Douglas Caddy

Rupert Murdoch shirking responsibility over phone hacking, says police chief Sir Hugh Orde contrasts News Corp chairman's behaviour with Sir Paul Stephenson, who quit over indirect NoW links By Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 July 2011 20.56 BST Sir Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, has lambasted Rupert Murdoch, saying the chairman of News Corporation had shown a complete denial of responsibility for what had gone on in his company. He contrasted Murdoch's behaviour with the leadership shown by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan police commissioner who quit last week over his indirect links with former News of the World editors. Orde is tipped as a possible replacement for Stephenson, and it is the second time in a few days that he has attacked the irresponsibility of News Corps. Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, Orde said "You saw the chief officer of the police service of this country, Sir Paul Stephenson, saying, 'Look this happened on my watch. I am responsible. I am therefore … It's on my watch. I am resigning.' Compare that to Rupert Murdoch – complete denial of any responsibility of his organisation." Writing in Jane's Police Review at the weekend, Orde said: "What we have seen over the last few days is police officers standing up, explaining their actions and decisions and being held to account for them. Across the country, in serving our communities, police officers expect to have to do no less. "It is a stark contrast to the way in which others have sought to meet their responsibilities." News Corporation can respond that top executives have now stepped down, notably Les Hinton, chief executive of News International at the time of the phone hacking, and his successor, Rebekah Brooks. The culture select committee is due to meet on Friday – when it releases a report on football governance – to discuss how to handle the apparent conflict of evidence between James Murdoch, News Corps International chief executive, and other former News International executives, including Colin Myler, the former editor of the now-closed News of the World. Myler said he did show a crucial email – known as the "For Neville" email – to James Murdoch before News International's decision to pay out around £700,000 to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association in an out-of-court settlement after Taylor threatened to sue the paper. James Murdoch insisted he did not know about the email, but Myler and Tom Crone, the News Group's former head of legal affairs, have claimed he is mistaken. Culture select committee members said they hoped to write to Myler and Crone. They will also be writing to the firm of solicitors Harbottle & Lewis to ask the firm to explain the origins of a carefully crafted letter dated 29 May 2007 claiming that it had not found "reasonable evidence" that senior editors were aware of the actions of Clive Goodman – the royal reporter who went to prison for phone hacking -or that "others were carrying out similar illegal procedures". Harbottle & Lewis reviewed emails from the accounts of Andy Coulson and five other individuals, according to documents published by the culture select committee. A request for information will also be sent to Lawrence Abramson, a former senior partner at the law firm. The firm of solicitors is not yet clear whether it has legal immunity from News Corps to discuss the exchanges. Committee members want to ask for evidence from Jon Chapman, News International's former director of legal affairs, about his knowledge of the level of phone hacking. It has been suggested that in 2007 Chapman and Daniel Cloke, then News International's human resources director, reviewed the emails between the six named News of the World members of staff before sending them to Harbottle & Lewis. It is thought unlikely that the committee will meet in public before September, but this does not prevent compilation of written evidence. In a separate development, an opinion poll carried out by YouGov for the Sunday Times showed the proportion of people who believed David Cameron was performing "well" had fallen to 39% while his "performing badly" figure at 55% was the worst of his premiership. At the end of May, Cameron was on 48% – 46% showing a net positive of two. At the same time the proportion who believed Miliband was performing badly had fallen to 50%, down from 60% before the phone-hacking scandal broke. The proportion who believed he was performing well was 35%, up from 25%. So for the first time more people believed Cameron was performing badly than they did Miliband. YouGov surveyed 2749 adults between 21 and 22 July. News Corp management and standards committee has written to all News International staff ordering them to retain all emails and documents regarded as a relevant to police and parliamentary inquiries into phone hacking. The email reads: "if you are uncertain whether a document is relevant or falls within the definition of 'document', you should preserve it. Care should be taken to avoid overwriting any electronic file that might be relevant."

James Murdoch's Week Ahead News Corp. Executive Faces Multiple Challenges as He Seeks to Stabilize Status The Wall Street Journal July 25, 2011 By DANA CIMILLUCA, PAUL SONNE and RUSSELL ADAMS Having faced a public grilling before a U.K. parliamentary committee last week, News Corp. Deputy Chief Operating Officer James Murdoch will confront a series of behind-the-scenes battles this week as he seeks to stabilize his status at the media giant. James Murdoch faces more tests after ex-company officials accused him of misleading a parliamentary panel. Mr. Murdoch faces pressure over his handling of the phone-hacking scandal at the company's News of the World U.K. tabloid, an epic saga that has thrown into question the company's future, as well as Mr. Murdoch's status as the potential successor to his father, 80-year-old News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch. Especially troublesome for James Murdoch was last week's public accusation by two former News of the World executives that he misled Parliament about when he learned that illegal reporting practices at the tabloid were more widespread. On Thursday, the board of British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC will meet two weeks after the scandal prompted News Corp. to withdraw its bid for the 60.9% of the satellite-TV broadcaster it doesn't already own. The meeting is expected to provide the strongest signal yet of whether the BSkyB board will continue to support James Murdoch as the company's chairman. Meanwhile, even with the BSkyB bid dead, U.K. communications regulator Ofcom is still studying whether, after the hacking revelations, News Corp. remains "fit and proper" to hold a broadcasting license for BSkyB. And then there is the question of what will come next from former executives of News International, the company's U.K. newspaper unit. Last Thursday, the paper's most recent editor, Colin Myler, and its longtime top lawyer, Tom Crone, said they told James Murdoch in early 2008 of a crucial email suggesting phone hacking went beyond a single journalist, contradicting the company line, put forward by Mr. Murdoch as recently as last week's hearing, that it didn't become aware that hacking was more widespread until much later. A third man—Jon Chapman, former director of legal affairs at News International—has also indicated he wants to correct "serious inaccuracies" he claims were aired at the hearing. It's a far cry from the sigh of relief some at News Corp. breathed after last week's parliamentary hearing, when the initial feeling was that nothing had transpired to make matters worse for either Murdoch. The News Corp. board is expected to meet in person in early August, according to people familiar with the matter, and it isn't expected to make any major decisions related to the scandal at least until then. But the people said the situation could change depending on events. News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal. On the BSkyB front, people close to the situation said last week that Mr. Murdoch's future as the chairman largely depends on how the phone-hacking story unfolds in coming days. More damaging accusations from his former colleagues—or information that substantiates those already made—could weaken his position further. There are other matters beyond James's role in the scandal that could play a role in determining his future at BSkyB. Now that News Corp. has been forced to shelve its effort to buy the rest of BSkyB, the satellite company is expected to take steps such as returning cash to shareholders that would effectively compensate them for the premium they were expected to get from News Corp. in the buyout deal. But it's not clear how eager News Corp. would be for the cash windfall that such a move could send its way given the media giant's big existing BSkyB holding. A person familiar with the matter said last week that if the interests of News Corp. and other BSkyB shareholders diverge further, that could ultimately also play a role in determining Mr. Murdoch's future with the broadcaster. Working in Mr. Murdoch's favor is the fact that the scandal has had no measurable impact on BSkyB's business. Furthermore, Mr. Murdoch is credited by a number of BSkyB investors with laying the groundwork for the success the company has enjoyed since his tenure as CEO there. But that could all change rapidly depending on further revelations. Though Thursday's BSkyB board meeting is regularly scheduled, the subject of the phone-hacking scandal is expected to be discussed, people familiar with the matter say. BSkyB directors, representing the company's shareholders, could be seen as a proxy for News Corp. shareholders, since the companies have many top shareholders in common. That means that any move or signal from BSkyB's board on Mr. Murdoch's status in light of recent events could be an indication of his standing at News Corp. too. Meanwhile, Ofcom officials met with police as recently as last week to learn of any developments in the phone-hacking investigation. The regulator has a standing duty to ensure that holders of broadcasting licenses are "fit and proper." In a letter to lawmakers Friday, Ofcom Chief Executive Ed Richards said the body will consider any "relevant conduct" by News Corp. or BSkyB, but he warned it would not rely on "unsubstantiated allegations" to reach a judgment. On Friday, News Corp. said Mr. Murdoch had no plans to step down from the BSkyB board. A spokesman for BSkyB said the company stood by its statement earlier this month that it was satisfied with the current board arrangements. The U.K. parliamentary committee that has been investigating what senior News Corp. executives knew about phone hacking and when they knew it are also due to meet this Friday. While the Culture, Media and Sport committee is meeting for an unrelated matter, it is expected to also consider developments related to phone hacking. That is likely to include written responses from James Murdoch, who will supply additional information following evidence given by him and his father last week. In addition, the committee has asked him to clarify parts of the testimony that he gave following the comments by his former News International colleagues. This week, News Corp. is also preparing for increased scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, which has been preparing to issue subpoenas as part of preliminary investigations relating to alleged foreign bribery and alleged hacking of voicemail of Sept. 11 victims, according to a government official. A person close to News Corp. said last week that the preparation of subpoenas is "a fishing expedition with no evidence to support it." A News Corp. spokeswoman has said that the company has "not seen any evidence to suggest there was any hacking of 9/11 victim's phones, nor has anybody corroborated what are clearly very serious allegations." —Cassell Bryan-Low and Jessica E. Vascellaro contributed to this article. Write to Dana Cimilluca at dana.cimilluca@wsj.com, Paul Sonne at paul.sonne@wsj.com and Russell Adams at russell.adams@wsj.com

Will James Murdoch still be chairman after Thursday? The Independent Sunday, 24 July 2011 James Murdoch's position as chairman of BSkyB will be discussed at this Thursday's board meeting ahead of the broadcaster's results on Friday. Investors are said to be divided over whether Mr Murdoch should retain his role following the phone-hacking revelations at the now closed News of the World. Nick Ferguson, deputy chairman, has taken soundings and will lead the discussions over Mr Murdoch's fate with fellow directors who include the publisher Dame Gail Rebuck and the former Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton. Several investors, including Crispin Odey of Odey Asset Management, back Mr Murdoch.

