goodman. It seems unlikely that this decision was made solely by the police, but it is a possibility, and if so, why? The suspicion must be that pressure was brought to bear by either News International, the Crown Prosecution Service or a very high-ranking police officer, or perhaps a combination of all three. The new police investigation into hacking has been running since January 2011 and the police corruption enquiry has only just begun. It seems to me that this is a classic situation whereby an outside police force should be used, under the supervision of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. There is clear precedent for using an outside force, and if the public are to be convinced that this is a fair and unbiased investigation then that should clearly point to using an independent force outside of London. This is no reflection on the skill, determination or ability of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, but the pressure which killed off the first enquiry might still exist. The Metropolitan Police had one go at this and fell very short. At risk is the reputation and integrity of the service. It cannot afford to get it wrong again. The problem is that senior officers did not recognise the extent of the corruption and were probably unwilling to upset their new found pals in the media. They must accept their responsibility for what has happened. It is astonishing that with so many resources being spent on anti-corruption, they could not see it when it was right under their noses. John O'Connor is former commander of the Flying Squad at Scotland Yard

Murdoch's Watergate His anything-goes approach has spread through journalism like a contagion. Now it threatens to undermine the influence he so covets. By Carl Bernstein Newsweek.com July 11, 2011 http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/10/murdoch-s-watergate.html?om_rid=Ci42oa&om The hacking scandal currently shaking Rupert Murdoch’s empire will surprise only those who have willfully blinded themselves to that empire’s pernicious influence on journalism in the English-speaking world. Too many of us have winked in amusement at the salaciousness without considering the larger corruption of journalism and politics promulgated by Murdoch Culture on both sides of the Atlantic. The facts of the case are astonishing in their scope. Thousands of private phone messages hacked, presumably by people affiliated with the Murdoch-owned News of the World newspaper, with the violated parties ranging from Prince William and actor Hugh Grant to murder victims and families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The arrest of Andy Coulson, former press chief to Prime Minister David Cameron, for his role in the scandal during his tenure as the paper’s editor. The arrest (for the second time) of Clive Goodman, the paper’s former royals editor. The shocking July 7 announcement that the paper would cease publication three days later, putting hundreds of employees out of work. Murdoch’s bid to acquire full control of cable-news company BSkyB placed in jeopardy. Allegations of bribery, wiretapping, and other forms of lawbreaking—not to mention the charge that emails were deleted by the millions in order to thwart Scotland Yard’s investigation. All of this surrounding a man and a media empire with no serious rivals for political influence in Britain—especially, but not exclusively, among the conservative Tories who currently run the country. Almost every prime minister since the Harold Wilson era of the 1960s and ’70s has paid obeisance to Murdoch and his unmatched power. When Murdoch threw his annual London summer party for the United Kingdom’s political, journalistic, and social elite at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens on June 16, Prime Minister Cameron and his wife, Sam, were there, as were Labour leader Ed Miliband and assorted other cabinet ministers. Murdoch associates, present and former—and his biographers—have said that one of his greatest long-term ambitions has been to replicate that political and cultural power in the United States. For a long time his vehicle was the New York Post—not profitable, but useful for increasing his eminence and working a wholesale change not only in American journalism but in the broader culture as well. Page Six, emblematic in its carelessness about accuracy or truth or context—but oh-so-readable—became the model for the gossipization of an American press previously resistant to even considering publishing its like. (Murdoch accomplished a similar debasement of the airwaves in the 1990s with the—tame by today’s far-lower standards—tabloid television show Hard Copy.) Then came the unfair and imbalanced politicized “news” of the Fox News Channel—showing (again) Murdoch’s genius at building an empire on the basis of an ever-descending lowest journalistic denominator. It, too, rests on a foundation that has little or nothing to do with the best traditions and values of real reporting and responsible journalism: the best obtainable version of the truth. In place of this journalistic ideal, the enduring Murdoch ethic substitutes gossip, sensationalism, and manufactured controversy. And finally, in 2007 The Wall Street Journal’s squabbling family owners succumbed to his acumen, willpower, and money, fulfilling Murdoch’s dream of owning an American newspaper to match the influence and prestige of his U.K. holding, The Times of London—one that really mattered, at the topmost tier of journalism. Between the Post, Fox News, and the Journal, it’s hard to think of any other individual who has had a greater impact on American political and media culture in the past half century. But now the empire is shaking, and there’s no telling when it will stop. My conversations with British journalists and politicians—all of them insistent on speaking anonymously to protect themselves from retribution by the still-enormously powerful mogul—make evident that the shuttering of News of the World, and the official inquiries announced by the British government, are the beginning, not the end, of the seismic event. News International, the British arm of Murdoch’s media empire, “has always worked on the principle of omertà: ‘Do not say anything to anybody outside the family, and we will look after you,’ ” notes a former Murdoch editor who knows the system well. “Now they are hanging people out to dry. The moment you do that, the omertà is gone, and people are going to talk. It looks like a circular firing squad.” News of the World was always Murdoch’s “baby,” one of the largest newspapers in the English-speaking world, with 2.6 million readers. As anyone in the business will tell you, the standards and culture of a journalistic institution are set from the top down, by its owner, publisher, and top editors. Reporters and editors do not routinely break the law, bribe policemen, wiretap, and generally conduct themselves like thugs unless it is a matter of recognized and understood policy. Private detectives and phone hackers do not become the primary sources of a newspaper’s information without the tacit knowledge and approval of the people at the top, all the more so in the case of newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch, according to those who know him best. As one of his former top executives—once a close aide—told me, “This scandal and all its implications could not have happened anywhere else. Only in Murdoch’s orbit. The hacking at News of the World was done on an industrial scale. More than anyone, Murdoch invented and established this culture in the newsroom, where you do whatever it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the competition, and the end will justify the means.” “In the end, what you sow is what you reap,” said this same executive. “Now Murdoch is a victim of the culture that he created. It is a logical conclusion, and it is his people at the top who encouraged lawbreaking and hacking phones and condoned it.” Could Murdoch eventually be criminally charged? He has always surrounded himself with trusted subordinates and family members, so perhaps it is unlikely. Though Murdoch has strenuously denied any knowledge at all of the hacking and bribery, it’s hard to believe that his top deputies at the paper didn’t think they had a green light from him to use such untraditional reportorial methods. Investigators are already assembling voluminous records that demonstrate the systemic lawbreaking at News of the World, and Scotland Yard seems to believe what was happening in the newsroom was endemic at the highest levels at the paper and evident within the corporate structure. Checks have been found showing tens of thousands of dollars of payments at a time. For this reporter, it is impossible not to consider these facts through the prism of Watergate. When Bob Woodward and I came up against difficult ethical questions, such as whether to approach grand jurors for information (which we did, and perhaps shouldn’t have), we sought executive editor Ben Bradlee’s counsel, and he in turn called in the company lawyers, who gave the go-ahead and outlined the legal issues in full. Publisher Katharine Graham was informed. Likewise, Bradlee was aware when I obtained private telephone and credit-card records of one of the Watergate figures. All institutions have lapses, even great ones, especially by individual rogue employees—famously in recent years at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the three original TV networks. But can anyone who knows and understands the journalistic process imagine the kind of tactics regularly employed by the Murdoch press, especially at News of the World, being condoned at the Post or the Times? And then there’s the other inevitable Watergate comparison. The circumstances of the alleged lawbreaking within News Corp. suggest more than a passing resemblance to Richard Nixon presiding over a criminal conspiracy in which he insulated himself from specific knowledge of numerous individual criminal acts while being himself responsible for and authorizing general policies that routinely resulted in lawbreaking and unconstitutional conduct. Not to mention his role in the cover-up. It will remain for British authorities and, presumably, disgusted and/or legally squeezed News Corp. executives and editors to reveal exactly where the rot came from at News of the World, and whether Rupert Murdoch enabled, approved, or opposed the obvious corruption that infected his underlings. None of this is to deny Murdoch’s competitive genius, his superior understanding of the modern media marketplace, or his dead-on reading of popular culture. He has made occasionally dull newspapers fun to read and TV news broadcasts fun to watch, and few of us would deny there are days when we love it. He’s been at his best when he’s come in from the outside: starting Sky News, which shook up a complacent British broadcasting establishment; contradicting conventional American media wisdom that a fourth TV network (Fox) could never get off the ground; reducing the power of Britain’s printing trade unions that were exercising a stranglehold on the U.K. press. But Murdoch and his global media empire have a lot to answer for. He has not merely encouraged the metastasis of cutthroat tabloid journalism on both sides of the Atlantic. But perhaps just as troubling, authorities in Britain may respond to popular outrage at the scandal by imposing the kind of regulations that cannot help but undermine a truly free press. The events of recent days are a watershed for Britain, for the United States, and for Rupert Murdoch. Tabloid journalism—and our tabloid culture—may never be the same. Bernstein’s most recent book is A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Correction: This article initially described News of the World as a daily paper.

Murdochs Watergate? His anything-goes approach has spread through journalism like a contagion. Now it threatens to undermine the influence he so covets. By Carl Bernstein Newsweek.com July 11, 2011 http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/10/murdoch-s-watergate.html?om_rid=Ci42oa&om The hacking scandal currently shaking Rupert Murdochs empire will surprise only those who have willfully blinded themselves to that empires pernicious influence on journalism in the English-speaking world. Too many of us have winked in amusement at the salaciousness without considering the larger corruption of journalism and politics promulgated by Murdoch Culture on both sides of the Atlantic. The facts of the case are astonishing in their scope. Thousands of private phone messages hacked, presumably by people affiliated with the Murdoch-owned News of the World newspaper, with the violated parties ranging from Prince William and actor Hugh Grant to murder victims and families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The arrest of Andy Coulson, former press chief to Prime Minister David Cameron, for his role in the scandal during his tenure as the papers editor. The arrest (for the second time) of Clive Goodman, the papers former royals editor. The shocking July 7 announcement that the paper would cease publication three days later, putting hundreds of employees out of work. Murdochs bid to acquire full control of cable-news company BSkyB placed in jeopardy. Allegations of bribery, wiretapping, and other forms of lawbreakingnot to mention the charge that emails were deleted by the millions in order to thwart Scotland Yards investigation. All of this surrounding a man and a media empire with no serious rivals for political influence in Britainespecially, but not exclusively, among the conservative Tories who currently run the country. Almost every prime minister since the Harold Wilson era of the 1960s and 70s has paid obeisance to Murdoch and his unmatched power. When Murdoch threw his annual London summer party for the United Kingdoms political, journalistic, and social elite at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens on June 16, Prime Minister Cameron and his wife, Sam, were there, as were Labour leader Ed Miliband and assorted other cabinet ministers. Murdoch associates, present and formerand his biographershave said that one of his greatest long-term ambitions has been to replicate that political and cultural power in the United States. For a long time his vehicle was the New York Postnot profitable, but useful for increasing his eminence and working a wholesale change not only in American journalism but in the broader culture as well. Page Six, emblematic in its carelessness about accuracy or truth or contextbut oh-so-readablebecame the model for the gossipization of an American press previously resistant to even considering publishing its like. (Murdoch accomplished a similar debasement of the airwaves in the 1990s with thetame by todays far-lower standardstabloid television show Hard Copy.) Then came the unfair and imbalanced politicized news of the Fox News Channelshowing (again) Murdochs genius at building an empire on the basis of an ever-descending lowest journalistic denominator. It, too, rests on a foundation that has little or nothing to do with the best traditions and values of real reporting and responsible journalism: the best obtainable version of the truth. In place of this journalistic ideal, the enduring Murdoch ethic substitutes gossip, sensationalism, and manufactured controversy. And finally, in 2007 The Wall Street Journals squabbling family owners succumbed to his acumen, willpower, and money, fulfilling Murdochs dream of owning an American newspaper to match the influence and prestige of his U.K. holding, The Times of Londonone that really mattered, at the topmost tier of journalism. Between the Post, Fox News, and the Journal, its hard to think of any other individual who has had a greater impact on American political and media culture in the past half century. But now the empire is shaking, and theres no telling when it will stop. My conversations with British journalists and politiciansall of them insistent on speaking anonymously to protect themselves from retribution by the still-enormously powerful mogulmake evident that the shuttering of News of the World, and the official inquiries announced by the British government, are the beginning, not the end, of the seismic event. News International, the British arm of Murdochs media empire, has always worked on the principle of omertà: Do not say anything to anybody outside the family, and we will look after you, notes a former Murdoch editor who knows the system well. Now they are hanging people out to dry. The moment you do that, the omertà is gone, and people are going to talk. It looks like a circular firing squad. News of the World was always Murdochs baby, one of the largest newspapers in the English-speaking world, with 2.6 million readers. As anyone in the business will tell you, the standards and culture of a journalistic institution are set from the top down, by its owner, publisher, and top editors. Reporters and editors do not routinely break the law, bribe policemen, wiretap, and generally conduct themselves like thugs unless it is a matter of recognized and understood policy. Private detectives and phone hackers do not become the primary sources of a newspapers information without the tacit knowledge and approval of the people at the top, all the more so in the case of newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch, according to those who know him best. As one of his former top executivesonce a close aidetold me, This scandal and all its implications could not have happened anywhere else. Only in Murdochs orbit. The hacking at News of the World was done on an industrial scale. More than anyone, Murdoch invented and established this culture in the newsroom, where you do whatever it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the competition, and the end will justify the means. In the end, what you sow is what you reap, said this same executive. Now Murdoch is a victim of the culture that he created. It is a logical conclusion, and it is his people at the top who encouraged lawbreaking and hacking phones and condoned it. Could Murdoch eventually be criminally charged? He has always surrounded himself with trusted subordinates and family members, so perhaps it is unlikely. Though Murdoch has strenuously denied any knowledge at all of the hacking and bribery, its hard to believe that his top deputies at the paper didnt think they had a green light from him to use such untraditional reportorial methods. Investigators are already assembling voluminous records that demonstrate the systemic lawbreaking at News of the World, and Scotland Yard seems to believe what was happening in the newsroom was endemic at the highest levels at the paper and evident within the corporate structure. Checks have been found showing tens of thousands of dollars of payments at a time. For this reporter, it is impossible not to consider these facts through the prism of Watergate. When Bob Woodward and I came up against difficult ethical questions, such as whether to approach grand jurors for information (which we did, and perhaps shouldnt have), we sought executive editor Ben Bradlees counsel, and he in turn called in the company lawyers, who gave the go-ahead and outlined the legal issues in full. Publisher Katharine Graham was informed. Likewise, Bradlee was aware when I obtained private telephone and credit-card records of one of the Watergate figures. All institutions have lapses, even great ones, especially by individual rogue employeesfamously in recent years at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the three original TV networks. But can anyone who knows and understands the journalistic process imagine the kind of tactics regularly employed by the Murdoch press, especially at News of the World, being condoned at the Post or the Times? And then theres the other inevitable Watergate comparison. The circumstances of the alleged lawbreaking within News Corp. suggest more than a passing resemblance to Richard Nixon presiding over a criminal conspiracy in which he insulated himself from specific knowledge of numerous individual criminal acts while being himself responsible for and authorizing general policies that routinely resulted in lawbreaking and unconstitutional conduct. Not to mention his role in the cover-up. It will remain for British authorities and, presumably, disgusted and/or legally squeezed News Corp. executives and editors to reveal exactly where the rot came from at News of the World, and whether Rupert Murdoch enabled, approved, or opposed the obvious corruption that infected his underlings. None of this is to deny Murdochs competitive genius, his superior understanding of the modern media marketplace, or his dead-on reading of popular culture. He has made occasionally dull newspapers fun to read and TV news broadcasts fun to watch, and few of us would deny there are days when we love it. Hes been at his best when hes come in from the outside: starting Sky News, which shook up a complacent British broadcasting establishment; contradicting conventional American media wisdom that a fourth TV network (Fox) could never get off the ground; reducing the power of Britains printing trade unions that were exercising a stranglehold on the U.K. press. But Murdoch and his global media empire have a lot to answer for. He has not merely encouraged the metastasis of cutthroat tabloid journalism on both sides of the Atlantic. But perhaps just as troubling, authorities in Britain may respond to popular outrage at the scandal by imposing the kind of regulations that cannot help but undermine a truly free press. The events of recent days are a watershed for Britain, for the United States, and for Rupert Murdoch. Tabloid journalismand our tabloid culturemay never be the same. Bernsteins most recent book is A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Correction: This article initially described News of the World as a daily paper.

