Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[John Dolva]

Typical. As suspected the 'Don' is protected and the nobodies (with rights) take the fall. It's the system that needs to be arrested.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: secrecy sledgehammer

If the Met succeeds in its use of the Official Secrets Act it would be a very bleak day for freedom and democracy

Editorial

guardian.co.uk,

Friday 16 September 2011 17.24 EDT

Just over two months ago the Guardian published the story of Milly Dowler's phone – and how it was hacked by a private investigator working for the News of the World after the teenager's abduction and murder. It was a revelation which caused worldwide revulsion and outrage. It led to resignations, parliamentary debates, official inquiries and humble corporate apologies. A newspaper was closed and News Corp's bid to take control of BSkyB was stopped in its tracks by a unanimous vote of parliament. The former Metropolitan police chief Sir Paul Stephenson was gracious enough to praise the Guardian's role in persisting where three police inquiries had failed. The country should be grateful, he said, that this paper ignored his own attempts to warn us off. Only this week the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, described the Guardian's campaign as "investigative journalism of the highest quality".

Incredibly, the Metropolitan police are now trying to find out the source of the Milly Dowler story. To that end they are – quite extraordinarily – using the Official Secrets Act to try and force the Guardian to hand over documents which would betray our sources. Papers served on the newspaper this week demand that, within seven days, our reporters – including Amelia Hill and Nick Davies, who relentlessly covered the phone-hacking story for more than two years – hand over anything that could lead the police to identify who blew the whistle on the Dowler story and others.

It beggars belief that the Metropolitan police – who, for years, declined to lift a finger against News International journalists despite voluminous evidence of criminal behaviour – should now be using the Official Secrets Act to pursue the Guardian, which uncovered the story. The Official Secrets Act is a very powerful sledgehammer and the police have no business using it to try to defeat the defences that journalists would normally rely on to prevent them – or anyone else – from trying to expose confidential sources. The only known previous attempt to use the 1989 act against a journalist – the writer Tony Geraghty – collapsed, as did a similar police threat (not using the OSA) to prosecute the Conservative MP Damian Green for "aiding and abetting" misconduct in a public office.

Operation Weeting seemed finally to be doing something to restore the Met's reputation, which has been so tarnished by the handling of this whole affair. But these heavy-handed tactics will alarm every editor and reporter in the country. If the police succeeded with the Official Secrets Act in this case it would be a very bleak day for one of the fundamental freedoms that underpins democracy itself

[Douglas Caddy]

Guardian says it will fight police on revealing hacking sources

By Agence France-Presse

Saturday, September 17th, 2011 -- 8:47 am

The Guardian said Saturday it would fight "to the utmost" an attempt by police probing the phone hacking scandal to force it to disclose the sources for its reports on the affair.

The Metropolitan Police is seeking to obtain a court order under the Official Secrets Act to identify "evidence of potential offences resulting from unauthorised leaking of information".

The Guardian's editor Alan Rusbridger condemned the move as "vindictive", adding: "We shall resist this extraordinary demand to the utmost".

The daily has been at the forefront in exposing the voicemail hacking scandal at media baron Rupert Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World.

The Guardian said the police intended to go before a judge at the Old Bailey on September 23 to apply for an order under the Official Secrets Act requiring it to hand over documents relating to the source of information for a number of articles.

It said the police thought the act could have been breached in July when the newspaper revealed that the voicemail of a teenage murder victim had been hacked into. The story led to a public outcry and News of the World closed shortly afterwards.

In a statement, the Met said it had applied for a production order against The Guardian and one of its reporters "in order to seek evidence of offences connected to potential breaches relating to Misconduct in Public Office and the Official Secrets Act."

It said it took concerns of leaks seriously "to ensure that the public interest is protected by ensuring there is no further potential compromise".

The Met paid tribute to The Guardian's "unwavering determination to expose the hacking scandal", and said it recognised "the important public interest of whistle-blowing and investigative reporting", which it was not seeking to prevent.

"However, neither is apparent in this case. This is an investigation into the alleged gratuitous release of information that is not in the public interest."

The Guardian's reporter Amelia Hill was questioned under caution earlier this month over alleged police leaks surrounding the hacking inquiry.

In August, a policeman working on the probe was arrested over the unauthorised disclosure of information.

The Guardian called the latest move an "unprecedented legal attack on journalists' sources".

"It seems to me an extraordinarily heavy-handed use of the Official Secrets Act which is basically about espionage and international relations and things like that to defeat the privilege journalists have to protect their sources," Rusbridger told BBC radio.

"What they are trying to do is to find out the source of the embarrassment of the articles -- and no doubt The Guardian's coverage was embarrassing to the police.

"It looks vindictive and it looks ill-judged and disproportionate."

The hacking scandal has led to the resignation of two of Murdoch's top aides and two senior police officers, and dragged in Prime Minister David Cameron after his ex-media chief, former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, was arrested.