George Osborne's relationship with Murdoch under scrutiny The Independent By Matt Chorley, Political Correspondent Sunday, 24 July 2011 George Osborne's relationship with News International will be thrown into the spotlight this week when the Chancellor is forced to publish details of every meeting with media executives since the election. The revelations are expected to step up pressure on Mr Osborne as a senior political strategist at the heart of the Tory party, and his role in persuading David Cameron to hire the ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief. Sources close to Mr Osborne confirmed that he flew to New York last December and had dinner with Rupert Murdoch, two weeks before Ofcom was due to rule on his bid to take over BSkyB. More details are expected early next week when the Cabinet Office releases details of every meeting between a cabinet minister and media executives and proprietors since May 2010. Mr Cameron released his meetings 10 days ago. A senior Whitehall source feared the release would be "hideous". Aides to Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, are also understood to be nervous about further details of his contact with senior News Corp figures. Mr Gove was a senior journalist at The Times, owned by News International, before the 2005 election and continued to write for the paper until 2009. Mr Gove, who is married to Sarah Vine, a writer on The Times, attended a party hosted by Mr Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth days before it emerged that Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked. James Murdoch, News Corp director and son of the media mogul, was also at the party on 2 July. The release of details of ministerial meetings with newspaper editors and owners will also reveal the extent to which the Lib Dems have courted the media since entering government. It also emerged last night that David Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary, was paid £25,000 by News International for a six-month "advisory post for corporate social responsibility (volunteering and education)". As the furore threatens to ensnare more political figures, so other newspapers were drawn into the scandal. Piers Morgan, a former editor of the News of the World and the Daily Mirror, faced fresh claims that hacking took place under his watch. James Hipwell, a financial journalist under Mr Morgan's editorship of the Mirror, told The Independent the practice was "seen as a bit of a wheeze". He offered to give evidence to the judge-led public inquiry because he was sick of all the "lies". He also said hacking happened at The People. Mr Morgan has insisted he "never hacked a phone, told anyone to [do so], or published any stories based on the hacking of a phone". BBC's Newsnight also reported a former Sunday Mirror journalist claiming there had been "routine phone-hacking in the newsroom". A spokesman for Trinity Mirror, which owns the three papers, said: "Our journalists work within the criminal law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct." The allegations revealed today in The IoS by Matt Driscoll about questionable practices at the NOTW date back to when Phil Hall, now a PR consultant, was editor from 1995-2000. He could be forced to give details of the culture during his time in charge.

Miliband mulls MPs' demands to remove hacking-inquiry judge Labour leader shares concerns over impartiality of Lord Justice Leveson after revelations that he attended parties at the home of Elisabeth Murdoch The Independent By Jane Merrick, Jonathan Owen, Brian Brady and Martin Hickman Sunday, 24 July 2011 Ed Miliband is considering demands by MPs for the judge in charge of the phone-hacking inquiry to be removed from his post after reports that he had socialised with members of Rupert Murdoch's family. Sources close to the Labour leader said he shared the concerns raised over the impartiality of Lord Justice Leveson after it emerged that the judge attended two parties at the London home of Elisabeth Murdoch, the News Corporation chairman's daughter who is regarded as the heir to the business, and her husband, Matthew Freud. David Cameron knew about the parties before appointing Lord Leveson to chair the inquiry into the scandal, Downing Street admitted. In a separate development, it emerged that James Murdoch, the tycoon's son, could be recalled within days to the select committee investigating the scandal over allegations that he gave them misleading evidence. The Culture, Media and Sport committee may also call former News of the World editor Colin Myler and former NI legal manager Tom Crone over their claim that James Murdoch had been "mistaken" when he said that he had not seen an email suggesting the hacking scandal went further than just one rogue reporter. One of the alleged hacking victims may include one of Britain's most senior policemen, who died from exposure while in turmoil over his private life. Michael Todd, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, feared that a string of affairs was about to be made public by a Sunday newspaper, when he died while walking on Mount Snowdon in March 2008. It is believed that his lover at the time of his death, Angie Robinson, had her phone hacked by journalists. It is not known whether those journalists worked for the NOTW. However, it has emerged that another woman romantically linked to Mr Todd, Andrea Perry, who at the time was reporting for the NOTW, is to be interviewed by detectives investigating hacking. An inquest into Mr Todd's death said he had not committed suicide, but in the hours before his death he sent tortured text messages to women with whom he had been involved. A report into Mr Todd's conduct by Sir Paul Scott-Lee, Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, concluded his affairs made him vulnerable to blackmail. Coincidentally, Sir Paul is now on Lord Leveson's inquiry panel. Lord Leveson attended two parties at the London home of Mr Freud and Ms Murdoch, on 29 July last year and on 25 January this year. A source close to the Labour leader said: "The Prime Minister must make clear whether he considered all aspects of the appointment [of Lord Leveson] properly. Ed is aware of and shares the concern about this." A number of top executives at News International were told that the News of the World was breaking the law four years before the company finally abandoned its "rogue reporter" defence of illegal phone-hacking this year, The IoS has learned. They were warned that the newspaper had illegally obtained the medical records of Manchester United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, in 1997, when Phil Hall was editor and Rebekah Brooks his deputy. The revelations are from a private and confidential statement, presented to executives by sports reporter Matt Driscoll at a meeting to discuss his appeal against dismissal in July 2007. Mr Driscoll, who was subsequently awarded £792,736 by an industrial tribunal, stated that he had "witnessed, first-hand, the kind of journalistic practice the News of the World would stoop to in order to get a story", after he had failed to substantiate rumours about Sir Alex's health. It has also emerged that a Surrey police officer was taken off the hunt for the killer of Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked by the NOTW, after leaking confidential details of the investigation. An officer with knowledge of sensitive information was given "words of advice" and removed from the case after a complaint that he mishandled confidential data. Surrey Police said it had no evidence that the officer had passed any information to the NOTW. But Labour MP Chris Bryant said: "This raises major questions about the original investigation and about the News of the World's relationship with other police forces. The problem is the Surrey police knew about this in 2002 and did nothing."