James Murdoch could face criminal charges on both sides of the Atlantic As phone hacking scandal leaves News Corp open to prosecution, James Murdoch looks less likely to inherit empire By Dominic Rushe and Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 July 2011 20.18 BST James Murdoch and News Corp could face corporate legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic that involve criminal charges, fines and forfeiture of assets as the escalating phone-hacking scandal risks damaging his chances of taking control of Rupert Murdoch's US-based media empire. As deputy chief operating officer of News Corp – the US-listed company that is the ultimate owner of News International (NI), which in turn owns the News of the World, the Times, the Sunday Times and the Sun – the younger Murdoch has admitted he misled parliament over phone hacking, although he has stated he did not have the complete picture at the time. There have also been reports that employees routinely made payments to police officers, believed to total more than £100,000, in return for information. The payments could leave News Corp – and possibly James Murdoch himself – facing the possibility of prosecution in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) – legislation designed to stamp out bad corporate behaviour that carries severe penalties for anyone found guilty of breaching it – and in the UK under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 which outlaws the interception of communications. Tony Woodcock, a partner at the City law firm Stephenson Harwood, said section 79 of the 2000 Act enabled criminal proceedings to be brought against not only a company, but also a director or similar officer where the offence was committed with their "consent or connivance" or was "attributable to any neglect on their part". Woodcock said: "This could embrace a wide number of people at the highest level within an organisation, such as a chief executive – not just the individual who 'pushed the button' allowing the intercept to take place or someone (perhaps less senior) who encouraged or was otherwise an accessory to the offence, such as an editor." While the UK phone-hacking scandal has been met with outrage in the US, the hacking itself is unlikely to prompt Washington officials into action. But because NI is a subsidiary of the US company, any payments to UK police officers could trigger a justice department inquiry under the FCPA. The 1977 Act generally prohibits American companies and citizens from corruptly paying – or offering to pay – foreign officials to obtain or retain business. The Butler University law professor Mike Koehler, an FCPA expert, said: "I would be very surprised if the US authorities don't become involved in this [NI] conduct." He said the scandal appeared to qualify as an FCPA case on two counts. First, News Corp is a US-listed company, giving the US authorities jurisdiction to investigate allegations. "Second, perhaps more importantly, the act requires that payments to government officials need to be in the furtherance of 'obtaining or retaining' business. If money is being paid to officials, in this case the police, in order to get information to write sensational stories to sell newspapers, that would qualify," he said. Koehler said the US justice department was increasingly keen to bring cases against individuals as well as companies, because prosecuting people brought "maximum deterrence". He added: "Companies just pay out shareholders' money. There's not much deterrence there." Tom Fox, a Houston-based lawyer who specialises in FCPA cases and anti-corruption law, said most corporate cases were settled before going to court. But for individuals who are successfully prosecuted the penalties are severe. In 2009 the former Hollywood movie producer Gerald Green and his wife, Patricia, were jailed for six months in the first criminal case under the FCPA. The Greens, whose credits included Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, were convicted of paying $1.8m in bribes to a government official in Thailand in exchange for contracts to manage the Bangkok international film festival. FCPA charges can carry up to five years in jail for each charge but the Greens' short prison sentence was not the harshest element of their sentencing. The "biggest hammer" prosecutors hold is forfeiture of assets, said Fox. "The Greens lost everything. Their house, savings, retirement plan. They are destitute now." Bringing an FCPA case against the company would be far easier than bringing an action against James Murdoch. As yet there appears to be no evidence that he was directly linked to authorising the police payments. "If you don't know about it, that is a valid defence for an individual," said Koehler. In New York, media executives believe that with or without an FCPA case James Murdoch has already fatally damaged his chances of taking his father's crown. One said: "There has been a sense of unravelling at News Corp for a while. The Daily, MySpace, Project Alesia – they look like News is chasing rainbows. [Rupert] Murdoch is looking old. It affects his ability to appoint an heir and I don't think James even has the backing of his family any more." Speculation is that Chase Carey, the chief operating officer, is most likely to take the top slot when and if the media mogul steps aside. "He is the ultimate Murdoch operative. He is not interested in the trappings of the media business. What would he do? Close the New York Post, sell the Times. Why not? It's a rational thing to do."

Hacking scandal: is this Britain's Watergate? The Independent By Oliver Wright, Ian Burrell, Martin Hickman, Cahal Milmo and Andrew Grice Saturday, 9 July 2011 David Cameron was forced to cut Rupert Murdoch and his newspaper empire loose from the heart of government yesterday as he tried to deflect public anger about his failure to tackle the phone-hacking scandal. Mr Cameron turned on Mr Murdoch's son James, saying there were questions "that need to be answered" about his role during the phone-hacking cover-up, and criticising him for not accepting the resignation of News International's chief executive Rebekah Brooks. He also admitted that his desire to win support from the company's newspapers had led him to turn "a blind eye" as evidence grew of widespread illegality at the News of the World. With a newspaper closed, five arrests and more to follow, 4,000 possible victims, a media empire shaken to its foundations and the Prime Minister reeling, the escalating scandal has become a controversy comparable to the US Watergate saga, with ramifications for Downing Street, the media and police. Last night the media regulator Ofcom announced it would contact police about the conduct of Mr Murdoch's empire in covering up phone-hacking allegations, to determine whether it was a "fit and proper" owner of the broadcaster BSkyB, which Mr Murdoch is attempting to buy outright. He is due to fly into London today to deal with the crisis, according to reports. Shares in the broadcaster fell by eight per cent. In a day of further dramatic developments it emerged that: *Police are investigating allegations that a News International (NI) executive deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct inquiries into phone hacking. *Andy Coulson was arrested on suspicion of bribing police officers and conspiracy to phone hack, and Clive Goodman, the NOTW's former royal correspondent, was held in a dawn raid on suspicion of bribing police officers. Both were bailed. A 63-year-old man, thought to be a private investigator, was also arrested in Surrey. *Mr Cameron's most senior officials were warned before the last election about connections between Mr Coulson and Jonathan Rees, a private investigator paid up to £150,000 a year to illegally trawl for personal information. But Mr Cameron appointed Mr Coulson as his director of communications. *A judge-led public inquiry will take place to investigate phone hacking. Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch are prepared to give evidence on phone hacking under oath. *Ms Brooks was stripped of control of NI's internal investigation and faced calls for her resignation from the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. *Wapping sources warned of worse phone-hacking revelations to come. At a Downing Street press conference, Mr Cameron defended his decision to appoint Mr Coulson but admitted his relationship with senior members of the Murdoch empire had been too close. "The deeper truth is this... because party leaders were so keen to win the support of newspapers we turned a blind eye to the need to sort this issue, get on top of the bad practices, to change the way our newspapers are regulated," he said. "I want to deal with it." Mr Cameron said he now thought it was wrong to keep Ms Brooks at the company: "It has been reported that she offered her resignation over this and in this situation, I would have taken it." Mr Cameron was also asked whether James Murdoch remained a fit and proper person to run a large company, following his admission yesterday that he personally approved out-of-court payments in a way which he now accepted was wrong. The Prime Minister replied: "I read the statement yesterday. I think it raises lots of questions that need to be answered and these processes that are under way are going to have to answer those questions." Mr Cameron announced two inquires: one to deal with phone hacking and the failure of the police to properly investigate it, and another into press regulation. He said it was clear that the Press Complaints Commission had failed and the second inquiry would bringing forward proposals for an independent body. Asked what enquiries he had made before employing Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister said: "Obviously I sought assurances, I received assurances. I commissioned a company to do a basic background check." But the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said Mr Cameron was still failing to restore confidence in the Government's handling of the scandal: "This is a Prime Minister who clearly still doesn't get it. He is ploughing on regardless on BSkyB. He failed to apologise for the catastrophic mistake of bringing Andy Coulson into the heart of government. "His wholly unconvincing answers of what he knew and when he knew it about Mr Coulson's activities undermine his ability to lead the change Britain needs." Asked if Mrs Brooks should consider her position, Mr Clegg told The Independent: "Yes. The whole senior management has to ask how it could have presided over this without appearing to know what was going on. Someone somewhere higher up the food chain needs to be held to account. You can't just ask journalists, secretaries, photographers and low-paid office workers to carry the can for a failure, on James Murdoch's own admission, of corporate governance." Watergate Parallels The Watergate and phone-hacking scandals had small beginnings – a break-in at a hotel, and a single "rogue" reporter and private detective. The News of the World scandal is not just about phone hacking. It is also about statements made to Parliament, personally to David Cameron, and in a court of law which – as James Murdoch has now admitted – were not true. As with Watergate, which brought down Richard Nixon's presidency, the cover-up could have bigger implications than the original offence.