In its editorial, The Guardian said: "It beggars belief that the Metropolitan Police -- who, for years, declined to lift a finger against News International journalists despite voluminous evidence of criminal behaviour -- should now be using the Official Secrets Act to pursue The Guardian, which uncovered the story."

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said the latest police move was "vicious" and a "very serious threat" to reporting.

"Journalists have investigated the hacking story and told the truth to the public. They should be congratulated rather than being hounded and criminalised by the state," The Guardian quoted her as saying.

"The protection of sources is an essential principle which has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the European Court of Human Rights as the cornerstone of press freedom."

[Douglas Caddy]

Met police behaviour is worrying and deeply mysterious, says Hugh Grant

Speaking at Lib Dem conference on behalf of Hacked Off campaign, Grant criticises Met police's attempt to force Guardian journalists to reveal their sources

By Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent

guardian.co.uk,

Sunday 18 September 2011 11.18 EDT

Hugh Grant has accused the Metropolitan police of behaving in a "worrying and deeply mysterious" way after Scotland Yard invoked the Official Secrets Act to demand journalists reveal their sources.

As a senior Liberal Democrat called on the attorney general to block the "extremely bizarre" use of the act, Grant warned that police were turning on the "goodies" after Scotland Yard applied for an order under the 1989 act to require the Guardian to identify its sources on phone hacking.

Speaking at the Lib Dem conference in Birmingham, the actor said: "It is a very worrying and upsetting development. A lot of us victims and campaigners had come to the view that the new police inquiry – [Operation] Weeting under Sue Akers – were good cops.

"It was a new investigation. They were embarrassed by the behaviour of their predecessors and colleagues. So for them to suddenly turn on their fellow goodies in this battle is a worrying and deeply mysterious."

Grant spoke up as Don Foster, the veteran Lib Dem MP, said that the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, should use his discretion to rule that the use of the Official Secrets Act in this case was not in the public interest.

"I understand the attorney general has the opportunity to use this power," Foster said after a fringe meeting, organised by the Hacked Off campaign, that was addressed by Grant. "He should use it and say this is not in the public interest."

Foster, who praised the Guardian for "fantastic journalism" in exposing phone hacking, found unanimous support at the fringe meeting when he asked whether the Guardian's disclosure that Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked – the revelation that prompted the police use of the Official Secrets Act – was justified.

The MP said: "If it was in the public interest for the Guardian to do what they did it is extremely bizarre, it is almost unheard of, for the Metropolitan police to have used the Official Secrets Act as the basis for seeking to get hold of the information they want. Bizarre because what it does is it means that what you and I have just demonstrated by our vote – that the issue of public interest will not be able to be judged.

"That is why it is absolutely vital that we find out first of all who actually signed off the agreement to use the Official Secrets Act and, secondly, we have to have a very, very clear explanation of why they are doing it. A final decision is made by the attorney general as to whether to allow it to happen.

"The one good bit of news is that, in making his decision, the attorney general can use public interest as one of the criteria that he considers."

Tom Brake, chair of the Lib Dem home affairs committee, echoed Foster's comments. "The Guardian is to be commended for the work that it has done to bring the facts of the phone hacking scandal to light. The revelation that Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked was the trigger for a political earthquake that went on to engulf the press, politicians and the police.

"The use of the Official Secrets Act in these circumstances is very unusual, and all the more worrying because it does not allow the defendant to argue that their actions were in the public interest. The Met need to explain why they think it is appropriate to use the Official Secrets Act in this case.

"While this is clearly a matter for the police and the attorney general, I do question whether this action is in the public interest given everything that has happened, or indeed in the interests of investigative journalism."

The Lib Dem anger over the use of the Official Secrets Act came as Hugh Grant met Nick Clegg for what he described as a "delicious" seven-minute lunch in Birmingham at the start of a tour of the three party conferences to ensure that politicians continue to show "balls" on hacking after the establishment of the Leveson enquiry.

Grant said he was disappointed after the deputy prime minister said it would take time for legislation to be introduced after the Leveson inquiry reports.

"Nick Clegg did slightly depress me by saying that nothing could be done in terms of legislating until Leveson reports. So that is a snag. But I comfort myself with the fact that Leveson, as it progresses, will be reported. I hope this will keep the scandal in the forefront of the news.

Grant added: "Ultimately it is going to be politicians who get the job done, who get the thing fixed. So I am here with Hacked Off to have a look at the politicians in all three parties and see which of those politicians who appear to have grown balls in July actually still have them and get something done."

"The judgment is yet to be made. They had no choice back in July. The revelations were so shocking to the whole country that they had to talk a good game. Whether or not they will now play a good game really remains to be seen. That is one of the reasons we are going to these conferences – to put pressure on them to make sure they do as they said they'd do."