Former Schools Chief Emerges as Murdoch’s Unlikely Ally The New York Times By JEREMY W. PETERS, MICHAEL BARBARO and JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ July 24, 2011 Joel I. Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor, was in a tricky position. Three weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch asked Mr. Klein, now his trusted deputy, to oversee an investigation into the phone hacking scandal that has deeply wounded the News Corporation and its chairman, something Mr. Klein was eager to avoid. “I am trying to get as far away from this as I can,” he lamented to a friend. He has not succeeded. Mr. Klein, who joined the News Corporation as a senior vice president in January, is not only responsible for the investigation that could uncover what company managers knew about the hacking, but he also has become one of Mr. Murdoch’s closest and most visible advisers throughout the crisis. His seemingly contradictory roles — de facto chief of internal affairs officer and ascendant executive with Mr. Murdoch’s ear — are raising questions about how robust and objective the internal inquiry can be. When Mr. Murdoch summoned a team of top deputies and outside consultants to London to help him manage the fallout from the hacking, Mr. Klein was one of the first to arrive, moving into a temporary office 20 feet from the chairman’s. When Mr. Murdoch and his closest advisers debated whether to accept the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, a newspaper executive at the center of the controversy, Mr. Klein pushed for her exit. When Mr. Murdoch wrote a statement to deliver to Parliament last week, Mr. Klein weighed in on the drafts. And while the world watched Mr. Murdoch and his son James testify, Mr. Klein sat directly behind them for three hours, occasionally cleaning his rimless glasses with his tie as he looked on in support. Mr. Klein’s dizzying journey, in under a year, from one of the nation’s foremost education reformers to the corporate consigliere for a media titan whose politics are far to the right of his own, has surprised and unsettled many friends and colleagues, who fear that he will be unable to extricate himself from a scandal that shows no sign of abating or, they say, ending well. “This was nothing he could have ever expected,” said Barbara Walters, a longtime friend of Mr. Klein’s. But in many ways, interviews suggest, his emergence as a dominant figure within the News Corporation is consistent with a biography that combines high-minded legal and social aims — antitrust law and education — with a driving, sometimes overwhelming competitive fire. “He has a take-no-prisoners attitude,” said Randi Weingarten, who battled Mr. Klein when she was head of the New York City teachers union. “He is a litigator. He is about winning.” It is a sign of how delicate Mr. Klein’s position inside the News Corporation has become that he was initially against the idea of an internal review. In April, after London’s Metropolitan Police arrested three News of the World journalists on suspicion of hacking, some executives pushed for an investigation that would have the full backing of the company’s board and senior management, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions taking place at the time. Mr. Murdoch opposed the idea outright. Standing firmly in his corner was Mr. Klein. “There was a clear message,” said one of the people who knew of Mr. Klein’s role and requested anonymity to divulge private conversations. “Stay out. And let Joel handle it.” Top lawyers and experts in corporate governance said the News Corporation should have hired outside legal counsel to oversee the inquiry, as dozens of companies like the American International Group and Fannie Mae have done in the past, rather than rely on an insider. “That is not standard practice,” said Charles M. Elson, an expert on corporate governance at the University of Delaware. “You cannot be seen as objective if you are inside.” The News Corporation says the investigative body will have true independence and the power to compel employees to cooperate. The company points to the appointment of Lord Anthony Grabiner, a prominent British lawyer who also sat behind the Murdochs during their testimony before lawmakers last week, as the body’s independent chairman. Lord Grabiner will report to Mr. Klein. Mr. Klein, in turn, will report to Viet Dinh, an independent director on the News Corporation board. Mr. Klein declined to be interviewed for this article. “We’ve been given a free hand,” said Lord Grabiner, who added that he and Mr. Klein never would have agreed to take on the job if they felt the committee was a sham. “If I thought for a moment that this was going to be an in-house job, I wouldn’t do it because my reputation is on the line,” he said. “And I’m sure he feels the same way.” Well Practiced in Turmoil Investigating his colleagues and possibly his superiors was not what Mr. Klein, 64, signed up for when he joined the News Corporation in January. His actual job is chief executive of the company’s fledgling education division — a business that sits far down the pecking order in a global media giant that owns Fox News, Twentieth Century Fox Films and The Wall Street Journal. But Mr. Klein, a postal worker’s son who is known for his agile mind and professorial appearance, is well practiced in steering the high-powered through treacherous political shoals. He helped the Clinton administration prepare Ruth Bader Ginsburg for her Supreme Court nomination hearings in 1993 and also oversaw the Clinton White House’s responses to the Whitewater inquiry. He withstood his own contentious confirmation as head of the antitrust division at Justice Department. It was in that role that he first crossed swords with Mr. Murdoch, pushing against the Mr. Murdoch’s proposed $1.1 billion merger of his American satellite television company with Primestar, another satellite provider. The deal eventually fell apart, costing Mr. Murdoch an estimated $300 million. By the late 1990s, Mr. Klein was gaining international renown for his aggressive prosecution of Microsoft, a seemingly invincible technology behemoth with deep pockets and a high-powered legal team. Mr. Klein, in his forceful but erudite style, spent months trying to persuade lawyers inside Justice Department who advised against pursuing the case, fearing the government stood no chance of prevailing. “If he had not been 100 percent behind it, it would not have gone anywhere,” said David Boies, who tried the case for the United States and is now chairman of Boies, Schiller and Flexner. “He had to overcome a lot of objections from the staff.” The government’s victory over Microsoft won Mr. Klein legions of admirers, eventually including the company’s co-founder Bill Gates, who became a major donor to New York City schools. But his unyielding approach and determination to challenge orthodoxy at times inflamed those around him, especially after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg named him schools chancellor in 2002. At what was supposed to be a diplomatic introductory lunch with Ms. Weingarten, the head of the city’s teachers union, he asked her how she believed change should be accomplished within the schools. “Incremental and sustainable,” she replied. Mr. Klein scoffed. “We need a revolution,” he demanded. His eight years as schools chancellor formed the foundation for his unlikely friendship with Mr. Murdoch, who holds his own strong views on education reform, which the two began to discuss over regular lunches and dinners with their wives. A Surprising Alliance Though Mr. Klein did not see eye to eye with Mr. Murdoch on many political issues, they agreed on a core set of education principles: that charter schools needed to expand; poor instructors should be weeded out; and the power of the teachers union must be curtailed. In each other, they saw themselves: Mr. Klein and Mr. Murdoch were both unapologetic about their beliefs, frustrated with status-quo politics and tenacious. They shared a distaste for small talk with strangers and had a habit of quickly disappearing from social events. Their friendship morphed into a political alliance. Mr. Murdoch’s New York Post emerged as an unflinching and potent champion of Mr. Klein’s proposals to remake the school system, like his successful fight to lift a state cap on the number of charter schools in New York City. Mr. Murdoch began to put his own money behind Mr. Klein’s efforts. At one point, he quietly donated $1 million to an advocacy group, Education Reform Now, run by Mr. Klein, bankrolling a continuing campaign to overturn a state law protecting older teachers, according to a person told of the contribution. When Mr. Klein visited The Journal last year to discuss education issues with news and opinion writers, Mr. Murdoch interrupted to lavish praise on the chancellor, much to the surprise of the writers. “Just listen to everything that Joel is saying,” Mr. Murdoch insisted, according to one person who attended the meeting. As Mr. Klein considered stepping down as schools chancellor in late 2010, Mr. Murdoch made him an alluring offer: work for him, running a new division of the News Corporation focused on education technology. According to a friend, Mr. Murdoch told Mr. Klein he was willing to spend $1 billion to build the business. It was lucrative work. Mr. Klein’s compensation package may exceed $4.5 million this year, company filings show. He is eligible for News Corporation stock awards and receives a $1,200 monthly car allowance. At a Titan’s Ear Some in Mr. Klein’s social circle were startled by his decision to join the News Corporation’s right-leaning news empire. “What? You’re going to work for Rupert Murdoch?” David Gergen, a former adviser for Bill Clinton, recalled asking his friend. Mr. Klein was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, though he had taken a more conservative tack on education. He rarely took vacations, but when he did he went to the Dominican Republic, where the fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, a friend, held parties that became a retreat for Democrats, including the Clintons. When friends asked, he reassured them that his only interaction with Fox News was seeing the television screens in the company’s elevators. In his first few months at the News Corporation, he quickly assimilated and seemed happier than ever before to several longtime friends. He gave up BrickBreaker, the addictive BlackBerry game that he had grown fond of as schools chancellor, saying he no longer needed it because his stress levels had fallen. He told friends that his chronic back pain had vanished. Mr. Klein has often traveled on Mr. Murdoch’s private jet, and he seemed to relish access to the company’s stable of media properties, occasionally wandering to the desks of Journal writers to discuss education issues. In the eighth floor executive suite at the company’s Midtown headquarters, where he occupies an office just down the hall from Mr. Murdoch, he closely aligned himself almost immediately with the chairman, isolating himself from other senior executives. That led to some suspicion from colleagues, a person with knowledge of the company’s dynamics said, especially as Mr. Klein left the impression that he wanted the chief legal officer to report to him. Through his spokesman, Mr. Klein said he had no interest in running the company’s legal affairs and was focused on the education business. Mr. Klein was keen on having his advice heard at the highest levels of the company, according to people told of his conversations with News Corporation executives. At his urging, with some encouragement from his wife, Nicole Seligman, the News Corporation hired Williams & Connolly, her former law firm, to provide counsel on the scandal. Friends who have spoken with Mr. Klein in recent weeks said he was conflicted about his new investigative assignment: eager to return to the education sphere, but determined to redeem the News Corporation and, in particular, Mr. Murdoch, by conducting a thorough inquiry. “The easiest thing would be for him to walk away from this,” Mr. Boies said. “The one thing I can tell you is that he will not say something he does not believe. And he does not believe easily.” During their days together on the Microsoft trial, Mr. Boies recalled, Mr. Klein had a favorite legal maxim that would serve him well in his new role at the News Corporation. “Facts,” he was fond of saying, “are stubborn things.”

News International 'bullied Liberal Democrats over BSkyB bid' Party claims it was told it would be 'done over' by Murdoch papers if deal did not go through as company wanted By Henry Porter and Toby Helm guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 July 2011 20.14 BST Rupert Murdoch's News International launched a campaign of bullying against senior Liberal Democrats in an attempt to force through the company's bid for BSkyB, high-level sources have told the Observer. Lib Dem insiders say NI officials took their lobbying campaign well beyond acceptable limits and even threatened, last autumn, to persecute the party if Vince Cable, the business secretary, did not advance its case. According to one account from a senior party figure, a cabinet minister was told that, if the government did not do as NI wanted, the Lib Dems would be "done over" by the Murdoch papers, which included the now defunct News of the World as well as the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times. The accounts are only now coming to light, say sources, because the minister involved feared the potential for damage to the party, which was already suffering a dramatic slide in popularity after going into coalition with the Tories. They chime with reports from senior figures in the Labour party who say that Murdoch executives issued threats to Ed Miliband's office after the Labour leader turned on NI when the news broke that murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked into by the News of the World. Labour insiders say NI executives made clear to Miliband's office that because he had chosen to "make it personal" they would do the same, implying they would attack him through their media outlets. The pressure on the Lib Dems was at its most intense around the time that Cable decided to refer the BSkyB bid to Ofcom. However, it relented after Cable was removed by David Cameron from responsibility for the bid when he was taped by undercover reporters from the Daily Telegraph attacking Murdoch. Cable was recorded saying to the reporters, who pretended to be constituents, saying that he had "declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we're going to win". Insiders believe NI's interest then focused on the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who took over responsibility for the bid from Cable. News International declined to comment on the bullying allegations. The revelations will fuel the debate over Cameron's friendship with Rebekah Brooks, the former NI chief executive who was arrested a week ago. Labour MPs placed Cameron under intense pressure to reveal whether he had discussed BSkyB in any of his many meetings with Brooks or other NI executives since becoming prime minister. It was revealed that Cameron had had 26 meetings with NI officials since becoming prime minister in May last year. Under sustained questioning in the Commons, he said only that he had had no "inappropriate" discussions with Brooks or other NI executives about the bid. Many MPs believe it unlikely, given the determined approach mounted to influence the Lib Dems. Formal contacts between NI and Hunt continued right up to last month, during which the question of media plurality was discussed. More details of the links between No 10 and News International were revealed as it emerged that NI entertained Downing Street special advisers more than any other organisation during the first seven months of this government. Figures from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism showed that almost a quarter of all lunches, dinners and hospitality enjoyed by Downing Street's inner circle came from Murdoch's company. Gabby Bertin, Cameron's official spokeswoman, was wined and dined nine times, including a trip to last year's Wimbledon championships. Labour MP Paul Farrelly, a member of the culture, media and sport select committee, said: "After the phone-hacking scandal we know how deeply News International penetrated Downing Street and the Metropolitan police." Meanwhile, Strathclyde police gave details of investigations into whether witnesses who gave evidence about phone hacking at the trial of jailed politician Tommy Sheridan – including Cameron's former director of communications, Andy Coulson – may have committed perjury. Coulson, then employed by Downing Street, told the trial in December that he had no knowledge of illegal activities by reporters while he was editor of the News of the World. He also claimed: "I don't accept there was a culture of phone hacking." Assistant Chief Constable George Hamilton said: "We will also be looking to see if we can uncover any evidence of corruption in the police service or any other organisation related to these inquiries. However, I must stress that no specific allegations regarding corruption have been presented to us." A News International spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that we have been contacted by police on this matter. We can't say anything else