All the Publisher's Men (Not to Mention Ms. Brooks) By ALEXANDER COCKBURN July 8-10, 2011 www.counterpunch.org Having spent many weeks amidst the Strauss-Kahn case listening the locals assert that America’s justice is superior to France’s, we’re now pitchforked into the next debate: could US journalism sink to the septic depths of the scandal-ridden News of the World whose immediate closure Murdoch’s News International announced Thursday, and one of whose former editors, Andrew Coulson, later prime minister Cameron’s media advisor, now awaits arrest. What would happen if Rupert Murdoch had ever built a press empire over here? Hold hard! One of Rupert Murdoch’s earliest ventures in America, back in the early 1970s, was to found the Star, as a weekly rival to the best selling supermarket tabloid, The National Enquirer, paddling in the shallow waters of Hollywood gossip, gothic crime. There was one huge difference with the British tabloids. The Enquirer and the Star were never reckoned to be part of the “national press” as the News of the World has been. They had zero political clout, and inflicted no political endorsements on their readers. They sold in 7/11 stores and supermarkets to an audience that did not lay them aside to pick up the New York Times. The respectable press ignored the Star and the Enquirer even though they broke big stories. The Star, sold by Murdoch in 1990 to the Enquirer’s parent company, was the first, in January 1992, to expose Clinton’s philandering, during his run for the presidency. He survived precisely because the scoop, about his long affair with Gennifer Flowers, was in the Star and could be deprecated as being in a mere tabloid. The same thing happened with the Enquirer and John Edwards, encumbered with a mistress as well as a wife with terminal cancer during his run for the presidency in 2008. The Enquirer was reporting accurately on John and Rielle’s “love child” at the same moment as newspapers were giving Edwards a pass on the “tabloid tattle” rationale. Finally the Enquirer was quite properly put up for a Pulitzer, though the jurors, respectable newspaper executives and the like, made sure it didn’t win one. Both the Star and the Enquirer were mostly run by Fleet Street veterans and there’s no particular reason to assume that these transplants were of innately superior moral caliber to Murdoch’s crew at the News of the World, or would be aghast at the notion of breaking into voicemail boxes, fostering corrupt relationships with cops and so forth. In fact the Enquirer had such swift, real-time inside dope on the movements of Edwards and his mistress that in retrospect I now wonder whether some investigator or in-house hacker had discharged the same duties as private investigator and hacker Glenn Mulcaire, now whining about the incessant demands of the editors at the News of the World. The darker moral moments for America’s press came in the 1940s and 1950s. Billy Wilder’s 1951 Ace in the Hole and, six years later, Alexander McKendrick’s unforgettable film, Sweet Smell of Success, with Burt Lancaster playing a character modeled on the hugely powerful gossip columnist Walter Winchell, caught exactly the journalistic moral corruption that has Britain gasping in revulsion today at the Milly Dowler hacking by the News of the World. This was the era that saw Hoover, all-powerful head of the FBI, working week by week with nationally syndicated columnists like Winchell and Hedda Hopper to destroy suspected Commies, uppity blacks, and kindred subversives. By the mid-1970s radicalism was on an ebb tide and this tactical alliance between columnists and cops less a political requirement. By the late 1970s Hollywood-based gossip became dominant, entirely fluff, on terms dictated by the Hollywood studios. Murdoch began with the Star because the big city papers he craved for weren’t up for sale at that time. Then in 1976 he bought the New York Post, and seems to have lost interest in the Star. When he bought the Post the press treated the acquisition of Dolly Schiff’s liberal paper as a dark day for American journalism. Either Time or Newsweek or New York magazine later bought by Murdoch) had a cartoon of Murdoch on the cover as an ape shinning up the Empire State building. As his empire grew, the zeroes in the price of his acquisitions, in his debts to the banks, in his personal fortune , predictably smoothed Murdoch’s image. But there’s nothing like competitive pressures to prompt an editor, or a publisher, to call for the knuckle-dusters. American newspapers in their profitable heyday were mostly regional monopolies. It was Murdoch’s takeover of the Wall Street Journal in 2007 and vows to knock the New York Times off its perch that prompted the Times, under its recently ousted editor Bill Keller to run last September a very long, closely reported story on the News of the World hacking scandal, which helped breathe life back into the story. What began in Britain in 2005 as “a third-rate burglary” of voicemails, supposedly limited to a criminal invasion of privacy by a News of the World reporter and a private investigator, had flowered beautifully over six years into a Level 7 scandal threatening the careers of two of Rupert Murdoch’s top executives, not to mention the heir apparent to the News Corp. empire, James Murdoch. It even lapped at the ankles of the 80-year-old magnate, threatening the final financial triumph that was scheduled to usher him into Valhalla. Cameron was scarcely installed in 10 Downing Street before he summoned Andy Coulson as his media adviser. It was a flagrant declaration of interest, since Coulson was a notably grimy character in the Murdoch archipelago, having served as editor of News of the World—a job akin to supervising the efficient distribution of raw sewage into the prurient hands of about 3 million Britons every Sunday. Cameron’s hire showed him as yet one more occupant of 10 Downing St, diligent in servicing Murdoch’s demands, just as Blair did. But the Coulson hire was one which will haunt Cameron as an exceptionally stupid move. Amid the first stages of the phone-hacking scandal, Coulson resigned as editor when NoW reporter Clive Goodman, who ran the royal beat, and private investigator Mulcaire were convicted of hacking into the phone messages of members of the royal family. With Goodman and Mulcaire sent to jail and Coulson stepping down, Murdoch’s senior executives no doubt hoped that a lid had been clamped down on the scandal. The first line of defense—that Goodman and Mulcaire were unlicensed freebooters operating outside decorous guidelines—swiftly fell apart under the weight of palpable absurdity. As Nigel Horne, executive editor of the UK-based online daily The First Post, emphasizes, “The idea of rogue reporters blowing money without the knowledge of their bosses is a joke.” The paper paid Mulcaire £2,000 a week. On January 21 of this year Coulson quit his job as Cameron’s media advisor, saying that the hacking scandal was taking up most of his time. In 2002 the News of the World illegally broke into the voicemail of a missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler shortly after her disappearance. The news, reported by the Guardian on last Monday, caused huge public outrage in Britain. Having recorded the messages he had retrieved, Mulcaire, then deleted older messages in Milly Dowler's inbox once it was full, in order to free up space for further messages from Milly's frantic family and friends, which he also intercepted and passed back to News of the World journalists. By deleting messages illegally retrieved from Milly Dowler's mobile phone, the paper misled her family into believing she had emptied her inbox herself and was still alive, though by then she had been murdered.This gave the family hope, which was exploited by the paper in publishing optimistic interviews with them, although of course aware that the optimism was entirely unfounded. In deleting the earlier messages, the paper also removed material evidence in a murder investigation, information that would have had a direct impact on the police investigation of Milly's disappearance. As the grimy NoW saga lurches forward, impelled by the Guardian’s exposes, nothing looms in my memory as an American parallel more than the Watergate scandal that destroyed Richard Nixon’s presidency. It really began with one of Nixon’s senior aides, John Ehrichman, forming a “White House plumbers unit” assigned hands-on hacking duties, starting with a break-in to the office of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg’s shrink, to get dirt on Ellsberg. If cell phones had existed back then they’d have hacked his too. Then came an attempted “third-rate” burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee to install a secret microphone .The burglars were caught and for Nixon, slowly at first, the skies began to fall in. It took two years. The investigation, pushed forward by two Congressional committees, an independent prosecutor and newspapers run by publishers hostile to Nixon gradually pushed responsibility for hiring the hands-on hackers up the tree, into the White House, into John Ehrlichman’s office. Suspects were parlaying deals with prosecutors to avoid jail time for perjury and obstruction of justice by implicating their superiors. The disclosures steadily became more devastating. Nixon threw Ehrlichman overboard. Finally a mid-level White House employee let drop to a Congressional committee that Nixon had secretly tape recorded his private meetings. The tapes were subpoenaed and “a smoking gun” duly found. Nixon resigned a few days later. “Never believe anything till it’s officially denied” was one my father Claud’s admonitions to young journalists and here we had Murdoch hastening to emphasize that NOW editor Rebekah Brooks, News International’s top executive in Britain, was on holiday in Italy at the moment weekly payments of £2,000 were being okayed by NOW executives to Mulcaire and while the Milly Dowler hacking was underway. Presumably, amid this idyll, Brooks took no phone calls or faxes or emails from London. Barely had the Dowling outrage hit the headlines, before it emerged that on Coulson’s watch the News of the World had authorised bribes to senor police officers at Scotland Yard totalling at least £150,000. Families of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had also been hacked. Emails and abusive phone calls flowed into the newspaper, provoking an advertisers’ boycott. As Murdoch sized up the crisis, his prime objective was clearly to save News Corp.’s $20 billion bid for full control of the enormously profitable BSkyB network (News Corp. holds about 40 percent). Cameron’s government had been set to okay the deal, arguing that scandal at the News of the World was immaterial. But the public fury after the Dowling story broke forced Cameron to take some sort of a stand. So he took refuge in that familiar stand-by, the public commission of enquiry into the practices of British journalism, as yet without a mandate, no deadline and the sole function of trying to douse a flaring scandal. Murdoch’s foes argue that in a takeover as momentous in the control of British television as the BSkyB deal, the moral character of the purchaser is obviously relevant. On Thursday Murdoch took the logical decision stemming from the fact that the News of the World was permanently compromised, an unending source of trouble, huge damage settlements, and the likelihood that the scandal would finish off Rebekah Brooks, the Murdoch organization’s senior rep in the U.K., for whom Murdoch has high regard and affection, . His son James announced the News of the World would close immediately after the final edition this Sunday. Every week without the NoW will lose News International more than £2.5m. The paper – by far Britain's biggest Sunday, with a circulation of 2.66 million - was making £2m in circulation revenue and about £660,000 in advertising revenue each week. All this is a drop in the bucket in News International’s overall revenues. The closure will probably save the BSkyB deal. After a short internal the News of the World will no doubt be replaced by a Sunday edition of the other big tabloid in Murdoch’s British stable. Maybe in the fall, welcome the Sun on Sunday. The scandal won’t die, because hacked victims are lining up for hefty settlements and there are criminal investigations prompting imminent arrests of News of the World journalists and executives. But the top tier of Murdoch’s executives will probably stay out of jail, unless Coulson, clearly being tossed over the side, decides to shop his superiors and has the documentation to do so. As British journalist, Peter Burden, a British journalist who has written extensively about News of the World, wrote on his blog a few weeks ago: “If Andy Coulson was involved, so was Rebekah Brooks. If Rebekah Brooks was involved, so was Master James [Murdoch]. And if they were, it’s very likely that Les Hinton, CEO of [Dow Jones and Company] (the brightest bird in Rupert Murdoch’s bush), was involved, too, because he was Executive Chairman of News International at the time.” Few corporate employees are more sensitive to the whims, preferences and overall political and moral coordinates of their commanders than journalists. Murdoch, ruthless and unprincipled his entire professional life, has cast a long, dark shadow over journalism in Australia, Britain and the US. As plumbers like to say, xxxx flows downhill and payday comes on Friday. From Murdoch’s closet to the furthest reaches of his empire. Small wonder that his employees carried out their grimy tasks without demur

Andy Coulson and ex-royal reporter Clive Goodman arrested The Independent Friday, 8 July 2011 Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson and one of his former top reporters were being questioned about alleged corruption today after a dramatic double arrest by Scotland Yard. Mr Coulson, the ex-Downing Street communications chief, was also being questioned over phone hacking during his time at the paper. Police sources later confirmed that former royal editor Clive Goodman - who was jailed in January 2007 over the scandal - had been rearrested in connection with alleged payments to police. Mr Coulson, 43, and Mr Goodman, 53, were being held for questioning at different police stations in south London. The former editor had been expected to be arrested after an appointment at a station but Mr Goodman - who currently works for the Daily Star Sunday - was held after a dawn swoop by officers at his home in Surrey. Detectives are searching both Mr Coulson's address in Forest Hill, south London, and Mr Goodman's property. Officers investigating Operation Elveden - the inquiry into payments to police by the News of the World - and Operation Weeting, the long-running hacking investigation, are questioning the pair. Referring to Goodman's arrest, a Scotland Yard statement said: "At 6.11am officers from the MPS' Operation Weeting together with officers from Operation Elveden arrested a man on suspicion of corruption allegations in contravention of Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906. "The man, aged 53, was arrested at a residential address in Surrey. A search is ongoing at this address." Meanwhile former News of the World journalist Sophy Ridge said News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks addressed News of the World staff this afternoon, saying that she was staying on at News International "because she is a conductor for it all". Ms Brooks said the decision to close the News of the World was taken because there could be another "two years plus" of trouble, Ms Ridge wrote on Twitter. The Sky News political correspondent tweeted: "Rebekah Brooks said that advertisers said the brand was 'toxic', I'm hearing, and the decision 'was not done lightly'." Ms Ridge also wrote that Ms Brooks said she was "trying to find them jobs where possible across News International and News Corp". Ms Brooks "apologised to staff for 'operational issues' ie email access", Ms Ridge added. And in a further development the Daily Star Sunday said detectives spent two hours at its offices in central London and took away a disc containing a record of all Mr Goodman's computer activity. The paper stressed that there was "no suggestion whatsoever" that the journalist acted improperly during his occasional freelance shifts at the tabloid. The Daily Star Sunday said in a statement: "Scotland Yard today sought the help of the Daily Star Sunday as they investigated allegations of police corruption involving the News of the World and its former royal editor Clive Goodman. "They confirmed they were similarly carrying out these routine checks at all places where Mr Goodman has worked as a freelance since he left the News of the World. "Officers formally requested any and all computer material that Goodman had been involved with during his occasional shifts as a freelance reporter at the paper over the last year to cross-check it with his activities in his News of the World role. "They were particularly interested to check Mr Goodman's current email contacts to cross-match them with those from his time at the News of the World. "There was no suggestion whatsoever that Mr Goodman had acted improperly during his occasional shifts at the Daily Star Sunday, and we can confirm that no payments of any kind were ever made by the newspaper to Clive Goodman contacts. "After requesting the Daily Star Sunday's help, police were invited to visit the newspaper's offices where they were provided with a copy of all Mr Goodman's computer activity. "The three officers were similarly invited to examine any desk where Mr Goodman may have sat during shifts. They left after approximately two hours with a disc of Mr Goodman's computer activity. "For the record, the Daily Star Sunday has never carried, and has never been accused of carrying, any story that might have stemmed from phone hacking." The moves by Scotland Yard pile further pressure on the Prime Minister, who gave Mr Coulson a job at No 10 despite his association with the scandal. Mr Coulson had been widely expected to face police action today but few had predicted the decision to rearrest Mr Goodman, who was jailed in 2007. It is the latest bombshell in a catastrophic week for News International chiefs, who announced they were shutting the Sunday tabloid because it had betrayed its readers' trust. Mr Goodman was arrested in August 2006 along with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire over allegations that they hacked into the mobile phones of members of the royal household. Five months later the royal reporter was jailed for four months and Mulcaire for six months after they admitted intercepting voicemail messages, including some left by Prince William, now the Duke of Cambridge. The Old Bailey heard the pair tapped into more than 600 messages on the phones of royal family aides. Mr Coulson responded by resigning as News of the World editor, saying he "deeply regretted" what happened and took "ultimate responsibility" for it. Shockwaves from the hacking revelations and police payment allegations prompted David Cameron to promise today he would "get to the bottom" of the scandal. Mr Coulson was arrested at 10.30am on suspicion of "conspiring to intercept communications" and "corruption allegations contrary to Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906". As Mr Coulson was being questioned by detectives, Mr Cameron revealed he had grown close to his former adviser and built up a friendship. The Prime Minister said they discussed the hacking allegations while he was employed but he never had reason to doubt "the assurances he had given me and I accepted". Of their contact since Mr Coulson's January resignation, he added: "I have spoken to him, I have seen him, not recently and not frequently, but when you work with someone for four years as I did, and you work closely, you do build a friendship and I became friends with him. He became a friend and is a friend." Plain-clothed officers arrived at Mr Coulson's detached home in Forest Hill, south London, shortly before lunchtime carrying evidence bags. One shouted "no comment" to reporters before informing them "nobody crosses this line" as he walked across the driveway. Mr Coulson has been dogged by allegations of phone hacking on his watch for years, forcing him to give up his positions as News of the World editor and then as the Conservatives' top spin doctor. Confirmation of the arrests prompted speculation that more executives from one of Britain's biggest newspaper publishers will face police action in the coming days. Mr Cameron said he took responsibility for Mr Coulson's hiring by the Government but insisted he had commissioned a firm to carry out a background check beforehand. Mr Coulson resigned from the No 10 post in January, saying the drip-drip of claims about illegal eavesdropping under his editorship was making his job impossible. The Prime Minister said: "I made the decision, there had been a police investigation, someone had been sent to prison, this editor had resigned, he said he didn't know what was happening on his watch but he resigned when he found out, and I thought it was right to give that individual a second chance." Mr Cameron said he and Mr Coulson spoke before Christmas about him leaving Downing Street. "It wasn't in the light of any specific thing, it was a sense that the second chance wasn't working," he said. The Prime Minister outlined sweeping changes to the way newspapers are regulated in the wake of the agenda-setting tabloid being sacrificed by James Murdoch, chairman of News International. The decision was announced after advertisers deserted in droves over claims that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, bereaved military families and relatives of 7/7 bombing victims were targeted by hackers working for the tabloid. Amid widespread public anger, police chiefs revealed that 4,000 people might have fallen victim and that evidence indicated journalists had paid officers. Labour leader Ed Miliband refuted claims by former Conservative deputy party chairman Lord Ashcroft that his own director of communications, Tom Baldwin, had used private investigators while he was a journalist at The Times. Mr Miliband told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "Michael Ashcroft, the large Conservative party donor, has been putting it around that somehow Tom Baldwin hired a private investigator illegally to look into him. "Tom Baldwin absolutely denies that." Mr Miliband claimed David Cameron's aides had been handed a wealth of information warning them about practices Mr Coulson had been involved in while editor of the News of the World. He added: "If he (the Prime Minister) wants to really lead change in the Press in this country he's got to come clean and he has got to apologise for hiring somebody who had resigned as editor of the News of the World over phone hacking." He added: "As leader of the Labour party I take responsibility for the fact that we should have been more outspoken about phone hacking earlier on, we should have been more willing to speak out without fear or favour about some of the actions of News International." Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, told World at One he would be writing to the Prime Minister today with recommendations about what the inquiries should look at. He said the remit should be "as wide as possible" and hone in on where witnesses to the committee's previous investigations into the issue had been "less than open and transparent".