Phone hacking: 7/7 victims fear police passed numbers to News of the World Survivors of London bombings call in lawyers to investigate allegations that officers may have passed on addresses By Mark Townsend and Jamie Doward guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 July 2011 20.43 BST Survivors of the 2005 London bombings have asked lawyers to investigate allegations that Scotland Yard "sold" or passed on the confidential contact list of the 7 July victims to reporters working for News International. Beverli Rhodes, chair of the Survivors' Coalition Foundation, said that a number of 7/7 victims suspected that personal contact details, including mobile phone and ex-directory landline numbers as well as home addresses, were passed by officers to News of the World journalists. The former security consultant, who specialised in counter-terrorism, said she had been contacted by a number of survivors of the bombings who said they had been approached by News of the World reporters with bogus stories of how they obtained their details, which they believe may have originated with the police. Their concerns have been discussed with the London law firm McCue and Partners. A spokesman said the survivors were considering their next step, having made requests for the Met to provide answers. Rhodes said: "Scotland Yard had the full list of survivor contact details. I am pretty sure that is how the News of the World got my home address. I had only moved there maybe three or four weeks before News of the World reporters turned up. The only place where my new details were stored were the post office, bank, doctor and Scotland Yard. "The suspicion is that the full list was given or sold on to the newspaper or News International or fell into someone's lap when visiting the Yard. One of the survivor's phone numbers is not listed and only known to me and family, but they had addresses to homes, home phone numbers, mobile phones." She said that after the hacking scandal gathered momentum following the Milly Dowler revelations, several survivors approached her asking if she had provided their personal details to News of the World reporters. "Two News of the World reporters told them they had got their details from me. They asked: 'Did you give my number to these reporters?', and I said: 'No, never'. These reporters knew an awful lot of specific information and asked very detailed questions." Rhodes is now demanding that McCue and Partners officially request details from the Metropolitan police to establish if their concerns are substantiated. Scotland Yard has started to contact the relatives of 7/7 victims to warn them they were targeted by the News of the World. It is understood that bereaved family members may have had their mobile phone messages intercepted by Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator employed by the paper, in the days following the London bombings. The Dowler revelations are likely to increase pressure on Andy Coulson, the paper's former editor, and David Cameron, who hired him as his spokesman. Last week recently resigned News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, in response to questions from Paul Farrelly MP, said she was away when Dowler's phone was hacked and the paper was edited by her deputy, Coulson, or associate editor, Harry Scott. Sources have indicated Coulson was editing the paper then. "It was the Milly Dowler revelations that broke the camel's back," Farrelly said. "Rebekah Brooks has let it be known that she was away at the time, so this brings it all back to Coulson." Brooks's comments will raise further questions about the cache of emails exchanged between senior editors on the paper which have now been handed to police. There is speculation that they will show who on the paper commissioned the hacking of Dowler's phone. Although Rhodes has not been contacted by the Met, she has spoken to other survivors. She was one of more than 700 victims of the attacks, which killed 52 people, and was severely injured by the bomb that hit the Piccadilly line tube near King's Cross. Rhodes, from Ashford, Kent, said the request from reporters involved sensitive details on compensation claims and the nature of injuries. She provided the names of two News of the World reporters who previously had not been connected to the phone-hacking scandal. A McCue and Partners spokesman said the firm was evaluating the allegations and "considering their position". Among those known to have been contacted by officers working on Operation Weeting, the Met's investigation into phone hacking, are Graham Foulkes, whose son David was killed at Edgware Road tube station. He said they told him his mobile phone number, ex-directory landline number and address had been found in records made by Mulcaire. Another is Sean Cassidy, father of a victim, and Paul Dadge, famous for helping victims during the attack, who has also been reported to have been emailed by the Met and told his name was in Mulcaire's records. Last week Scotland Yard was asked to investigate claims that News of the World reporters paid officers to obtain people's locations by tracking their cell phone signals – known as "pinging".

Leading article: The police must treat the cover-up as seriously as the crime The Independent Saturday, 23 July 2011 James Murdoch has a great deal of explaining to do. The former head of News International told the Commons media committee this week that the first inkling he had that phone hacking at the News of the World went further than a single rogue reporter was in December 2010. Mr Murdoch claims that when he authorised out-of-court payments to a high-profile hacking victim in 2008, he was kept in the dark by subordinates about the full scale of the illegality that had been taking place at the newspaper. But this week, two of those executives took issue with that narrative. On Thursday, the former News of the World editor, Colin Myler, and the newspaper's legal manager, Tom Crone, released a statement saying that in 2008 they drew Mr Murdoch's attention to an email that blew a large hole in News International's claims about hacking being the work of one rogue reporter. So who is telling the truth? Colin Myler and Tom Crone? Or James Murdoch? If it turns out to be Mr Murdoch who is dissembling, then he is in serious trouble. For that would imply that he has lied to the public, misled Parliament, knowingly covered up gross illegality at News International and perhaps even obstructed the course of justice. It will have wider implications too. The News Corp chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, told the Commons media committee this week that his company takes a zero tolerance approach to wrongdoing. Yet the possibility now arises that the former head of News Corp's British subsidiary was prepared to sweep serious wrongdoing under the carpet. And, of course, James Murdoch has since been promoted to a senior position in News Corp (and is often spoken of as the successor to his father as head of the company). If this is what has happened, can News Corp, under its present management, seriously be considered "fit and proper" to own media organisations in the UK? Two things must now happen. The committee's chairman, John Whittingdale, says Mr Murdoch has agreed to write to him to explain his testimony further. But this discrepancy demands more than an exchange of letters. Mr Murdoch, along with Mr Crone and Mr Myler, must be called to testify again before the committee to get to the truth. This should happen within weeks, despite the fact that the summer recess has begun. Mr Murdoch also needs to be questioned by the police about his testimony. The focus of the Metropolitan Police's Operation Weeting has apparently been on the narrow issue of phone hacking. And that is a big enough job. According to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, who is leading the investigation, only 170 out of some 4,000 phone-hacking targets have so far been contacted. Yet as well as pushing on with that, the police must not neglect to probe this suspected cover-up. From the start, the phone-hacking affair has been as much a scandal of the apparent immunity of the Murdoch empire as it has been about illegal eavesdropping. For a long time it looked as if one newspaper group was, in effect, above the law thanks to its connections at the very top of politics and policing. That any institution or individual should be in such a position is incompatible with democracy. This is why it is now so vital that the police investigate with the utmost seriousness the possibility that James Murdoch has broken the law.

Hacking was endemic at the 'Mirror', says former reporter The Independent By James Moore and Ian Burrell Saturday, 23 July 2011 The phone-hacking story took a new and dramatic turn yesterday as a former journalist on the Daily Mirror claimed that the practice was "endemic" at the newspaper during his time there and that he would be willing to testify to investigating authorities. James Hipwell, 45, told The Independent that hacking at the Daily Mirror was widespread and "seen as a bit of a wheeze". He said he would give evidence to a public inquiry into hacking ordered by David Cameron and headed by Lord Justice Brian Leveson. Until now the hacking scandal has been confined to the News of the World, recently closed by News International, but there have been widespread claims similar activities were carried out in other media organisations. Hipwell worked at the Mirror under the editorship of Piers Morgan, now a presenter with CNN. He was made aware of the hacking because the paper's City desk, on which he worked, was next to the showbiz desk. "You know what people around you are doing", he said. "They would call a celebrity with one phone and when it was answered they would then hang up. By that stage the other phone would be into their [the celebrity's] voicemail and they would key in the code, 9999 or 0000. I saw that a lot." He also alleged that hacking took place on other newspapers within the Trinity Mirror group, including The People, where Sean Hoare was working before moving to the News of the World. "It was endemic. Sean didn't suddenly move from one tabloid where it didn't happen to another where it did. But at the time it wasn't illegal." Trinity Mirror, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, denied Hipwell's claims. "Our position is clear," said a spokesman. "Our journalists work within the criminal law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct." Hipwell was fired from the Mirror in 2000 over the "City Slickers" scandal in which he was accused of buying shares before tipping them in the paper. He was convicted of market manipulation and served 59 days in jail. Morgan was found to have spent £67,000 on shares tipped by the column but said this was coincidental and was not charged. Earlier this week, Morgan was involved in an on-air row with the Conservative MP Louise Mensch after she used parliamentary privilege to claim he had admitted the Mirror was involved in hacking. Morgan furiously denied the claim and challenged Mensch to repeat the accusation outside of Westminster, which she refused to do. In an interview in GQ magazine in 2007, Morgan discussed hacking with the model Naomi Campbell and said: "Loads of newspaper journalists were doing it. Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter, has been made the scapegoat for a widespread practice." Hipwell told The Independent: "Piers was extremely hands-on as an editor. He was on the [newsroom] floor every day, walking up and down behind journalists, looking over their shoulders. I can't say 100 per cent that he knew about it. But it was inconceivable he didn't." He continued: "It was seen as a bit of a wheeze, slightly underhand but something many of them did – what a laugh. After they'd hacked into someone's mobile they'd delete the message so another paper couldn't get the story." He said the death of Mr Hoare had been a "game-changer" in his decision to speak out. "He was a good bloke and I thought he was treated disgracefully. He is the only one who has had the balls to say that this was going on. I take the view he was right. I know he was flawed, but he was treated very badly and now he's dead. I'm sick of all the lies."

The material below appears on the website, www.unknowncountry.com. It deals with an audio interview by Whitley Strieber of Kenn Thomas, author of the new book, JFK & UFO. The audio interview is free. ------------------------------------- Friday July 22, 2011 The JFK UFO Connection One of the strangest and most ominous of all the strange stories about America's hidden history starts with an early UFO incident known as the 'Maury Island Incident,' and ends with the catastrophic death of John F. Kennedy. It is little known that JFK was actually among the very greatest revolutionaries in history. He was about to end the Federal Reserve, and he was about to disclose the truth about UFOs. Taken together, these two things would have changed our world completely, setting us on a completely different path. Instead, he was assassinated in Dealy Plaza--and Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney who investigated the assassination--discovered that an enigmatic participant in one of the first and weirdest UFO incidents, the Maury Island Incident, was also friendly with Lee Harvey Oswald and may have participated in the Kennedy assassination. Listen as Whitley Strieber gets the skinny from Kenn Thomas, author of JFK & UFO. As Whitley says so often on Dreamland, "Fasten your seatbelts, folks, we're in for quite a ride!" Read the original source: http://www.unknowncountry.com/dreamland/latest#ixzz1SsDCWQFT

The 'For Neville' email: two words that could bring down an empire James Murdoch now stands accused of complicity in an attempted coverup of crimes within his company By David Leigh and Nick Davies guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 July 2011 19.49 BST Many angry victims of the News of the World's journalism used to try their hand at suing, and the paper's battle-hardened lawyers were good at seeing them off. Still they regularly paid out £1.2m a year on a variety of libel claims. But in May 2008, Tom Crone, the paper's veteran head of legal, got a nasty shock. His opponents in one lawsuit against the paper suddenly appeared to have got hold of a smoking gun. It was a piece of evidence that seemed to guarantee that the complainant in question, Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association, could virtually write his own cheque in privacy damages and blow a major hole in the tabloid's budget. Worse, much worse, was the fact that this single document, later christened the "For Neville" email, was capable of wrecking all the previous NoW efforts to cover up its hacking scandal. In the end, this piece of evidence would not only cost Crone his own job, but also help destroy the entire newspaper for which he worked, the flagship of Rupert Murdoch's British fleet. News of the "For Neville" email originally arrived on Crone's desk at Wapping, in the form of an "amended particulars of claim" from Taylor's lawyers, dated 12 May 2008. It used dry legal language, but Crone immediately saw its force. It detailed the contents of one of the documents seized in the raid on Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World's private detective who had recently been jailed for phone hacking along with "rogue reporter" Clive Goodman. What it revealed was the way senior staff at the NoW had been involved in systematic hacking – the very thing the paper had been strenuously denying all along, not only to Taylor's lawyers, but to its readers, parliament and public. The legal pleadings said: "Prior to 29th June 2005, Mr Ross Hindley acquired a transcript of 15 messages from the claimant's mobile phone voicemail and a transcript of 17 messages left by the claimant on Ms Armstrong's [a business associate of Taylor] mobile phone voicemail. At all material times, Mr Hindley was a journalist employed by NGN working for the News of the World." "By email dated 29th June 2005, Mr Ross Hindley emailed Mr Mulcaire a transcript of the aforesaid 15 messages from the claimant's mobile phone voicemail and 17 messages left by the claimant on Ms Armstrong's mobile phone voicemail. The transcript is titled 'Transcript for Neville' and the document attached to the email was called 'Transcript for Neville'. It is inferred from the references to Neville that the transcript was provided to, or was intended to be provided to, Neville Thurlbeck. Mr Thurlbeck was at all material times employed by NGN as the News of the World's chief reporter." Taylor's lawyers had obtained a copy of the "For Neville" email, with its lists of carefully transcribed hacked private messages, from the police under a court order. It was one of the 11,000 files seized from Mulcaire that were mouldering in bin bags since Scotland Yard had been persuaded to drop their pursuit of a case so potentially embarrassing to their tabloid journalist friends. Crone must have been shocked to realise the incriminating nature of the information the Metropolitan police possessed which could be used in future against his own employers. Faced with such a crisis, Crone decided he had to consult his new boss, who was to authorise a huge, secret payout which buried the "Neville" dossier. He went to see the abrasive and self-confident younger son of the proprietor, 36-year-old James Murdoch. Rupert's offspring had arrived in December 2007 as chief executive of News International, the company that controls all four Murdoch UK papers, the NoW, the Sun, the Times and Sunday Times. He had not been around when the original hacking affair erupted the previous year with the jailing of two employees, and presumably knew little of its history. At this week's parliamentary hearing, his octogenarian father hastened to protect James when the subject came up, saying his son had only been in charge of the papers for "a very few weeks". But the truth about who said what in the subsequent conversation with James now threatens to derail not just one paper, but the whole of Rupert Murdoch's dynastic ambitions. Neither side disputes that James, without telling his father, agreed to hand over almost £1m of the company's money for a settlement that was to be kept totally confidential: £300,000 charged by their own outside lawyers, another £220,000 for the fees of Gordon Taylor's lawyers, and a monster payoff of £425,000 in personal damages to Taylor. This was a sum almost twice the £250,000 that, according to James, outside counsel had advised was the likely damages Taylor could get if he won at trial. On the face of it, the deal made little commercial sense. James, previously regarded as the heir apparent, now stands accused of complicity in an attempted coverup of crimes within his company. If that turns out to be true, it will be fatal for James' ambition, and also open him to a raft of legal dangers, as lawsuits proliferate against the Murdoch empire. For the contents of the "For Neville" email are so obviously toxic that James, a reluctant witness, last week emphatically testified to MPs on the culture, media and sport committee and that he was never told about its existence. Crone, with all his authority as the tabloid group's most long-serving and senior consigliere, at once publicly contradicted him. Crucially, Crone has the support of the third man at the crucial meeting. This was Colin Myler, the then editor of the NoW, who issued a formal statement jointly with Crone on Thursday, backing the lawyer's version of events. John Whittingdale, the committee chairman, is demanding to know whether his committee has, yet again, been misled, and Tom Watson, the Labour MP who extracted James Murdoch's disputed testimony, has notified the police. The gauntlet has been thrown down to Rupert Murdoch and his son this weekend, in the most melodramatic fashion yet.

Andy Coulson investigated for perjury while working at No 10 Sources say police will examine Coulson's denial of any knowledge of phone hacking at Tommy Sheridan trial By Vikram Dodd and Ben Dowell guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 July 2011 20.18 BST Andy Coulson, the prime minister's former director of communications, is being investigated by police for allegedly committing perjury while working for David Cameron in Downing Street. The development renews pressure on the prime minister over his judgment in hiring the former News of the World editor and represents the third criminal investigation Coulson faces, adding to allegations that he knew of phone hacking while in charge of the tabloid and authorised bribes to police officers. Strathclyde detectives confirmed that they had opened a perjury inquiry centred on evidence Coulson gave in court last year that led to a man being jailed. Coulson was a major witness in a trial involving Tommy Sheridan, the former MSP who was accused of lying in court when winning a libel action against the News of the World. Coulson had been the editor of the Sunday tabloid when it ran a story accusing Sheridan of being an adulterer who visited swingers' clubs. Sources say police will examine Coulson's denial of any knowledge of phone hacking and payments to police officers at the Sheridan trial against the evidence held by the Scotland Yard investigation. At the trial Coulson also denied knowing that the paper paid corrupt police officers for tip-offs, which contradicts recent disclosures that News International has uncovered emails showing payments were made to the police during his editorship. Coulson, who was called as a witness in December 2010, told the court that he had no knowledge of illegal activities by reporters while he was editor of the newspaper. He also claimed: "I don't accept there was a culture of phone hacking at the News of the World." Sheridan was jailed for three years in January after being found guilty of perjury during his 2006 defamation action against the NoW. He had successfully sued the newspaper over its claims. Also giving testimony alongside Coulson were Bob Bird, the News of the World's Scottish editor, and Douglas Wight, the Scottish edition's former news editor. Bird denied being part of a "culture of phone tapping" and Wight, who is now the paper's books editor, told the court he was not aware of any payment for illegal activities. Strathclyde police's assistant chief constable, George Hamilton, said: "Following our discussions with the crown, we have now been instructed to carry out a full investigation into allegations that witnesses gave perjured evidence in the trial of Tommy Sheridan and into alleged breaches of data protection and phone hacking. "We will also be looking to see if we can uncover any evidence of corruption in the police service or any other organisation related to these inquiries. "However, I must stress that no specific allegations regarding corruption have been presented to us at this time. "We will be working with the Metropolitan police and with the other Scottish forces as we progress with the investigation. "I have put in place a structure that will allow us to work effectively together, but also to ensure that any member of the public who has a concern regarding the safety and security of their private data and information is able to register that concern and to have it properly investigated. "By its very nature, this investigation will require us to allocate varying levels of resources to it. There is a huge amount of material to consider and, potentially, a large number of people to contact. "This will mean that the investigation is likely to be a lengthy one. However, you have my absolute assurance that it will be a thorough one. We will do everything we can to find out the facts and to report all examples of wrongdoing." Sheridan's lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said: "Over two weeks ago we provided a detailed dossier of allegations of perjury, phone hacking and breach of data to Strathclyde police and called for a robust investigation. "Over £2m was spent by the police on investigating Mr and Mrs Sheridan and we were told it was in the public interest. I expect now to see a similar ruthlessness and determination in dealing with the News of the World." A News International spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that we have been contacted by police on this matter. We can't say anything else." Earlier this month it emerged that Coulson had hired one of Scotland's top QCs, Paul McBride.

Poster's note: This article links Justice Leveson, who has been appointed to investigate the scandal, to the Murdochs. -------------------------------------------------------------- MP calls for police to investigate Murdoch son over crucial email The Evening Standard Nicholas Cecil and The Londoner 22 Jul 2011 James Murdoch was today facing the possibility of being investigated by police after two former senior News International executives challenged the evidence he gave to Parliament. Labour MP Tom Watson said he would formally ask Scotland Yard to look into Mr Murdoch's claim that he did not know about a vital email, which suggested the News of the World hacking went beyond one rogue reporter. Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to the Midlands, said: "Clearly James Murdoch has got questions to answer in Parliament and I am sure that he will do that." The development came as the Standard revealed links between the judge put in charge of the hacking inquiry and the Murdoch family. Lord Justice Leveson has attended two evening events at the London home of PR boss Matthew Freud - who is married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth - as well as having another dinner with him. The revelations raised questions over why the judge had been chosen to carry out the landmark inquiry into the media, police and politicians. But it was James Murdoch who was under the greatest scrutiny today, after former NoW editor Colin Myler and ex-News International top lawyer Tom Crone claimed he had been "informed" about the crucial "for Neville" email. The email sent to investigator Glenn Mulcaire included the phrase "for Neville", which has been seen as referring to the Sunday tabloid's former chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and suggesting phone hacking was not limited to the royal reporter Clive Goodman. In his evidence to the Commons culture committee, Mr Murdoch said he had been unaware of the email when he agreed an out-of-court settlement, reportedly of at least £700,000, with football chief Gordon Taylor. However, in a statement issued last night, Mr Myler and Mr Crone said his account was "mistaken" and they had informed him about the email. Mr Murdoch, News Corp's deputy chief operating officer, responded by saying he stood by his evidence to the committee. But Mr Watson, who has campaigned to lift the lid on the hacking scandal, claimed that if Mr Myler and Mr Crone were correct, Mr Murdoch had "bought the silence" of Mr Taylor with a confidentiality clause on the settlement. He added: "So this morning I am going to refer the matter to Sue Akers, the head of Operation Weeting at the Metropolitan Police. I think this is the most significant moment of two years of investigation." In addition, John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the culture committee, is to ask James Murdoch to clarify his comments. But questions were also being asked about the decision to appoint Lord Justice Leveson to lead the hacking inquiry after The Standard revealed that he has had dealings with Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud. A spokesman for the judge said he met the boss of Freud Communications "by chance" at a dinner in February last year. Mr Freud then offered to help the Sentencing Council on how to promote public confidence in the criminal justice system. "To that end, in his capacity as Chairman of the Sentencing Council, and with the knowledge of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Justice Leveson attended two large evening events at Mr Freud's London home: these were on 29 July 2010 and 25 January 2011," the spokesman added. Prior to his appointment to the inquiry, Lord Justice Leveson told the Government about the links. Downing Street said Lord Leveson had been appointed on the recommendation of the Lord Chief Justice "in line with the procedure of the Inquiries Act 2005." He was the only proposed candidate. "He has been entirely open about attending these events," a spokesman added. A spokeswoman for Freud Communications declined to comment saying they were private events. As the hacking row continued, Mr Cameron said that News Corp shareholders may have to intervene. "In the end the management of a company must be an issue for the shareholders of that company," he said. A Met spokesman said: "We have received a letter from Tom Watson and it is being considered."

http://gizadeathstar.com/2011/07/news-and-views-from-the-nefarium-july-22-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GizaDeathStar+%28Giza+Death+Star%29&utm_content=FaceBook Is the fear that the truth about 9/11 might come out, based on Murdoch's wiretapping of calls made by victims of that tragedy at the time, a major factor in scandal that is emerging? Joseph Farrell believes it is.