I concur with your opinion on this, John. Rebekah Brooks knows too much for Murdoch to fire her. The New York Times today describes their relationship as he adoring her almost like a daughter. What I read in its article is that she has the knowledge to bring down the entire house of cards. If she is prosecuted, which is a real possibility, then she might use her knowledge of what has transpired to lessen the adverse outcome of her own case. I also believe it is likely that Murdoch and his minions may have used wiretapping extensively in their business and political dealings here in the U.S. So far there has been no public hint or allegation of this. But Brooks may know about this aspect also, which makes her especially dangerous to Murdoch -- unless something happens to her now that she is in harm's way.

Phone hacking: Police probe suspected deletion of emails by NI executive 'Massive quantities' of archive allegedly deleted Emails believed to be between News of the World editors By Nick Davies and Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 July 2011 14.18 BST Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal. The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International. According to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted 'massive quantities' of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a small fraction to be disclosed. One of the alleged deletions is said to have been made at the end of January this year, just as Scotland Yard was launching Operation Weeting, its new inquiry into the affair. The allegation directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering. It is likely to be seen as evidence that the company could not pass a 'fit and proper person' test for its proposed purchase of BSkyB. A Guardian investigation has found that, in addition to deleting emails, the company has also: • infuriated police by leaking sensitive information in spite of an undertaking to police that it would keep it confidential; and • risked prosecution for perverting the course of justice by trying to hide the contents of a senior reporter's desk after he was arrested by Weeting detectives in earlier this year. News International originally claimed that the archive of emails did not exist. Last December, its Scottish editor, Bob Bird, told the trial of Tommy Sheridan in Glasgow that the emails had been lost en route to Mumbai. Also in December, the company's solicitor Julian Pike from Farrer and Co provided the high court with a statement claiming that it was unable to retrieve emails which were more than six months old. The first hint that this was not true came in late January when News International handed Scotland Yard evidence which led to the immediate sacking of its news editor Ian Edmondson and to the launch of Operation Weeting. It was reported at the time that this evidence consisted of three old emails. Three months later, on 23 March this year, Pike formally apologised to the high court and acknowledged that News International could locate emails as far back as 2005 and that no emails had ever been lost en route to Mumbai or anywhere else in India. In a signed statement seen by the Guardian, Pike said he had been misinformed by the News of the World's in-house lawyer, Tom Crone, who had told him that he, too, had been misled. He offered no explanation for the misleading evidence given by Bob Bird. The original archive was said to contain half a terabyte of data - equivalent to 500 editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica. But police now believe that there was an effort to substantially destroy the archive before News International handed over their new evidence in January. They believe they have identified the executive responsible by following an electronic audit trail. They have attempted to retrieve the data which they fear was lost. The Crown Prosecution Service is believed to have been asked whether the executive can be charged with perverting the course of justice. At the heart of the affair is a specialist data company, Essential Computing, based in Clevedon, near Bristol. Staff there have been interviewed by Operation Weeting. One source speculated that it was this company which had compelled News International to admit that the archive existed. The Guardian understands that Essential Computing has co-operated with police and has provided evidence about an alleged attempt by the News International executive to destroy part of the archive while they were working with it. This is said to have happened after the executive discovered that the company retained material of which News International was unaware. The alleged deletion has caused tension between News International and Scotland Yard, who are also angry over recent leaks. When the Murdoch company handed over evidence of their journalists' involvement in bribing police officers in late June, they wanted to make a public announcement, claiming credit for their assistance to police. They were warned that this would interfere with inquiries and finally agreed that they would keep the entire matter confidential until early August, to allow police to make arrests. In the event, this week, a series of leaks has led Scotland Yard to conclude that News International breached the agreement. There was friction too earlier this year when Weeting detectives arrested a senior journalist. When they went to the News of the World's office to search his desk, they found that all of its contents had been removed and lodged with a firm of solicitors, who initially refused to hand it over. The solicitors eventually complied. A file is believed to have been sent to the Crown Prosecution service seeking advice on whether anybody connected with the incident should be charged.

July 7, 2011 The New York Times Move to Close Newspaper Is Greeted With Suspicion By JENNIFER PRESTON and JEREMY W. PETERS The News Corporation’s decision to shut down the British tabloid The News of the World on Thursday did little to silence the growing uproar over revelations that the newspaper had hacked into the voice mails of private citizens. In fact, it may have only fueled the outrage. An outpouring of suspicion and condemnation came from all directions on Thursday, and was directed chiefly at the News Corporation’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, a figure as powerful as he is polarizing. The British media establishment, Facebook and Twitter users and even Mr. Murdoch’s own employees questioned his move. Some said it was a ploy to salvage government approval of the News Corporation’s potentially lucrative controlling stake in the satellite company British Sky Broadcasting, or BSkyB. Others saw it as merely a rebranding. There are already indications that The News of the World may be reconstituted in some form. People with ties to the company said Thursday that the News Corporation had for some time been examining whether to start a Sunday edition for its other British tabloid, The Sun. The demise of The News of the World, which publishes only on Sundays, would seem to create the opportunity for that, these people said, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Mr. Murdoch’s News International is the largest national newspaper publisher in Britain, a status that affords him tremendous economic and political influence. In addition to publishing The News of the World and The Sun, News International owns The Times of London, a smaller but more prestigious paper. The News of the World has a circulation of 2.7 million, a size that gives News International scale with advertisers and a dominance in the market that analysts say Mr. Murdoch is unlikely to want to see diminished. “Their significant share of the newspaper market is a very important part of their power base in this country — it is essential to their force and clout,” said Claire Enders of Enders Analysis, a media research firm. The News Corporation is unlikely to walk away from that much power, Ms. Enders added, and it would be wise to examine whether to start a publication similar to The News of the World under a different brand. Not to do so, she said, “would be a very severe business issue in terms of the existing economics of their newspapers, their revenues.” But others questioned whether The News of the World’s success could be replicated so easily. “I think they would be very hard pressed to get the Sunday Sun circulation to that level,” said George Brock, head of journalism at City University in London. A Sunday Sun, he said, “is not likely to be a complete offset.” Closing The News of the World is likely to benefit the News Corporation in one major way, Mr. Brock noted: It could help tame any threat to the company’s pending purchase of BSkyB. The News Corporation is also dealing with a flight of advertisers, something that users of social media hoped they could accelerate by creating an online campaign to encourage a boycott of the company. One Twitter user, Paul Friend, generated a Google document with e-mail addresses of the chief executives of the companies that advertise in the paper. The document was used by hundreds of people who then sent e-mails to executives with their complaints. By Thursday morning, more than 20 companies said that they would be suspending or re-evaluating their advertising spending with The News of the World. As the scandal widened this week, social media became an important vehicle for people to voice their discontent. “The goal was not to shut down the paper,” said Melissa Harrison, a freelance magazine editor whose efforts on Twitter on Monday helped prompt thousands of people to demand that companies withdraw advertising dollars from The News of the World. “No one wants people to lose their jobs,” Ms. Harrison said. “I think our goal was to voice public outrage. What really happened is that people have found that they have a voice. And News Corp. heard that people have a voice.” “There is quite a lot of cynicism about what is really happening here,” she said. “It is looking like The Sun will go seven days a week and that everything stays the same.” Ms. Harrison and a growing chorus of users on Facebook and Twitter are demanding a full accounting of the allegations that executives from The News of the World paid police officers, lied to members of Parliament and hired investigators to listen to voice mail messages left on the cellphones of a murdered girl and the victims of terrorist attacks. “The idea that he can close the paper and it will all be forgotten is not going to work,” she said. “What we wanted was someone taking responsibility for this behavior, which means a criminal investigation.” David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, a grass-roots online advocacy group, said that more than 110,000 signatures had been gathered in recent days demanding a full inquiry and that they would be presented to government officials on Friday as a British regulatory agency formally ended its public comment period on the BSkyB deal. The group is demanding that the government decline Mr. Murdoch’s request for a controlling stake in the satellite company. “This latest scandal has generated such an outpouring of disgust because it reflects the sheer scale of power that the Murdoch presses have over us, not just our media but our democratic process,” Mr. Babbs said. “The phone hacking is disgusting and disgraceful, but it also reflects the broader way that he has hacked our democratic process.” The outrage was not limited to people who see Mr. Murdoch as a political threat. Even people on his payroll objected. Employees of The Sun walked out in protest on Thursday evening.