MP refers Murdoch to Met over email The Independent By Gavin Cordon Friday, 22 July 2011 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mp-refers-murdoch-to-met-over-email-2318751.html (View video) Claims that James Murdoch knew three years ago that phone hacking at the News of the World was not confined to a single "rogue" reporter have been referred to the police. Labour MP Tom Watson said he was contacting Scotland Yard after two former senior executives at the paper publicly challenged Mr Murdoch's evidence to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee earlier this week. Prime Minister David Cameron said Mr Murdoch clearly had "questions to answer in Parliament" following the intervention of former editor Colin Myler and former legal manager Tom Crone. In his evidence to the committee on Tuesday, Mr Murdoch said he was unaware of an email suggesting hacking at the paper was more widespread when he agreed a reported £700,000 out-of-court settlement with Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, in 2008. But in a statement last night, Mr Myler and Mr Crone said Mr Murdoch was "mistaken" and they had informed him of the email, which had been obtained by Mr Taylor's lawyers. Mr Murdoch, News Corporation's deputy chief operating officer, responded by saying that he stood by his original evidence. Mr Watson, a member of the committee and a leading critic of the Murdochs, said the police on the Operation Weeting inquiry into phone hacking now needed to investigate what happened as a matter of urgency. "I think this is the most significant moment of two years of investigation into phone hacking," he told the BBC. He said that if Mr Myler and Mr Crone were correct, Mr Murdoch had "bought the silence" of Mr Taylor. "It shows that he not only failed to report a crime to the police, but because there was a confidentiality clause involved in the settlement, it means that he bought the silence of Gordon Taylor and that could mean that he is facing investigation for perverting the course of justice," he said. Scotland Yard confirmed that it had received Mr Watson's letter, which was "being considered". Meanwhile, Mr Cameron, speaking on a visit to Warwickshire, said News International - News Corp's UK newspaper publishing arm - needed to clear up the "mess" that had been created. "Clearly, James Murdoch has got questions to answer in Parliament and I am sure that he will do that. And clearly, News International has got some big issues to deal with and a mess to clear up," he said. "That has to be done by the management of that company. In the end, the management of a company must be an issue for the shareholders of that company." Labour MP Chris Bryant, who is taking legal action over claims that his phone was hacked, sought to step up the pressure on the company with a call for the suspension of Rupert and James Murdoch from their roles in News Corp. In a letter to the non-executive directors, he said there had been a "complete failure to tackle the original criminality at the company" and "the lackadaisical approach to such matters would suggest that there is no proper corporate governance within the company". The email at the centre of the latest controversy - known as the "For Neville" email, apparently in reference to the paper's then chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck - contained transcripts of hacked phone messages. Critics of News International say it shows that, at the time of the settlement with Mr Taylor in 2008, it was known within the company that the practice was not confined to former royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who had been jailed the previous year. "Taylor was the victim of a crime," Mr Watson said. "Far from reporting the crime to the police or putting the matter right within his own company, what Myler's statement shows - if it is true - (is) that James Murdoch knowingly bought the silence of Taylor, thereby covering up a crime. "In the UK, that is called conspiring to pervert the course of justice and it is a very serious matter." He added: "It is remarkable that this week, with the global media pantomime of Rupert and James Murdoch coming to Parliament, broadcast live on every news channel around the world, and then 48 hours later a senior editor and a lawyer are saying Parliament was once again misled. "I have never known anything like it in all my time in politics." Speaking during a visit to the Disasters Emergency Committee London offices to back its East Africa Crisis Appeal, Labour leader Ed Miliband said: "I think that people will want to look at the comments that were made and want to resolve the different versions of events that we've seen. "In the end, this is going to be a matter for the police, but I think the chair of the Culture Select Committee John Whittingdale is right to now inquire of James Murdoch to try and reconcile this discrepancy." Mr Miliband added that there were also "still serious questions" for Mr Cameron to answer, including about the failure to provide a high level of vetting security clearance for Andy Coulson. He said: "People are going to be asking questions - well, why wasn't that security clearance done for him? Were people worried that he wasn't going to pass that security clearance?" The Law Society said today that solicitors had been warned by police that their phones might have been hacked by the News of the World. Chief executive Des Hudson said he would write to Lord Leveson, the judge who will lead an inquiry into phone hacking, asking him to investigate the allegations. He said: "Hacking into solicitors' phones would be very serious indeed, and we urge the police to carry out a full investigation. "If hacking was carried out with the intention of undermining court action, it might well constitute an attempt to pervert the course of justice, which is a serious criminal offence."

How far can legal professional privilege go? Legal professional privilege meant Harbottle & Lewis had to secure a waiver to discuss Murdoch's claim about phone hacking claims By Neil Rose guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 July 2011 13.11 It didn't take long for the name of solicitors Harbottle & Lewis to come up in the Murdochs' evidence to the culture, media and sport select committee, no doubt accompanied by the despairing sound of many heads slapping into hands at the firm's London offices. This kind of thing simply doesn't happen to law firms, particularly smart outfits such as Harbottles. The firm was unable to defend itself against Rupert Murdoch's allegation it made a major mistake in 2007 when finding there was no evidence that illegal actions at the News of the World went further than those of Clive Goodman, after reviewing 300 internal emails. Even though it was the firm's client making this claim, Harbottles was still bound by legal professional privilege, a very longstanding common law right that keeps communications between lawyers and their clients confidential unless waived by the client. It is the bedrock of the lawyer/client relationship and means people can speak freely with their lawyer. Because privilege belongs to the client, in this case it means Harbottles could not discuss the nature of the instruction from News International, which might help explain what happened. This does not mean that anything you say to a lawyer will be privileged, however. The communication has to be in the context of receiving or providing legal advice, or otherwise in a legal context. It emerged late on Wednesday that News International – which had previously refused to waive its privilege – had done a volte face to some extent and will allow the solicitors to answer questions from the police and the select committee. To have refused would have fuelled speculation that the company had something to hide. The committee has now announced plans to call Harbottles to give evidence in October. Even if News International had not released the firm, according to legal blogger Carl Gardner, Erskine May, the guide to parliamentary practice, says that questions from a select committee override privilege. As Gardner recalls, this did not stop Robert Maxwell's sons using the common law right not to incriminate themselves as the reason for staying silent before a select committee in 1992. Though sanctions were threatened, none were ever imposed. Generally, however, privilege is an absolute right and one that puts law firms "in an impossible position", says Colin Passmore, head of litigation at City solicitors Simmons & Simmons and the man who, quite literally, wrote the book on it. There is simply nothing a lawyer can do if the client will not waive it. In much less high-profile ways, lawyers face this problem all the time, he says – such as when a court wants to make a "wasted costs" order against them over the way in which they have conducted a case. Often clients will refuse to waive privilege to allow their lawyers to explain themselves and avoid the fine. Things can be different if the lawyer smells a rat when instructed. Professor Richard Moorhead blogged this week: "Where a lawyer foresees a significant likelihood of their advice being used for the purposes of providing deniability in a way that is misleading, then there is a plausible case that they should either decline to act or frame their advice so as to prevent the potential for it to be misused." The precise nature of News International's waiver here means Harbottles will still not be able to go around declaring its innocence; it will have to wait until asked questions by the police or parliament. However, there is one exception to the privilege rule: if the lawyer is used, knowingly or unknowingly, to commit or cover up a crime or serious fraud, then he can disclose what he knows. So if it turned out, hypothetically, that News International deliberately withheld information so that Harbottles came to the conclusion it did, allowing News International to trumpet that finding in a bid to mislead investigators about the extent of wrongdoing at the company, then the privilege could be broken. There is no suggestion, of course, that the company did do this. But lawyer regulation expert Tony Guise says deciding the exception applies is a tricky judgment to make. "If I was in that situation, I'd rather err on the side of professional caution and not risk having the Solicitors Regulation Authority come down on me," he says. Privilege is a hugely powerful concept, and indeed a compelling reason to use lawyers. The supreme court will soon rule on whether it can be extended to tax advice given by accountants, a move strongly resisted by the legal profession. Ultimately privilege is there to protect the client, not the lawyer, however painful that can be for the latter – just ask Harbottle & Lewis.

Justice Department Prepares Subpoenas in News Corp. Inquiry By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO,DEVLIN BARRETT and DANA CIMILLUCA The Wall Street Journal (A Murdoch publication) July 22, 2011 The U.S. Justice Department is preparing subpoenas as part of preliminary investigations into News Corp. relating to alleged foreign bribery and alleged hacking of voicemail of Sept. 11 victims, according to a government official. The issuance of such subpoenas, which would broadly seek relevant information from the company, requires approval by senior Justice Department leadership, which hasn't yet happened, the person said. The issuance of subpoenas would represent an escalation of scrutiny on the New York-based media company. While the company has sought to isolate the legal problems in the U.K., it has been bracing for increased scrutiny from both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the company's strategy. The Justice Department has said it is looking into allegations that News Corp.'s now-defunct News of the World weekly in the U.K. paid bribes to British police. It has been unclear whether the Justice Department or the SEC have begun formal probes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation separately has begun an inquiry into whether News Corp. employees tried to hack into voice mails of Sept. 11 victims, people familiar with the early-stage probe have said. A person close to News Corp. said the preparation of subpoenas is "a fishing expedition with no evidence to support it." News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal. Commenting on the FBI inquiry, a News Corp. spokeswoman said: "We have not seen any evidence to suggest there was any hacking of 9/11 victim's phones, nor has anybody corroborated what are clearly very serious allegations. The story arose when an unidentified person speculated to the Daily Mirror about whether it happened. That paper printed the anonymous speculation, which has since mushroomed in the broader media with no substantiation." The spokeswoman also said the company hasn't seen any "indication of a connection or similarity between the events, allegations and practices being investigated in the U.K. and News Corp's U.S. properties." News Corp. and its recently bolstered legal team expect a possible broad investigation by the Justice Department into whether the alleged bribes paid to British police violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, according to the people familiar with the company's strategy. The law is typically used to pursue charges against companies that bribe foreign officials to give them business contracts. News Corp.'s team also is anticipating a possible FCPA-related investigation by the SEC, the people said. The SEC also could examine News Corp.'s prior disclosures, one of the people said. By law, companies must adequately alert investors to potential litigation or business pitfalls on the horizon. A spokesman for the SEC declined to comment. The company's U.K. newspaper unit, News International, has declined to comment on the alleged bribes, citing an ongoing police investigation. Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks said in testimony to Parliament Tuesday that she had "never knowingly sanctioned a payment to a police officer." U.K. police are conducting two parallel investigations into News Corp.'s now-closed News of the World, which is at the heart of the British scandal. One is related to allegations of illegal voice-mail interception and was opened in January; the other stems from allegations of police bribery. In addition, the company is facing a raft of civil suits. The U.K. government, meanwhile, plans at least two public inquiries. For the Justice Department and the SEC to pursue News Corp. in the U.S. for allegedly bribing British policemen, the agencies would have to rely on a broad interpretation of the FCPA, legal experts say. Another possible infraction investigators could examine: whether any payments were improperly accounted for in the company's books and records. In recent days, News Corp. has hired an expert in the FCPA, Mark Mendelsohn, to advise it, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Mendelsohn, a partner in the Washington office of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, couldn't be reached for comment. —Vanessa O'Connell, Thomas Catan and Russell Adams contributed to this article.

Poster's Note: How can David Cameron have been so reckless on an issue dealing with the national security of his people and country? He seems just not to have cared. ------------------------------------------ Andy Coulson: did they look the other way?I was given top-level vetting for my No 10 job. I can't understand why David Cameron's former communications chief wasn't tooBy Lance Price guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011 20.22 BST Some things in life you never forget. And being interviewed on behalf of the security services for a senior job in the same Downing Street department where Andy Coulson would later work, is one of them. The officer came to my home at a prearranged time and asked me a range of questions: about my political affiliations, the state of my finances, whether I drank to excess and what I did for sex. At times he seemed more embarrassed asking the questions than I was answering them. I had been warned what to expect by colleagues at No 10 who had been through the process. One, a woman, was asked if her glance ever went up to the top-shelf porn mags when she bought a newspaper. I didn't get that one. At the end the officer asked me: "Is there anything else you think we should know?" I racked my brains. "I'm probably a member of Greenpeace," I said, "but I really can't remember." "Don't worry about that," he said. "You'd be surprised how many people are." All he really wanted to know, I suspect, is whether I might be susceptible to blackmail. Once he knew I was solvent and didn't appear to have any guilty secrets, he was satisfied. Having passed what's called "developed vetting", I was then able to see just about any document inside government, up to and including those marked "top secret". I saw material relating to defence and security issues, sensitive communications concerning the ongoing situation in Northern Ireland and our relations with our allies. I attended cabinet meetings and secure Cobra (Cabinet Office briefing room) discussions about the Kosovo conflict. All of these matters have a communications element to them and without that level of access I would have found it difficult to do my job. My boss, Alastair Campbell, would have laughed at the suggestion that anything was beyond his security clearance as communications director. Which is why I find it extraordinary, if it's true, that Coulson did not have the same level of vetting as I did in a more junior position. How could he advise the prime minister on handling the media with regard to Afghanistan, Nato, Northern Ireland or mainland terrorism without having access to the full facts? If he were in the job today, he would need an intimate knowledge of British involvement in Libya, security service assessments of the situation in Syria, the likely developments in Palestine, North Korea and Pakistan. Government communications is a fast-moving business. You can't wait for a crisis to erupt – you need the fullest background detail on all the likely hot spots so you can react quickly and offer the prime minister the best advice when news breaks. No 10 must have found a way around all this because, by all accounts, Coulson was very effective at what he did. It is simply not credible that a Downing Street communications director didn't have access to everything he needed to see. The more pertinent question, therefore, is why he wasn't vetted at the highest level. If Coulson gave David Cameron all the assurances he needed before the appointment, presumably he could have told the security services what they wanted to hear as well. Except that it's the job of skilled investigators to probe into areas where even prime ministers may not wish to go. The only possible explanation I can find is that sometimes, if you don't want to know the answer, the best policy is not to ask the question. But what does that tell us about the relationship between Downing Street and the security services? It's one thing for politicians to look the other way sometimes, but the men and women who vet those in sensitive positions should never be asked to do the same

Former NOTW executive to return from Florida The Independent By Cahal Milmo and Martin Hickman Friday, 22 July 2011 Greg Miskiw, the former News of the World executive named in Parliament as one of several "gatekeepers" on the paper authorised to order phone hacking, said yesterday he will return to Britain from Florida and face questioning by police. The 61-year-old, who was revealed on Wednesday to have spent recent months living in the resort of Palm Beach, told reporters outside his rented flat that his solicitor had been in contact with Scotland Yard for "some time" and that he expected to fly back to London "momentarily". Officers from Operation Weeting, the Yard's investigation into the phone-hacking scandal, are understood to have been wanting to speak to Mr Miskiw since shortly after the launch of the new inquiry in January. He left Britain last year and his whereabouts were not publicly known until this week, when he was tracked down in a leafy neighbourhood close to the beach. Confronted yesterday by reporters, Mr Miskiw declined to answer questions about whether he had authorised hacking prior to leaving the NOTW in 2005 or whether Rebekah Brooks, editor of the paper until 2003, and Andy Coulson, who succeeded Ms Brooks, had knowledge of the practice. Mr Miskiw told The Daily Telegraph: "I'm returning to the UK momentarily. My solicitors have been talking to the police for some time now so I have in effect been in touch with the police. They know where I am and they know I'm returning. That's all I have to say." On Tuesday, the Labour MP Paul Farrelly asked James Murdoch at his select committee appearance whether Mr Miskiw, who signed a £105,000-a-year deal with the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to provide "research and information services", was one of six "gatekeepers" at the NOTW who provided access to eavesdropped phone messages allegedly obtained by the private detective. Mr Murdoch declined to answer for legal reasons. The former executive has been named in a number of court cases related to alleged phone hacking. The perjury trial of disgraced MSP Tommy Sheridan heard that notes written by Mr Mulcaire, in which he recorded the politician's mobile-phone number, also had the name "Greg" written in the top corner. The court was told this referred to Mr Miskiw. Pre-trial hearings for a damages claim by the football pundit Andy Gray were also told "Greg" referred to Mr Miskiw.

Pressure mounts on David Cameron over Andy Coulson's security level Questions asked about why former News of the World editor, embroiled in phone-hacking scandal, was spared No 10 vetting process undertaken by his successor and former deputy By Robert Booth, Hélène Mulholland and Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011 21.10 BST Pressure on David Cameron to explain why Andy Coulson was spared tough security and background checks increased as it emerged both his successor as director of communications and his former deputy are being vetted to a higher level than he ever was. Labour called on the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, to reveal who inside Downing Street decided not to seek the highest level of security clearance for the former News of the World editor and whether the decision was discussed with the prime minister. Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, said it was "now a matter of urgency that this information is put into the public domain otherwise it will fuel the belief that there was knowledge about Andy Coulson's involvement in illegal activities before he was employed". Craig Oliver, a former BBC executive who replaced Coulson when he resigned from Number 10 in February, is undergoing "developed vetting" – a rigorous probe into his background and finances aimed at uncovering anything that could make him vulnerable to blackmail or other compromises. Coulson underwent less stringent checks. A former senior counter-terrorism official said it was "unthinkable" and "very surprising, that someone would not be vetted to the higher 'DV' level when they are working in No 10, that close to the PM". He said: "Developed vetting is an intrusive analysis of someone's character. It potentially could have picked up phone hacking. It would look into everything about them, including allegations made publicly, in the media, about them." The contrast between Coulson's and Oliver's security vetting emerged after 24 hours of refusals by Downing Street to say what Oliver's security status would be. Adding to the impression Coulson was afforded special treatment, Gabby Bertin, Coulson's former assistant who is still Cameron's deputy press secretary, is also undergoing full checks. A Cabinet Office spokesman said on Thursday night: "Andy Coulson, like all civil servants, was vetted to the level appropriate to the information he has access to, in line with other officials and special advisers." Downing Street sources claimed security was not a high priority at the start of Cameron's premiership, but became more important with the start of military action in Libya. There was also said to be concern at the £500 cost of the vetting process. On Thursday, a string of former Downing Street press advisers said they could not understand how Coulson could do his job properly without the fullest security clearance which involves Ministry of Defence investigators gathering details of psychological problems, alcohol and drug histories and mortgages, personal property, and debts. Applicants are also required to give details of any person to whom they have given more than £1,000. Alastair Campbell and Lance Price, press advisers to Tony Blair, said they struggled to understand how Coulson could operate on issues ranging from the British economy, Nato policy, European security policy, Afghanistan and the terror threat to the UK with such low level clearance. Price said it was "breathtaking" that Coulson would have anything less than full security clearance. "It is very hard to see how you could do the press and strategy job, particularly on foreign affairs, without being fully in the picture." The disclosure that Coulson had only the basic level of security vetting is understood to have "absolutely shocked" some Whitehall information staff. Security policy for government staff is ultimately the responsibility of the prime minister, who delegates this authority to cabinet members and O'Donnell. The government's security guidelines state that one of the five core principles of government security policy is "the need to employ trustworthy people". Downing Street declined to say whether Coulson had been consulted on what level of vetting he should undergo, or whether Cameron was notified of the clearance he received. By the time he entered Downing Street in May 2010, the Guardian had run more than 40 articles about phone-hacking at NoW under Coulson and passed a warning to senior Cameron aides about material it was unable to publish for legal reasons. Questions were also raised over whether Coulson was allowed to attend meetings relating to national security, counter-terrorism or Afghanistan. Assistant Commissioner John Yates told MPs he had met Coulson to discuss, among other issues, counter-terrorism.