Independent.co.uk Phone hacking: Murdoch empire in crisis Families of war dead added to reported hacking victims as Prime Minister bows to pressure for public inquiry By Martin Hickman and Cahal Milmo Thursday, 7 July 2011 Rupert Murdoch's planned takeover of Britain's biggest commercial broadcaster was cast into doubt last night as his newspaper empire faced fresh allegations that it hacked the families of dead British servicemen and a dozen blue-chip companies withdrew advertising from its best-selling paper. In another damaging day for Mr Murdoch in the deepening phone-hacking scandal, the communications regulator Ofcom revealed that it was "closely monitoring" allegations of widespread criminality at News International and said it had a duty to be satisfied that Mr Murdoch and his top executives were "fit and proper persons" to control BSkyB. Amid continuing claims that the News of the World had accessed the voicemails of child murder victims, Mr Murdoch's embattled top-selling British title last night faced grave new claims that relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan may have been victims of voicemail eavesdropping. A firm of solicitors representing the families of men killed in several high-profile cases in Iraq said they were contacted by Scotland Yard yesterday to say evidence had been found that they may have been targeted by the NOTW's private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire. In a statement, MPH Solicitors said: "We have been contacted this morning in connection with a possible phone-hacking on our clients... arising out of high profile military inquests in 2006/2007." In a sign of the rapidly-developing nature of the crisis engulfing News International, the Ministry of Defence said last night it was seeking clarification from the Yard of the names of those whose details were found on Mulcaire's records. Among the families that could be affected are those of Sergeant Steven Roberts, whose lack of body armour contributed to his death, Lance Corporal Matty Hull who was killed by friendly fire, and the personel who died in the crash of a US Sea Knight aircraft in Kuwait. Geraldine McCool, the MPH solicitor who represented who represented the relatives of both men, and whose phone may also have been accessed, said she was not aware of any articles which had given rise to suspicion of hacking but called for the full extent the alleged "diabolical practice" to be made clear. News International reacted to the fresh allegations last night by saying its support for the armed services was "impeccable" and it would be "absolutely appalled and horrified" if the claims were true. The Yard declined to comment on its ongoing investigation but in a day of rapidly-changing developments, it became clear its inquiry into the phone hacking scandal has rapidly accelerated. It is expected that as many as five NOTW journalists and executives, on top of the three previously detained, are expected to be arrested in the coming days. In an emergency debate in the House of Commons, the former Labour minister Tom Watson accused James Murdoch, the chairman's son and heir, of perverting the course of justice by engaging in a cover-up and called for him to be suspended from the News Corp board. Hours after the Labour MP Chris Bryant accused the News of the World of hacking phones linked to the murdered Essex schoolgirl Danielle Jones, the 80-year-old proprietor gave his personal backing to the paper's former editor and News International's current chief executive, Rebekah Brooks. In a statement, Mr Murdoch called claims of hacking and payments to police officers "deplorable and unacceptable". He said the company "must fully and proactively co-operate with the police in all investigations and that is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks' leadership". As fallout from the dispute over the NOTW's hacking of the phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler crossed the Atlantic, Mr Murdoch's News Corp shares tanked in New York, falling by nearly 5 per cent at one stage, wiping £180m from the tycoon's stake. By close of trading, he had lost £120m in the day. MPs demanded the Coalition Government pause its approval for News Corp's bid for full control of BSkyB. Mr Watson told the Commons: "James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks now have to accept their culpability and they will have to face the full force of the law... They are not fit and proper persons to control any part of the media in this country." Although Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, is likely to shrug off the demands and give final approval to the deal tomorrow, the takeover may not go ahead. The BBC's business editor, Robert Peston said BSkyB's independent directors would probably demand a higher price because of the risk of Ofcom intervening. On his BBC blog, Peston wrote: "Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation will almost certainly have to delay their takeover of BSkyB – at least until it is apparent that the News of the World and News International have been cleaned up." While News Corp's reported comments may have been intended to take the sting out of the Government's approval of the deal, they may also have been an attempt to take some of the pressure off Ms Brooks. Amid public outrage, 15 high-profile companies – including Lloyds, Virgin, Vauxhall and the Co-op – pulled their advertising from this Sunday's NOTW. The Co-op said the allegations the company had hacked the phones of crime victims had been "met with revulsion" by its members. David Cameron, a close friend of Ms Brooks, suggested the Government would hold a public inquiry into the scandal. He said: "We do need to have an inquiry, possibly inquiries, into what has happened." Under pressure from Ed Miliband, the Prime Minister said inquiries must be "public, independent, and have public confidence". Police are investigating new evidence that, under the editorship of Andy Coulson, Mr Cameron's former communications director, the NOTW bribed police officers for information. MPs voice their anger 'Let us be clear. There will be an inquiry, perhaps inquiries, into events. It is no longer just celebrities and politicians, but murder victims. The whole country is appalled.' David Cameron 'Editorial negligence is tantamount to complicity. If Brooks has a single shred of decency, she would resign ... My hope is that people who have committed criminality at the NOTW end up going to prison.' Chris Bryant 'People are rightly angry. Why were these allegations not investigated sufficiently at an earlier stage?' Yvette Cooper 'News International has entered the criminal underworld... James Murdoch should be suspended from office while the police now investigate what I believe was his personal authorisation to plan a cover-up of this scandal.' Tom Watson 'Were News International, with their record of wrongdoing they have admitted so far, to apply to run a minicab firm they would not receive a licence.' Frank Dobson 'The biggest press scandal in modern times, getting worse by the day ... This was not the actions of some rogue reporter: Rebekah Brooks should take responsibility and resign.'

The day the prime minister was forced to act on phone hacking David Cameron and Nick Clegg at odds over inquiry pledge, amid fresh calls to delay takeover decision By Nicholas Watt, James Robinson and Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 July 2011 22.02 BST David Cameron and Nick Clegg are wrangling over the membership and status of the inquiries that will be held into illegal phone hacking at the News of the World and wider questions about the future of media regulation. The prime minister bowed to pressure to hold at least one inquiry but is resisting calls from Clegg for a judge to take charge. The differences between Clegg and Cameron came as the government faced calls from across the Commons as well as from City shareholders to delay its final decision on the proposed takeover of BSkyB by News Corporation, parent company of the News of the World. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, gave the provisional go-ahead for the deal last Friday, subject to a final seven-day consultation over plans to hive off Sky News as a separately listed company to allay plurality fears. Hunt is due to consider thousands of pages of documents submitted during the consultation. He will then make a decision which could be delayed into the summer recess after consultations with Ofcom and the OFT. The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, took the momentous step of turning against Rupert Murdoch's empire, calling for the resignation of News International's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, and demanding the BSkyB decision be referred to the Competition Commission. "The public will react with disbelief if next week the decision is taken to go ahead with this deal at a time when News International is subject to a major criminal investigation and we do not yet know who charges will be laid against," he said. Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said he would ask Ofcom to exercise its right to assess whether the directors of News Corp were "fit and proper" to take full control of BSkyB. "Ofcom ... has a statutory obligation to consider at any time who is appropriate to hold a broadcasting licence. The message from this House must be that we want it actively to consider that obligation. "If it comes to the view that the future owners of BSkyB are inappropriate, it should rule accordingly, which would mean that the BSkyB merger could not go ahead." Nicholas Soames, the former Tory defence minister, called for a pause in the BSkyB bid on the grounds of "serious criminality on the part of some people at News International". Soames is listened to with care because he is close to the Prince of Wales who was angered when Prince William's phone was hacked. Several City shareholders called for Hunt to delay his final decision. Robert Talbut, chief investment officer of Royal London Asset Management said: "There are issues here that go beyond a simple financial transaction." Another investor, speaking on the basis of anonymity said: "Hunt should hold fire because we are faced with a further concentration of media power in News Corp's hands at a time when there are allegations of malpractice within one of its major subsidiaries." Shares in News Corp and BSkyB fell as the phone-hacking scandal put Murdoch and his bid to take control of the satellite broadcaster under scrutiny. News Corp shares fell by 5% at one stage on Wall Street, closing down 3.6% to $17.47. BSkyB shares in London fell 2.1% to 827p. Murdoch denounced as "deplorable and unacceptable" the revelation in the Guardian earlier this week that the News of the World hacked into the telephone of Milly Dowler after she disappeared. But he offered support for Brooks, who was NoW editor at the time of the schoolgirl's murder. "I have made clear that our company must fully and proactively co-operate with the police in all investigations and that is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks's leadership." It was reported last night that families of members of the armed forces killed in Afghanistan and Iraq may have been targeted by a private investigator who worked for the News of the World. The Ministry of Defence was seeking clarification from Scotland Yard as sources said families of dead servicemen were being contacted by detectives over the scandal. News International said it would be "absolutely appalled and horrified" if there was any truth in the allegations and it would be immediately contacting the MoD. MPH Solicitors whose clients include Samantha Roberts, widow of one of the first Britons killed in Iraq in 2003 called for clarity from authorities over the claims. Solicitor Geraldine McCool said the firm had been contacted by media yesterday over the allegations surrounding high-profile military inquests in 2006 and 2007. "We are making efforts to verify this information," a statement on the firm's website said. The chancellor, George Osborne, was also notified by the Metropolitan police that his name and home phone number appeared in notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman, the private investigator and News of the World reporter who were both jailed in 2007 for phone hacking. Cameron announced the inquiry or inquiries would be held after consulting Clegg. It is expected one inquiry will examine how phone hacking was started and tolerated, while a second will examine the future of media regulation. But there were differences with Clegg over whether a judge would be involved. A Downing Street source said: "We do not have to have a judge-led inquiry to make it effective." Clegg insisted a judge would have to be involved in at least one inquiry. In an email to Lib Dem members, he said: "The inquiries must be independent, open, able to access all information and call witnesses, and that crucially the inquiry dealing with legal issues (eg relationship between police and media) must be presided over by a judge." One Lib Dem source said: "There is no point in having an enquiry if it does not have teeth. We do not want a talking shop. Unless you have a judge you can't deal with the crunchy bit." The scale of the anger at News International across the Commons was highlighted when Tom Watson, a former Labour minister, accused it of entering the "criminal underworld" by "paying people to interfere with police officers and were doing so on behalf of known criminals". He said James Murdoch, the tycoon's son, had "personally, without board approval, authorised money to be paid by his company to silence people who had been hacked and to cover up criminal behaviour within his organisation". John Whittingdale, the Tory chairman of the Commons culture select committee, named a series of News International executives who had told his committee that only one reporter was responsible for phone hacking while police possessed evidence of widespread illegality. News International is planning to relieve the pressure on Brooks, by claiming she was on holiday when a mobile phone belonging to Dowler was hacked into. The Guardian understands that the company has established that Brooks, News of the World editor from May 2000 until January 2003, was on holiday in Italy when the paper ran a story which referred to a message that had been left on the teenager's phone. That is likely to focus attention on Andy Coulson, who was Brooks's deputy at the time, and would normally have edited the paper in her absence. Procter & Gamble, Britain's biggest advertiser, plus O2, Vauxhall, Butlins and Virgin Holidays, joined Ford in pulling ads from this weekend's News of the World. P&G spent almost £1.5m in the News of the World in the last year. -------------------------------------------- News of the World surveillance of detective: what Rebekah Brooks knew Brooks summoned to meeting with Scotland Yard to be told her journalists had spied on behalf of murder suspects By Nick Davies guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 July 2011 19.47 BST As editor of the News of the World Rebekah Brooks was confronted with evidence that her paper's resources had been used on behalf of two murder suspects to spy on the senior detective who was investigating their alleged crime. Brooks was summoned to a meeting at Scotland Yard where she was told that one of her most senior journalists, Alex Marunchak, had apparently agreed to use photographers and vans leased to the paper to run surveillance on behalf of Jonathan Rees and Sid Fillery, two private investigators who were suspected of murdering their former partner, Daniel Morgan. The Yard saw this as a possible attempt to pervert the course of justice. Brooks was also told of evidence that Marunchak had a corrupt relationship with Rees, who had been earning up to £150,000 a year selling confidential data to the News of the World. Police told her that a former employee of Rees had given them a statement alleging that some of these payments were diverted to Marunchak, who had been able to pay off his credit card and pay his child's private school fees. A Guardian investigation suggests that surveillance of Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook involved the News of the World physically following him and his young children, "blagging" his personal details from police databases, attempting to access his voicemail and that of his wife, and possibly sending a "Trojan horse" email in an attempt to steal information from his computer. The targeting of Cook began following his appearance on BBC Crimewatch on 26 June 2002, when he appealed for information to solve the murder of Morgan, who had been found dead in south London 15 years earlier. Rees and Fillery were among the suspects. The following day, Cook was warned by the Yard that they had picked up intelligence that Fillery had been in touch with Marunchak and that Marunchak agreed to "sort Cook out". A few days later, Cook was contacted by Surrey police, where he had worked as a senior detective from 1996 to 2001, and was told that somebody claiming to work for the Inland Revenue had contacted their finance department, asking for Cook's home address so that they could send him a cheque with a tax refund. The finance department had been suspicious and refused to give out the information. It is now known that at that time, the News of the World's investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, succeeded in obtaining Cook's home address, his internal payroll number at the Metropolitan police, his date of birth and figures for the amount that he and his wife were paying for their mortgage. All of this appears to have been blagged by Mulcaire from confidential databases, apparently including the Met's own records. Mulcaire obtained the mobile phone number for Cook's wife and the password she used for her mobile phone account. Paperwork in the possession of the Yard's Operation Weeting is believed to show that Mulcaire did this on the instructions of Greg Miskiw, the paper's assistant editor and a close friend of Marunchak. About a week later, a van was seen parked outside Cook's home. The following day, two vans were seen there. Both of them attempted to follow Cook as he took his two-year-old son to nursery. Cook alerted Scotland Yard, who sent a uniformed officer to stop one of the vans on the grounds that its rear brake light was broken. The driver proved to be a photojournalist working for the News of the World. Both vans were leased to the paper. During the same week, there were signs of an attempt to open letters which had been left in Cook's external postbox. Scotland Yard chose not to mount a formal inquiry. Instead a senior press officer contacted Brooks to ask for an explanation. She is understood to have told them they were investigating a report that Cook was having an affair with another officer, Jacqui Hames, the presenter of BBC Crimewatch. Yard sources say they rejected this explanation, because Cook had been married to Hames for some years; the couple had two children, then aged two and five; and they had previously appeared together as a married couple in published stories."The story was complete rubbish," according to one source. For four months, the Yard took no action, raising questions about whether they were willing to pursue what appeared to be an attempt to interfere with a murder inquiry. However, in November 2002, at a press social event at Scotland Yard, Brooks was asked to come into a side room for a meeting. She was confronted by Cook, his boss, Commander Andre Baker, and Dick Fedorcio, the head of media relations. According to a Yard source, Cook described the surveillance on his home and the apparent involvement of Marunchak, and evidence of Marunchak's suspect financial relationship with Rees. Brooks is said to have defended Marunchak on the grounds that he did his job well. Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Fedorcio, who has had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the News of the World. In March Marunchak was named by BBC Panorama as the News of the World executive who hired a specialist to plant a Trojan on the computer of a former British intelligence officer, Ian Hurst. Rees and Fillery were eventually arrested and charged in relation to the murder of Morgan. Charges against both men were later dropped, although Rees was convicted of plotting to plant cocaine on a woman so that her ex-husband would get custody of their children, and Fillery was convicted of possessing indecent images of children. Cook and his wife are believed to be preparing a legal action against the News of the World, Marunchak, Miskiw and Mulcaire. Operation Weeting is also understood to be investigating.