Phone hacking: Tom Crone and Colin Myler raise the stakes Colin Myler and Tom Crone are, in effect, accusing James Murdoch of being part of the phone-hacking cover-up By David Leigh and Nick Davies guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011 21.25 BST Tom Crone and Colin Myler were well aware that the statement they were about to make could prove fatal to James Murdoch. When the Guardian pointed out in the wake of his parliamentary testimony that Murdoch's son had sought to blame them for concealment, one friend of the two men said: "To contradict James will be as good as coming out and calling him a xxxx." Myler and Crone, the News of the World's then editor and News International's top newspaper lawyer, both of whom have lost their jobs in the wake of the phone-hacking affair, subsequently spent the day debating what to do. If their statement of Thursday nightis correct, Rupert's son will have proved to have misled parliament. He will also have destroyed the Murdoch family's last line of defence against the scandal – that they knew nothing, and had been betrayed by those underlings they trusted. Myler and Crone are, in effect, accusing James Murdoch of being part of the cover-up, one in which the company's executives vainly twisted and turned to conceal the truth about phone hacking and blame it on a single "rogue reporter". James Murdoch's crucial claim to the committee was that he had personally agreed to a massive payout, of £700,000 to hacking victim Gordon Taylor, in ignorance of the true facts. He said Crone and Myler had told him the payout was legally necessary. The Labour MP Tom Watson, one of the affair's most persistent investigators, extracted from Murdoch towards the end of the committee session what was to prove an explosive claim. He claimed that Crone and Myler had concealed from him the crucial piece of evidence in the case – that an email had come to light with a voicemail hacking transcript, marked "for Neville", ie Neville Thurlbeck, the News of the World chief reporter. The existence of this email, if made public, would explode the "rogue reporter" defence and begin to implicate the rest of the NoW newsroom. It was – and is – the smoking gun in the whole hacking case. This was the exchange: Watson: "James – sorry, if I may call you James, to differentiate – when you signed off the Taylor payment, did you see or were you made aware of the full Neville email, the transcript of the hacked voicemail messages?" James Murdoch: "No, I was not aware of that at the time." James Murdoch's testimony was no slip of the tongue. When the Guardian queried his version with his office, they provided a written statement repeating it. It said: "In June 2008 James Murdoch had given verbal approval to settle the case, following legal advice. He did this without knowledge of the 'for Neville' email." John Whittingdale, chairman of the culture sport and media select committee, said, ominously, last night: "We as a committee regarded the 'for Neville' email as one of the most critical pieces of evidence in the whole inquiry. We will be asking James Murdoch to respond and ask him to clarify." In police inquiries, the most sensitive moment is generally considered to be when those involved start to turn on one another. James Murdoch and the then News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks had turned on Crone and Myler – particularly the long-serving Crone – in their testimony. James told the MPs that Brooks had removed Crone from his job. Brooks then testified that, in effect, Crone was the only former News of the World employee for whom there would be no new job found, following the sudden closure of the title. By adding that he had personally been kept in ignorance of the "for Neville" email, James was pointing the finger at the two former executives as, in effect, sole architects of a cover-up. The two had already been put in an exposed position by testifying to one of the Whittingdale committee's earlier hearings that they knew nothing to implicate anyone beyond one "rogue reporter". Myler had protested that 2,500 emails had been rigorously examined, and no evidence of further wrongdoing had been found. In a scandal where it had seemed that the stakes could scarcely be raised any higher, Crone and Myler's statement has now raised them to new heights. James Murdoch's future has been put into play in the most dramatic fashion.

James Murdoch misled MPs, say former NoW editor and lawyer Colin Myler and Tom Crone challenge News Corp executive's statement to MPs at phone-hacking hearing By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011 20.02 BST James Murdoch has been accused of misleading the parliamentary select committee this week in relation to phone hacking, igniting yet another fire for the embattled News International boss to extinguish. In a highly damaging broadside, two former News of the World senior executives claimed the evidence Murdoch gave to the committee on Tuesday in relation to an out-of-court settlement to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, was "mistaken". The statement came as something of a bombshell to the culture, sport and media select committee, which immediately announced it would be asking Murdoch to explain the contradiction. Colin Myler, editor of the paper until it was shut down two weeks ago, and Tom Crone, the paper's former head of legal affairs, said they had expressly told Murdoch of an email that would have blown a hole in its defence that only one "rogue reporter" was involved in the phone-hacking scandal. This contradicts what Murdoch told the committee when questioned on Tuesday. The existence of the email, known as the "for Neville" email because of its link to the paper's former chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, is thought to have been critical in News International's decision to pay out around £700,000 to Taylor in an out-of-court settlement after he threatened to sue the paper. James Murdoch is standing by his version of events. A statement issued by News Corporation said: "James Murdoch stands by his testimony to the select committee." In their statement, Myler and Crone challenged this: "Just by way of clarification relating to Tuesday's Culture, Media Select Committee hearing, we would like to point out that James Murdoch's recollection of what he was told when agreeing to settle the Gordon Taylor litigation was mistaken. "In fact, we did inform him of the 'for Neville' email which had been produced to us by Gordon Taylor's lawyers." John Whittingdale, the chairman of the culture, sport and media select committee, said: "We as a committee regarded the 'for Neville' email as one of the most critical pieces of evidence in the whole inquiry. We will be asking James Murdoch to respond and ask him to clarify." He added that "it was seen as one of the few available pieces of evidence showing that this activity was not confined just to Clive Goodman", the only journalist on the paper to have been prosecuted – and jailed – in relation to phone hacking so far. The email is believed to have been critical in News International's decision to pay Taylor such a large sum of money. If it had got out in a full-blown court case brought by the Profession Footballers' Association chief executive it would have blown a hole in News International's claim that only one reporter was involved in hacking. James Murdoch claimed to the MPs that this email had been concealed from him by two company executives, Crone and Myler, when he was persuaded to sign off the secret deal with Taylor. Earlier this month James Murdoch acknowledged he was wrong to settle the suit, saying he did not "have a complete picture of the case" at the time. He repeated this on Tuesday at the select committee when he was asked by Labour MP Tom Watson: "When you signed off the Taylor payment, did you see or were you made aware of the full Neville email, the transcript of the hacked voicemail messages?" To this James Murdoch answered: "No, I was not aware of that at the time." Watson went on to ask him why then had he paid an "astronomical sum" to Taylor. James Murdoch replied: "There was every reason to settle the case, given the likelihood of losing the case and given the damages – we had received counsel – that would be levied." With parliament in recess, it is unlikely but not unprecedented for a select committee to hold a special evidence session to clarify the issue. Witnesses in the case have been given very strict instructions before giving evidence to tell the truth, although witnesses do not give evidence under a specific oath. James Murdoch told the committee that his advisers had urged him to adopt a strategy of telling the truth when he spoke to the committee. In its 2010 report the culture, sport and media select committee, in discussing the Gordon Taylor settlement, wrote: "The settlements were authorised by James Murdoch, executive chairman of News International, following discussions with Colin Myler and Tom Crone". It did not specifically state whether Murdoch had been shown the "for Neville" email before making the settlement, but does state Murdoch was authorised to make the payment without bringing the issue to the News International board.

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/documents/jul11.php#selection

Phone hacking investigation widens to sale of private details Police handed files from Operation Motorman, which found 3,522 suspected cases of media having illegal access to records By James Ball and Jamie Thunder guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011 17.29 BST The Information Commissioner's Office has confirmed it has passed to police the file of a 2006 investigation into the sale of private information to journalists. The transfer of the Operation Motorman files, which documented the practices of private investigator Stephen Whittamore and associates, marks the widening of the inquiry into phone hacking to the broader issue of paying for access to confidential information. The files were the basis for the 2006 information commissioner's report What price privacy now? [PDF], which identified 3,522 occasions in which 305 journalists requested information that the commission believed was likely to have been obtained illegally. The Daily Mail topped its list, with 952 identified transactions, followed by the Sunday People on 802 and Daily Mirror on 681. The Observer, published by Guardian News & Media, appeared further down the list, with four journalists said to have accessed information on 103 occasions. The ICO has not established each piece of information was illegally obtained but instead has focused on information such as car registrations or mobile phone numbers which are often all but impossible to obtain without resorting to "blagging" or similar practices. The ICO acknowledged some of the data on the list could have been collected legally but said the "majority is highly likely to have been obtained in violation of the Data Protection Act". News organisations were not given a chance to see the list before its publication to establish whether there was a public interest defence to any breach of the act. Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, warned this week that the "extensive illegal trade" of public information was a wider problem than phone hacking. "Clearly the selling of confidential personal information is not a victimless crime," he wrote. "It can be extremely distressing and potentially damaging to those involved. You only have to look at the recent allegations of phone hacking, involving the mobile phone of Milly Dowler, to see the damage that can be caused by the theft of someone's personal information." Details obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal hundreds of workers in the public sector may have been found guilty of inappropriately accessing personal records without facing prosecution or dismissal. Research by the lobby group Big Brother Watch reveals that between 2007 and 2010, 904 police officers and staff across the country were subject to internal disciplinary offences for breaches of the Data Protection Act, which governs access to personal information. Of these cases, only 98 resulted in the dismissal of the staff member involved. "Our investigation shows that not only have police employees been found to have run background records checks on friends and possible partners, but some have been convicted for passing sensitive information to criminal gangs and drug dealers," said Daniel Hamilton, the director of Big Brother Watch. "This is at best hugely intrusive and at worse downright dangerous. Police forces must adopt a zero-tolerance approach to this kind of behaviour. Those found guilty of abusing their position should be sacked on the spot." Information obtained by the Guardian through the Freedom of Information Act suggests benefits records may have been subject to extensive trading – with more than 100 individuals disciplined for "gross" violations still in post. A total of 512 Jobcentre Plus staff have been disciplined for improper access to the personal records of jobseekers and benefits claimants since 2009. The disciplinary offence concerned includes incidents in which staff have accessed sensitive information with the intention of passing it to third parties, as well as browsing of material for personal interest and other charges. The records include 137 gross violations – defined as "serious breach of contractual terms … which makes any further working relationship and trust impossible". Only 27 staff lost their jobs for their actions. Data available to Jobcentre Plus staff includes names, dates of birth, addresses and national insurance information, and more sensitive details such as benefits claimed, career and qualification history, and in some cases certain health information. The Department of Work and Pensions, which oversees Jobcentre Plus, was unable to break down how many of its 512 data breaches involved passing information to third parties, but said in a statement: "We take all such cases extremely seriously. With over 100,000 staff the relatively small number of those who misuse our computer systems are always disciplined, and those who commit serious breaches will be