Phone hacking: David Cameron bows to calls for public inquiries Prime minister says he is 'appalled' by revelations about behaviour at News of the World, but BSkyB deal can go ahead By Hélène Mulholland, Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 July 2011 14.43 BST David Cameron has bowed to pressure to hold public inquiries into the "absolutely disgusting" allegations of phone hacking by journalists at News of the World, and into the original police investigation into the scandal. The prime minister responded to the outrage provoked by the phone-hacking crisis at the Sunday tabloid after it emerged that Scotland Yard had started to contact the relatives of victims of the 7 July 2005 attacks to warn them they had also been targeted by the paper. Pressed by the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, to conduct a full public inquiry, the prime minister said he was appalled by the revelations and agreed it was important inquiries were conducted that were "public, independent, and have public confidence". Listen to PMQs in full Link to this audio He also signalled that News Corporation's takeover of BSkyB would be allowed to go ahead. He rejected Miliband's call for the matter to be referred to the Competition Commission, which he suggested would be illegal. Miliband told Cameron he had made a "catastrophic error of judgment" when he hired Andy Coulson as his director of communications. In a dramatic prime minister's question time dominated by the hacking scandal, Miliband also accused Cameron of being out of touch with public opinion on the issue of BSkyB and of a "failure of leadership" in the biggest press scandal in modern times. Cameron told the Commons the inquiries could not be started immediately because of the major police investigation currently under way, though he conceded it "may be possible" to start some of the work earlier. "We do need to have an inquiry, possibly inquiries, into what has happened," Cameron said. "We are no longer talking here about politicians and celebrities, we are talking about murder victims, potentially terrorist victims, having their phones hacked into. "It is absolutely disgusting, what has taken place, and I think everyone in this house and indeed this country will be revolted by what they have heard and what they have seen on their television screens." He said there were two "vital areas" that needed to be considered: why the original police inquiry failed to "get to the bottom of what happened", and the behaviour, practices and ethics of journalists and media organisations. Cameron said it was important that lessons were learned from "what has become a disgraceful episode". The Labour leader called on Cameron to appoint a senior figure, possibly a judge, to lead the inquiry, which he said should have the power to call witnesses under oath. Miliband said the investigation should cover "the culture and practices of the industry, the nature of regulation ... and also the relationship between the police and the media". Cameron said he did not think it would be possible to investigate the original police inquiry until the new one had concluded. "Clearly, we can't start all that sort of inquiry immediately because you must not jeopardise the police investigation, but it may be possible to start some of that work earlier," he said. He offered to hold talks on the matter with other party leaders, the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, and the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell. But he resisted separate calls by Miliband for the bid by News International to take over BskyB to be referred to the Competition Commission, saying to do so would be illegal. Miliband said the public would react "with disbelief" if the deal went ahead in the next few days when News International was the subject of a major criminal investigation. However, Cameron said the government had followed the correct legal processes, with Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state for media, culture and sport, handling the matter in a quasi-judicial role. Cameron said: "On the issue of BSkyB, what we have done here is followed absolutely to the letter, the correct legal processes. That is what the government has to do." He added: "I note that the leader of the Labour party said yesterday that the issue of competition and plurality is a separate issue from the very important issue we are discussing today. What I would say is these processes must be followed properly, including by Ofcom, and it is Ofcom that have the duty to make a recommendation about fit and proper person. Those are the right processes. This government will behave in a proper way." The prime minister refused to be drawn on whether Rebekah Brooks, News International's chief executive, should stand down. Confronted by claims by Miliband that he had made a "catastrophic error of judgment" by taking on Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World embroiled in the latest wave of revelations, the prime minister said he took "full responsibility" for everyone he employed and appointed to work for him. The ramifications of the scandal continued to be felt by the News of the World through other channels as Halifax bank and Virgin Holidays cancelled adverts due to run in this Sunday's paper. Ford said on Tuesday it was suspending its advertising in the paper. Other companies, including the UK's biggest advertiser, Procter & Gamble, have said they are reviewing their positions amid an online campaign urging firms to withdraw their advertising. While News International issued a statement welcoming MPs' calls for a wide-ranging public inquiry into standards in the media industry to address public concerns, the broadcasting regulator Ofcom said it was monitoring the situation "and in particular the investigations by the relevant authorities into the alleged unlawful activities". Ofcom said: "In the light of the current public debate about phone hacking and other allegations, Ofcom confirms that it has a duty to be satisfied on an ongoing basis that the holder of a broadcasting licence is 'fit and proper'." The Metropolitan police commissioner, Paul Stephenson, also revealed that members of his force faced investigation after it was reported on Tuesday night that News International had handed over details of payments made by the News of the World to police officers. He said the documents appeared to "include information relating to alleged inappropriate payments to a small number of [Metropolitan police] officers". Stephenson said the matter would be investigated by the deputy commissioner Sue Akers in conjunction with the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards. He added that no senior officer had been implicated. Given that the reports relate to police payments allegedly made between 2003 and 2007, when Coulson was editor, many commentators have suggested they are an attempt to relieve the pressure on Brooks, also a former editor. One of those put on alert that his phone may have been hacked, Graham Foulkes, whose son David was killed in the 7 July 2005 bombings, expressed his horror at the alleged intrusion and said he wanted to meet Rupert Murdoch. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I'd really like to meet him face to face and have a very in-depth conversation with him about responsibility and the power that he has and how it should be used appropriately." Simon Greenberg, director of corporate affairs at News International, told the Today programme that a meeting between Foulkes and Murdoch was "certainly something we would consider". Greenberg insisted that News International was being "highly co-operative" with the police. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, he said the organisation was "very close" to discovering who commissioned the alleged hacking of Milly Dowler's phone. Asked whether he was clear that the hacking was not commissioned by Brooks, who was News of the World editor at the time, he said: "We are clear." ---------------------------------- Rupert Murdoch backs Rebekah Brooks over phone-hacking allegations News Corp founder describes latest News of the World revelations as 'deplorable and unacceptable' By James Robinson, Andrew Sparrow, Hélène Muholland and Haroon Sidique guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 July 2011 17.05 BST Rupert Murdoch has taken the highly unusual step of issuing an official public statement backing Rebekah Brooks over the phone-hacking scandal engulfing his UK newspaper business. The News Corporation boss described the recent allegations about phone hacking and payments to police officers by the News of the World "deplorable and unacceptable". "I have made clear that our company must fully and proactively co-operate with the police in all investigations and that is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks' leadership," the News Corp chairman and chief executive added, in a statement issued from the annual Allen & Co media business conference he is attending in Sun Valley, Idaho. Murdoch also said he had asked Joel Klein, who heads News Corp's recently created education unit, "to provide important oversight and guidance". Viet Dinh, a non-executive director, is keeping the News Corp board informed along with Klein, he said. Murdoch's backing came on a day of mounting pressure on Brooks and News International, with prime minister David Cameron bowing to calls for public inquiries into phone hacking by the News of the World and the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, saying the chief executive should "consider her position". News Corp also faced criticism from MPs during an emergency debate on phone hacking in the Commons on Wednesday afternoon, with Labour's Tom Watson alleging there was "further evidence" that Brooks "knew about the unlawful tactics of News of the World as early as 2002, despite all her denials yesterday". Watson also called for Rupert's son James Murdoch, who as deputy chief operating officer oversees the company's European and Asian businesses including News International, to be suspended while the Metropolitan police investigate "what I believe is his personal authorisation of the coverup of this scandal". Murdoch's statement came after it emerged on Wednesday that News International will claim Brooks, the News of the World publisher's chief executive, was on holiday when a mobile phone belonging to missing teenager Milly Dowler was hacked into in 2002 when Brooks was editing the Sunday tabloid. The Guardian understands that the company has established that Brooks, News of the World editor from May 2000 until January 2003, was on holiday in Italy when the paper ran a story that referred to a message that had been left on the teenager's phone. The article, which was about a message left by an employment agency on the murdered schoolgirl's mobile, was published on 14 April 2002. News International also believes Brooks was away in the two weeks following the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham. It is thought that mobile phones belonging to the parents of the two girls were targeted in the days following their death. That is likely to focus attention on Andy Coulson, who was Brooks's deputy at the time, and would normally have edited the paper in her absence. Coulson replaced Brooks as editor in early 2003 and has always maintained that he was unaware of any phone-hacking activity by the News of the World. He resigned in January 2007 after the royal reporter, Clive Goodman, and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for intercepting the voicemail messages of members of the royal household, saying he accepted responsibility for what had happened but knew nothing about it.

Met chief: Phone hacking documents point to 'inappropriate payments' Sir Paul Stephenson confirms News International documents appear to include information on payments to police officers By Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 July 2011 13.40 BST The Met police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said he had discussed the matter with the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Photograph: Graeme Robertson The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, has said that documents provided by News International as part of the investigation into phone hacking appear to include information on "inappropriate payments" to police officers. His comments came after it was reported on Tuesday night that News International had given his force details of payments made by News of the World to senior police officers between 2003 and 2007, the period when Andy Coulson was the paper's editor. Stephenson said on Wednesday he was taking the "unusual step" of issuing a statement because of widespread media coverage and public interest surrounding Operation Weeting, the investigation into phone hacking. He said: "I can confirm that on 20 June 2011 the MPS [Metropolitan police service] was handed a number of documents by News International, through their barrister, Lord Macdonald QC. Our initial assessment shows that these documents include information relating to alleged inappropriate payments to a small number of MPS officers." He said the matter had been discussed with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which concluded that it should continue to be investigated by Operation Elveden, led by the Met deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, in partnership with the force's Directorate of Professional Standards. Stephenson added: "At this time we have not seen any evidence requiring a referral to the Metropolitan Police Authority in respect of any senior officer. Whilst I am deeply concerned by recent developments surrounding phone hacking they are a product of the meticulous and thorough work of Operation Weeting, which will continue. Operation Elveden will be equally thorough and robust. Anyone identified of wrongdoing can expect the full weight of disciplinary measures and if appropriate action through the criminal courts." There have been suggestions from some quarters that the story relating to Coulson allegedly paying police officers, featured prominently in the Times, also part of the News International stable, on Tuesday, was a distraction exercise. Labour MP Tom Watson told BBC News: "This is desperation from News International. They are trying to protect Rebekah Brooks [chief executive of News International], who rightly faces the ire of the nation today."

John Dean Knows How to Get Rid of Clarence Thomas http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/john_dean_knows_how_to_get_rid_of_clarence_thomas_20110628/ Posted on Jun 28, 2011 By John Dean For good reason, there has been serious hand-wringing over what to do about the ethical lapses of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The fact that Supreme Court justices are exempt from the code of ethical conduct which applies to the rest of the federal judiciary; the problem of bringing a sitting justice before the Congress to question the conduct of a constitutional co-equal; the reality that justices cannot easily defend themselves against news media charges; the defiant, in-your-face posture of Thomas—the list goes on but it need not. There is clear precedent for how to deal with the justice. Thomas could be forced off the bench. As the associate deputy attorney general in President Richard M. Nixon’s Department of Justice, I was there when Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist outlined how to remove a Supreme Court justice who had engaged in conduct not quite as troublesome as that of Thomas. Rehnquist, of course, would later become chief justice of the United States. His memorandum providing the process for the Department of Justice to proceed against then Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas remains solid precedent and the way to deal with Clarence Thomas. But before looking at the solution, I should explain the problem. To begin with, there is absolutely no question in my mind that Thomas lied his way onto the Supreme Court in 1991 when he denied Anita Hill’s charges that he had sexually harassed her and some of his other subordinates. If anyone needs proof, please examine the reporting of Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, authors of “Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas,” which sets forth the case against Thomas with an abundance of clear and convincing evidence (not to mention the evidence corroborating Hill that Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, withheld). The way Thomas reached the court is important for two reasons. First, there was once a time when those sitting on our highest bench would never do anything to tarnish the court, and this factors into both his conduct and the chances of his removal. Secondly, Thomas’ deceit during his confirmation hearing has overshadowed all of his behavior since he arrived on the court. Thomas fooled no one when he dissembled in 1991. Those who embrace his consistently radical conservative voting record often overlook how he arrived on the high court, and a few supporters and admirers even defend him by diminishing the significance of his persistently questionable behavior. Those who are unhappy with Thomas as a justice, not to mention his aggressive polarization of the court, find that he has simply lived down to his standards as a scoundrel and fabulist. No one is particularly surprised that his behavior as a justice just keeps sinking lower and lower, constantly reaching new bottoms. (For a catalog that samples Thomas’ failings, see The Reid Report.) Many Supreme Court justices enjoy the company of well-off social friends. Few justices have significant wealth, and since their pay is so low relative to their stature, almost all live quite modestly. There is nothing wrong with justices having a few friends who can occasionally provide an especially pleasant social interlude while seeking nothing other than making life a bit more pleasant for these dedicated public servants. In fact, I have friends who socialize with justices. I can assure you they are all extremely sensitive to the nature of these relationships and would never exploit the friendships. Thomas and his friends have no such compunctions. Maybe the way Thomas arrived on the court explains why he operates at the outer edges of court propriety, if not beyond. Maybe because he is held in such low esteem by so many on the bench and at the bar he simply does not care. As his book showed, he is a bitter man. The Washington Post noted that he used his 2007 memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son,” to “settle scores,” while “scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the ‘mob’ of liberal elites and activist groups that he says desecrated his life.” In short, he sees himself as a victim, so his actions may be his own private revenge. However, for those who have followed his career, as I have, it was not surprising to see the latest revelation in The New York Times, which reports again about Thomas’ “friendship” with Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and big-time benefactor of conservative causes. This relationship is deeply conflicted because Crow’s financial and political interests are frequently before the Supreme Court. Nonetheless, Crow continues to bestow endless gifts and favors on Thomas or fund matters of serious interest to the justice, such as giving Thomas a $19,000 Bible that once belonged to Frederick Douglass, donating $175,000 to finance a library project dedicated to Thomas in Savannah, Ga., and, as was recently revealed, providing not less than $2.8 million to acquire and preserve a crab and oyster cannery near Thomas’ childhood home in Pinpoint, Ga., a project that is operating under Thomas’ supervision. One suspects this is but the tip of the iceberg because Thomas’ wife, Virginia (known as Ginni), is a Crow-funded conflict of interest with whom the justice literally sleeps. Ginni is not merely a foot-stomping, full-throated tea party activist, but she is a highly paid lobbyist. According to congressional information, in the past few years she has earned some $700,000 for her tea party work. In addition, Crow reportedly provided Ginni Thomas some $500,000 to start her tea party group, Liberty Central, which pays her so well. Ginni Thomas openly lobbies issues that have or will come before the Supreme Court, such as health care reform. When 74 Democratic members of Congress requested that Justice Thomas disqualify himself from any ruling on the new health care reform law, which is making its way toward the Supreme Court thanks in part to the efforts of the tea party and Ginni Thomas to have that law ruled unconstitutional, he ignored the request. This is his standard operating procedure. Thomas simply is not troubled by those who are concerned that a justice and his wife directly and indirectly receive financial benefits from “a friend” with both financial and political interests before the court. The question is what can be done about this problem. Early this year, U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, introduced the proposed Supreme Court Transparency and Disclosure Act of 2011 (H.R. 862). When introducing this legislation, which would extend to Supreme Court justices the code of professional conduct that applies to all other federal judges, Murphy cited the conflict of interest and political actions of Justice Clarence Thomas. Recently, the bill received a glimmer of press attention as a result of Thomas’ latest reported shenanigans, and the website Daily Kos is collecting signatures for a petition supporting Murphy’s proposal. In fact, the proposal in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives is the proverbial snowball in hell. Nothing is going to come of it, even if Daily Kos collects 100 million signatures. Plus, the proposal is laden with serious constitutional questions and problems. At the top of that list is the likelihood that the Supreme Court would declare it unconstitutional if it were adopted. There is a way, nonetheless. As a young official in Nixon’s Department of Justice—and, I must admit, with some amazement—I watched a Republican Justice Department and a conservative attorney general go after a liberal Supreme Court justice with remarkable success. Robert Shogan, a former Los Angeles Times and Newsweek reporter, recounted much of the story in “A Question of Judgment: The Fortas Case and the Struggle for the Supreme Court.” I filled in a few missing pieces when I wrote “The Rehnquist Choice.” Rehnquist in those days was the head of the Office of Legal Counsel and prepared a detailed memorandum for Attorney General John Mitchell explaining how to undertake an action that had never before been done, namely for the Justice Department to start a criminal investigation of a sitting justice, not based on hard information but rather based mainly on speculation of a worst-case scenario, i.e., assuming gifts and favors were bribes. With the Rehnquist memo in hand, Mitchell arranged a secret meeting with then Chief Justice Earl Warren, and told Warren that if Fortas did not resign from the court the Justice Department was going to launch an investigation of Fortas’ dealing with a financier, Louis Wolfson, then recently convicted of securities violations, because of Wolfson’s earlier gifts to his friend Fortas and Fortas’ wife. The case against Fortas was weak, yet Mitchell was more than bluffing. He was prepared to have a grand jury determine whether there was a fire amid the smell of smoke. When Fortas, a formidable legal mind, tested the bluff, Mitchell upped the stakes. He passed the word that he was going after Fortas’ wife, Carol Agger, a highly successful tax law specialist, as well as Fortas’ former law partner, Paul Porter. Mitchell said that he was considering reopening a grand jury proceeding that had cleared both Agger and Porter regarding a case disposed of years earlier. This, too, bordered on being a trumped-up charge, but an attorney general can make good on a bluff and actually convene a grand jury. That was not necessary. Rather than put his wife and former partner through the agony, or tarnish the court by the very fact of such a proceeding, Fortas resigned. The parallels of the Thomas and Fortas behavior is striking. The recent New York Times article strongly suggests that Thomas has failed to file required annual financial statements. He has failed to do this in the past, claiming it an oversight. The line between gifts and bribes in these circumstances is as fine as a hair on a frog’s back. One suspects Thomas and his wife would not do well with close scrutiny. The Rehnquist memo, sitting in the files of the Office of Legal Counsel, provides the precedent to undertake such a federal investigation of both Clarence and Ginni Thomas. Does anyone who follows politics not believe that if the situations were reversed and Republicans found one of the Democrats on the Supreme Court engaging in similar behavior they would not employ the Fortas option? Of course they would. There are two problems with this strategy. First, the Democrats would never do to Thomas what Republicans did to Fortas. For the Republicans, seats on the Supreme Court are worth whatever it takes to get them. They play hardball. For Democrats, well, they play beanbag over judicial appointments. Democrats are willing to toss a few stingers, but never do they truly want to hurt anyone. They cannot help it that they are nice people, and ruthlessness does not work for them. This is why a minority of Republicans in the United States can control the overwhelming majority of Democrats and independents who lean left. Second problem, Thomas would fight to his last breath to keep his seat. He would claim the Fortas option was an attack on the court—for he already makes a similar claim when anyone is critical of his conduct. If Harlan Crow’s gifts and favors were given with a wink and nod, and in fact turned out to be bribes, and this could be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, and Thomas were convicted, I believe that rather than resign he would demand an impeachment proceeding to remove him from the court. Unlike in the case of Abe Fortas, who had deep concern for the court, it is not difficult to believe that Clarence Thomas cares only about Clarence Thomas. There is also the reality that as long as Republicans control the House of Representatives there will never be an impeachment of Thomas. Should Democrats regain control of the House, well, Democrats don’t play hardball. In short, nothing is going to happen to Clarence Thomas. No one is going to truly challenge his conduct, and he will sit on the Supreme Court until he feels like leaving. I’d be interested in your thoughts. Share them on Twitter: @johnwdean. John Dean served as Richard M. Nixon’s White House lawyer for 1,000 days and is the author of several books, including “Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush” and “Conservatives Without Conscience.”

Milly Dowler phone hacking: Speaker grants emergency Commons debate Labour MP Chris Bryant successfully pushes for Wednesday debate on call for public inquiry into News International By Patrick Wintour, political editor guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 July 2011 17.28 BST Labour MP Chris Bryant convinced the Speaker John Bercow to allow the emergency debate into phone hacking in light of the scandal surrounding Milly Dowler. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian The Speaker has granted a rare emergency Commons debate on Wednesday into calls for a public inquiry into phone hacking by News International journalists, and a potential cover up by its senior executives. A day after the Guardian revealed the News of the World illegally targeted the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family following her disappearance in 2002, the first emergency debate to be granted since November 2008 was given the go-ahead. The debate – starting after prime minister's questions and a statement by the PM about his visit to Afghanistan – will end with a call by Labour for a public inquiry. Ministers present in the Commons chamber opposed the emergency debate but, in what will be seen as another show of force by the Speaker John Bercow, he accepted arguments in favour put by Labour MP Chris Bryant. Large numbers of Labour MPs stood up to support Bryant's call, along with a smattering of Liberal Democrats and some Tory backbenchers such as Zac Goldsmith and Bill Cash. Labour is undecided about whether or not to put forward a substantive motion calling for a public inquiry that could be subject to a vote or amendment. Instead, they could try to flush out Conservative party support for News International by showing its MPs are objecting to the principle of setting up an inquiry after the police investigation is complete. The prime minister's spokesman was unable to say whether David Cameron would support a call for a public inquiry after the police investigation was complete, explaining that the prime minister was returning from Afghanistan. The coalition benches were trying to hold the line on Tuesday that they were not ruling out a public inquiry, but felt nothing should stand in the way of the police investigation. Calling for the emergency debate, Bryant said those responsible at News of the World should be "truly ashamed" and that the newspaper could no longer "pretend that this comes as a massive surprise to them" having repeatedly lied over the extent of phone hacking. He claimed the News of the World stood accused of "playing God with a family's emotions" in the case of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, who had her voicemails accessed and deleted after she disappeared in March 2002. ------------------------------- Rebekah Brooks: 'It's inconceivable I knew of Milly Dowler phone hacking' News International chief executive tells staff she will not quit • Press complaints boss says News of the World lied to inquiry • Miliband calls on Brooks to consider 'her position' By James Robinson, Adam Gabbatt, Sandra Laville, Nick Davies and Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 July 2011 14.32 BST Rebekah Brooks has come under mounting pressure to resign over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Photograph: Paul Grover /Rex Features Rebekah Brooks has told employees it is "inconceivable" she knew that the News of the World hacked into Milly Dowler's mobile phone. The News International chief executive said she was "sickened" by the events, but insisted she was "determined to lead the company" – despite calls for her to resign. Ed Miliband said Brooks should "consider her position" and has called for a public inquiry after the Guardian revealed the News of the World illegally accessed Dowler's voicemail messages under Brooks's editorship. David Cameron earlier described the hacking as a "truly dreadful act" and urged police to "pursue this in the most vigorous way", while the home secretary, Theresa May, said anyone who could commit such hacking was "sick". Brooks, who was editing the paper at the time, emailed employees today to tell them: "It is inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations. I am aware of the speculation about my position. Therefore it is important you all know that as chief executive, I am determined to lead the company to ensure we do the right thing and resolve these serious issues." Brooks said she has written to Milly Dowler's parents on Tuesday morning "to assure them News International will vigorously pursue the truth and that they will be the first to be informed of the outcome of our investigation". She added: "I am sickened that these events are alleged to have happened. Not just because I was editor of the News of the World at the time, but if the accusations are true, the devastating effect on Milly Dowler's family is unforgivable." Senior executives at News International discussed the Dowler revelations at a meeting with police this morning to talk about Scotland Yard's ongoing investigation into phone hacking. News International said Rebekah Brooks was not present at the meeting. A senior source at the News of the World's owner said it was a pre-arranged meeting with officers from Operation Weeting, the Met's investigation into phone hacking that began at the start of the year. Brooks said in her email: "This morning, in our regular Operation Weeting meeting, we have offered the MPS our full co-operation to establish the veracity of these fresh allegations." Miliband had earlier called for a public inquiry and said Brooks should "consider her conscience and consider her position", as pressure mounts on the chief executive. Meanwhile, the Press Complaints Commission chairwoman Peta Buscombe said she was lied to by the News of the World over phone hacking. Buscombe had said in 2009 that the PCC was not misled by the News of the World during its own inquiry into phone hacking. However, on the BBC's Daily Politics show, she admitted she had been "misled by the News of the World". "There's only so much we can do when people are lying to us. We know now that I was not being given the truth by the News of the World," Buscombe said. She denied having sided with the newspaper. Miliband said the latest revelations in the News of the World phone-hacking saga were a "stain" on news reporting in the country. He added that the hacking "represents one of the darkest days in British journalism". Earlier Cameron, currently in Afghanistan, said of the Guardian's revelation that the News of the World illegally targeted Milly Dowler and her family: "If they are true this is a truly dreadful act and a truly dreadful situation." He added: "There is a police investigation into hacking allegations … they should investigate this without any fear, without any favour, without any worry about where the evidence should lead them. "They should pursue this in the most vigorous way that they can in order to get to the truth of what happened. That is the absolute priority as a police investigation." The home secretary told the home affairs select committee the revelations were "totally shocking" but said she did not know if the News of the World used hacking in relation to the Soham murders. May was asked if there should be a public inquiry into the affair, but said the ongoing police investigation should be allowed to run. The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, whose force is accused of not investigating phone hacking properly in the first place, said on Tuesday: "My heart goes out to the Dowler family." He told BBC London: "I have to be very careful to say nothing that could prejudice our live investigation but if it is proved to be true, then irrespective of the legality or illegality of it, I'm not sure there is anyone who wouldn't be appalled and repulsed by such behaviour." Former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott said on Twitter that he would write to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, demanding he block News Corp's bid to take full control of pay-TV company BSkyB following the revelations about Dowler. However, John Whittingdale, the chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that phone hacking at the News of the World should not taint the rest of Rupert Murdoch's empire. "You cannot necessarily condemn the entire of News Corp just because of the actions of some individuals in another part of the organisation," he said. "News International is a part of News Corp but it's a different part. News Corp is a global enterprise and I don't think one should condemn the entire organisation because something very clearly was going wrong in the News of the World." Detectives from Operation Weeting are believed to have found evidence of the targeting of the Dowlers in a collection of 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World. In the past four weeks Met officers have approached Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those involved in the original inquiry, who were concerned about how News of the World journalists intercepted – and deleted – the voicemail messages of Milly Dowler. The messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days after Milly's disappearance to create space for more messages. As a result friends and relatives of Milly concluded wrongly she might still be alive. Police also feared evidence may have been destroyed. --------------------------- July 5, 2011 Anger Rises Over Hack to Missing Girl’s Voice Mail The New York Times By SARAH LYALL LONDON — The voice mailbox of a British schoolgirl who went missing in 2002 and whose murdered body was discovered six months later was repeatedly hacked by the News of the World tabloid at a time when no one knew what had happened to her, a lawyer for her family said Monday. According to the lawyer, Mark Lewis, the newspaper not only intercepted messages left at the cellphone number of the girl, Milly Dowler, 13, by her increasingly frantic family after her disappearance, but also deleted some of those messages when her voice mailbox became full — thus making room for new ones and listening to those in turn. This confused investigators and gave false hope to Milly’s relatives, who believed it showed she was still alive and deleting the messages herself, Mr. Lewis said. In a statement, Mr. Lewis called the newspaper’s actions “heinous” and “despicable” and said the Dowler family had suffered “distress heaped upon tragedy” upon learning that News of the World “had no humanity at such a terrible time.” The British prime minister David Cameron, while on a visit to Afghanistan, put more pressure on the newspaper on Tuesday, calling the allegations shocking. “If they are true, this is a truly dreadful act and a truly dreadful situation,” he said, according to comments carried by The Associated Press. The disclosures, reported first in The Guardian, came as part of a broader police investigation into The News of the World’s routine practice of intercepting the cellphone messages of celebrities, politicians and other public figures in the mid-2000s. The newspaper has admitted that it did so in some cases, and has paid damages to the actress Sienna Miller and others. Numerous other people who say that their phones were hacked are suing the paper. But the revelations about Milly Dowler are significant for two reasons. The first is that the alleged hacking in this case occurred in 2002 — five years before The News of the World’s chief royal reporter, Clive Goodman, was jailed along with Glenn Mulcaire, an investigator hired by the paper, after they were found guilty of intercepting the phone messages of members of the royal family. The police investigation has so far focused on behavior since 2007; the Dowler case is the first to indicate publicly that the police investigation may be widening to include earlier cases. The second is that in 2002, the editor of The News of the World was Rebekah Brooks, a confidante and favorite of Rupert Murdoch, whose corporation owns the paper. Ms. Brooks, who is now chief executive of News International, the British newspaper division of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation, has always denied knowing anything about voice-mail hacking at any Murdoch-owned papers. In an e-mail she sent to employees on Tuesday, she repeated that assertion. “I hope that you all realize it is inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations,” she wrote in the e-mail. She also said, “It is almost too horrific to believe that a professional journalist or even a freelance inquiry agent working on behalf of a member of the News of the World staff could behave in this way.” If Mr. Lewis’s accusations about hacking during the Dowler case prove accurate, it would mean either that Ms. Brooks had no idea how the paper she edited was obtaining information about the Dowler family for its articles, or that she knew about the hacking and allowed it. Evidence that News of the World had hacked into Milly’s cellphone voice mail and to those of her family members was found in notebooks belonging to Mr. Mulcaire that were turned over to the police as part of a wider investigation, The Guardian reported. Mr. Lewis told the BBC that the police had notified Milly Dowler’s parents that “News of the World, or Glenn Mulcaire, was hacking into Milly Dowler’s voice mail while she was a missing person.” “You have to ask the question: who was at The News of the World thinking it was appropriate to try and hack into the phone of a missing young girl, and what was Glenn Mulcaire thinking of at the time to take those instructions?” he said. “Both of them should have had common decency, moral right, to turn around and say, no, they weren’t prepared to do that.” In a statement, The News of the World said it was cooperating with the police and added, “This particular case is clearly a development of great concern.” And in her e-mail, Ms. Brooks said, “If the allegations are proved to be true then I can promise the strongest possible action will be taken as this company will not tolerate such disgraceful behavior.” Milly Dowler’s disappearance became a cause celebre in the national media, and the police followed many false leads before the trail went cold. The discovery of her body in the Hampshire woods six months after she went missing led the authorities no closer to her killer. Six years later, a former nightclub bouncer named Levi Bellfield, who had already been convicted of murdering two girls and attempting to murder a third, was identified as the chief suspect in the case. He was convicted of Milly’s murder last month, and sentenced to life in prison; the police believe he may be responsible for a number of other unsolved murders. --------------------- Revealed: Brooks’ past link with Milly private detective Revelation piles pressure on Murdoch executive whilst advertisers boycott News of the World as scandal grows. Now police contact Sohamparents amid fresh allegations The Independent By Cahal Milmo and Martin Hickman Wednesday, 6 July 2011 Rebekah Brooks, the embattled chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, personally commissioned searches by one of the private investigators who was later used by the News of the World to trace the family of the murdered Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler, The Independent can reveal. Ms Brooks, while editor of NOTW, used Steve Whittamore, a private detective who specialised in obtaining illegal information to “convert” a mobile phone number to find its registered owner. Mr Whittamore also provided the paper with the Dowlers’ ex-directory home phone number. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which successfully prosecuted Whittamore for breaches of the Data Protection Act in 2005, said last night it would have been illegal to obtain the mobile conversion if the details had been "blagged" from a phone company. Ms Brooks, who said yesterday she was "shocked and appalled" at the latest hacking claims, admitted requesting the information. But she said it could be obtained by "perfectly legitimate means". She faced demands for her resignation last night. The revelation came as News International battled a political and commercial firestorm over the disclosure that its bestselling paper interfered with the police investigation into Milly's disappearance in March 2002 by hacking into her mobile phone and deleting messages. One big advertiser, Ford, announced it was suspending its account with the paper while the energy company nPower and Halifax bank said they were considering options. Thousands of readers joined boycott campaigns on Facebook and Twitter. An emergency three-hour debate is to be held in the House of Commons today. The Labour leader Ed Miliband hardened his position on the scandal, demanding a public inquiry and calling for Ms Brooks to "consider her conscience and consider her position". David Cameron described the hacking as "quite shocking" and a "truly dreadful act", but rebuffed the call for a public inquiry. He insisted Scotland Yard be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it led. Yesterday it led to Cambridgeshire, where police confirmed there was evidence that Glenn Mulcaire, the NOTW's private investigator who is accused of hacking Milly's phone, targeted the families of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, who were murdered in Soham in 2002. Responding to growing clamour for her to step down, Ms Brooks yesterday told News International staff it was "inconceivable" that she knew of or sanctioned the hacking of Milly's mobile phone. In a passionate defence of her position, she wrote: "I have to tell you that I am sickened that these events are alleged to have happened. Not just because I was editor of the News of the World at the time, but if the accusations are true, the devastating effect on Milly Dowler's family is unforgivable." No evidence has been presented that Ms Brooks was aware of Mulcaire's activities surrounding Milly's disappearance. But an investigation by The Independent shows she was aware of the existence of Whittamore, who used an associate to obtain the Dowlers' home phone number from BT, and made use of his services in an unrelated case. A copy of the "Blue Book" obtained by The Independent, which covers more than 1,000 transactions carried out for New International's titles between 2000 and 2003, records a request in 2001 from Ms Brooks (whose surname was then Wade) for a "mobile conversion" along with a mobile phone number. She made a second request for an electoral roll search for an address in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. The address was occupied at the time by a painter-decorator who lived in a flat above a bike shop in the town. A friend said: "I have no idea why the editor of the News of the World would have been interested in him. He's just an ordinary guy." When asked last year by MPs to explain the circumstances around her request, Ms Brooks said she could no longer remember why she wanted to convert the number. "This was nine years ago and I cannot recall why I required this particular conversion," she wrote. "You should note that 'conversion'... is often carried out through perfectly legitimate means such as a web search." An ICO spokeswoman said: "If that information was obtained by 'blagging' then it would have been illegal under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act." As the fallout from the row continued, Mulcaire, whose home was besieged by reporters, said he had been acting under "relentless pressure" from the paper. "Working for the News of the World was never easy," he said in a statement. "There was relentless pressure. There was a constant demand for results. I knew what we did pushed the limits ethically. "But, at the time, I didn't understand that I had broken the law at all. I never had any intention of interfering with any police inquiry into any crime." News International last night failed to respond to a request for comment on Ms Brooks' requests to Whittamore. Simon Greenberg, a spokesman for the company, said that Ms Brooks would not be stepping down over the hacking of Milly's phone: "This happened back in 2002, she's now chief executive of a company in 2011. She's absolutely determined to get to the bottom of this issue." He said the company had launched a full inquiry to establish the facts of the hacking of Milly's phone during Ms Brooks' time as editor.

Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail was hacked by News of the World Deleted voicemails gave family false hope • Hacking interfered with police hunt • Family lawyer: actions 'heinous and despicable' By Nick Davies and Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 July 2011 16.29 BST Milly Dowler was last seen alive on 21 March 2002. Photograph: Surrey police/PA The News of the World illegally targeted the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family in March 2002, interfering with police inquiries into her disappearance, an investigation by the Guardian has established. Scotland Yard is investigating the episode, which is likely to put new pressure on the then-editor of the paper, Rebekah Brooks, now Rupert Murdoch's chief executive in the UK; and the then deputy editor, Andy Coulson, who resigned in January as the prime minister's media adviser. The Dowlers' family lawyer this afternoon issued a statement in which he described the News of the World's activities as "heinous" and "despicable". He told the BBC this afternoon the Dowler family was now pursuing a damages claim against the News of the World. Milly Dowler disappeared at the age of 13 on her way home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on 21 March 2002. Detectives from Scotland Yard's new inquiry into the phone hacking, Operation Weeting, are believed to have found evidence of the targeting of the Dowlers in a collection of 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World. In the last four weeks the Met officers have approached Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those involved in the original inquiry, who were concerned about how News of the World journalists intercepted – and deleted – the voicemail messages of Milly Dowler. The messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days after Milly's disappearance in order to free up space for more messages. As a result friends and relatives of Milly concluded wrongly that she might still be alive. Police feared evidence may have been destroyed. The Guardian investigation has shown that, within a very short time of Milly vanishing, News of the World journalists reacted by engaging in what was standard practice in their newsroom: they hired private investigators to get them a story. Their first step was simple, albeit illegal. Paperwork seen by the Guardian reveals that they paid a Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore, to obtain home addresses and, where necessary, ex-directory phone numbers for any families called Dowler in the Walton area. The three addresses Whittamore found could be obtained lawfully on the electoral register. The two ex-directory numbers, however, were "blagged" illegally from British Telecom's confidential records by one of Whittamore's associates, John Gunning, who works from a base in Wiltshire. One of the ex-directory numbers was attributed by Whittamore to Milly's family home. Then, with the help of its own full-time private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl's own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word. But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly's voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the News of the World intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it. The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper's own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: "If Milly walked through the door, I don't think we'd be able to speak. We'd just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug." The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police by confusing the picture when they had few leads to pursue.It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence. According to one senior source familiar with the Surrey police investigation: "It can happen with abduction murders that the perpetrator will leave messages, asking the missing person to get in touch, as part of their efforts at concealment. We need those messages as evidence. Anybody who destroys that evidence is seriously interfering with the course of a police investigation." The paper made little effort to conceal the hacking from its readers. On 14 April 2002, it published a story about a woman allegedly pretending to be Milly Dowler who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency: "It is thought the hoaxer even gave the agency Milly's real mobile number … The agency used the number to contact Milly when a job vacancy arose and left a message on her voicemail … It was on March 27, six days after Milly went missing, that the employment agency appears to have phoned her mobile." The newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly's phone, the paper informed police about it. It was Surrey detectives who established that the call was not intended for Milly Dowler. At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly's parents also were being targeted. One of those who was involved in the original inquiry said: "We'd arrange landline calls. We didn't trust our mobiles." However, they took no action against the News of the World, partly because their main focus was to find the missing schoolgirl and partly because this was only one example of tabloid misbehaviour. As one source close to the inquiry put it: "There was a hell of a lot of dirty stuff going on." Two earlier Yard inquiries had failed to investigate the relevant notes in Mulcaire's logs. In a statement today, the family's lawyer, Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton, said the Dowlers were distressed at the revelation. "It is distress heaped upon tragedy to learn that the News of the World had no humanity at such a terrible time. The fact that they were prepared to act in such a heinous way that could have jeopardised the police investigation and give them false hope is despicable," he said. The News of the World's investigation was part of a long campaign against paedophiles championed by the then editor, Rebekah Brooks. The Labour MP Tom Watson last week told the House of Commons that four months after Milly Dowler's disappearance the News of the World had targeted one of the parents of the two 10-year-old Soham girls, Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, who were abducted and murdered on 4 August 2002. The behaviour of tabloid newspapers became an issue in the trial of Levi Bellfield, who last month was jailed for life for murdering Milly Dowler. A second charge, that he had attempted to abduct another Surrey schoolgirl, Rachel Cowles, had to be left on file after premature publicity by tabloids was held to have made it impossible for the jury to reach a fair verdict. The tabloids, however, focused their anger on Bellfield's defence lawyer, complaining that the questioning had caused unnecessary pain to Milly Dowler's parents. Surrey police referred all questions on the subject to Scotland Yard, who said they could not discuss it. The News of the World's parent company News International, part of Murdoch's media empire, said: "We have been co-operating fully with Operation Weeting since our voluntary disclosure in January restarted the investigation into illegal voicemail interception. This particular case is clearly a development of great concern and we will be conducting our own inquiries. We will obviously co-operate fully with any police request on this should we be asked."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/10/hitler-vs-stalin-who-killed-more/