Grant said Britain was shamed by two newspaper industries in Britain. One is the cornerstone of Britain while a second, which used to be interested in journalism, uses criminal means to appropriate the privileges of British citizens.

"I am keen for people to stop conflating these two industries. I am keen for them to stop saying, 'we can't throw out the baby with the bathwater.'

"Well to me and most sane people it is very easy to distinguish baby and bath water. It is very easy. You take the baby out of the bath and, in fact, I would argue the baby is now quite big enough to get out of the bath itself and it is high time that good journalists, broadsheet journalists, just get out of the xxxxing bath."

Grant was also critical of the House of Commons culture select committee for its cross-examination of Rupert and James Murdoch.

"Speaking as a bad actor myself I thought Murdoch's performance was dodgy. Many of my sources tell me he was a hell of a lot sharper than that a week before – people who had met him. I didn't buy the long pauses. Much as I adore the people on that committee, like Tom Watson … I was shocked at how unsharp and how slightly starstruck the select committee members seemed.

"I bitterly regret the cream pie incident because it absolutely played into his hands. I still don't know why they had to congratulate him so much afterwards for being so brave or why my hero Tom Watson had to say your wife has a great right hook.

"I mean for God's sake this was the one chance we have ever had to get the guy in the dock and suddenly everyone was slightly up his arse."

Grant, who famously posed as a journalist from Horse and Hounds in the film Notting Hill to interview Julia Roberts, said that granting an interview does not give the media a right to pursue a celebrity.

"The papers don't give people privacy for free. It is done as a sort of barter when it is done. If I give an interview to a magazine they get something out of it, I get something out of it. But the deal is over. If I have sold you a pint of milk for 50p you can't come to me forever after saying you once sold milk, I can help myself to your milk for free. It is patently absurd."

There was a lighter moment Grant was asked how he would play David Cameron. "I only ever play one part. Don't be ridiculous."

[Douglas Caddy]

Fox Kills Alec Baldwin's Phone Hacking Emmy Joke; Baldwin Pulls Out Of Ceremony

www.huffingtonpost.com

First Posted: 9/18/11 03:23 PM ET Updated: 9/18/11 03:48 PM ET

Rupert Murdoch's Fox network cut a joke by Alec Baldwin about the company's phone hacking scandal out of a skit for Sunday's Emmy Awards, causing Baldwin to pull out of the ceremony.

Deadline was the first to report the news, and Baldwin confirmed it on Twitter.

"Fox did kill my NewsCorp hacking joke," Baldwin wrote. "Which sucks bc I think it would have made them look better. A little."

Baldwin had made a reference to the omission in an earlier tweet, writing, "I did a short Emmy pretape a few days ago. Now they tell me NewsCorp may cut the funniest line. #NewsCorphumorlessaswellascorrupt."

It's not clear what the joke was, but Deadline says that it came during the planned opening sketch for the Emmys, in which Baldwin was to play a fictional head of a television network. News Corp. told the site that it cut the joke because it didn't want to make light of the phone hacking scandal which has engulfed Murdoch's company.

It's not the first time that a Murdoch property has been accused of going soft on the scandal. The Wall Street Journal was heavily criticized for an editorial strongly defending News Corp.

RELATED VIDEO:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/18/fox-kills-alec-baldwins-phone-hacking-emmy-joke_n_968688.html

Edited September 19, 2011 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

Pressure on attorney general to block Met move against press freedom

Dominic Grieve urged to stop police using Official Secrets Act to force Guardian to reveal sources in phone hacking case

By Nicholas Watt and Vikram Dodd

The Guardian,

Sunday 18 September 2011 Article

The attorney general, Dominic Grieve, is facing growing pressure to block an attempt by the Metropolitan police to use the Official Secrets Act to force journalists to reveal their sources.

As senior Liberal Democrats indicated that Nick Clegg was "sympathetic" to journalists, police sources also expressed unease after Scotland Yard applied last week for an order under the 1989 act to require the Guardian to identify its sources on phone hacking. One police source said the decision to invoke the act was "likely to end in tears" for the Met.

Lib Dem sources said that as deputy prime minister, Clegg was unable to express a view on what action the attorney general should take. But senior Lib Dems lined up at the party conference in Birmingham to call on the attorney general to use his powers to rule that the Yard's use of the act is not in the public interest.

Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, who is suing News International over alleged phone hacking at the News of the World, said: "Millions of people believe the Guardian has done a public service by exposing the series of scandals behind phone hacking carried out on a regular basis by individuals on behalf of other media organisations like the Murdoch empire. It is entirely inappropriate for the Officials Secret Act to be used to try to prosecute journalists who have taken these actions.

"I hope that the law officers, or the government more widely, will make it clear that such an intervention and such a prosecution would not be in the public interest. The police or the Crown Prosecution Service may be able to justify on technical grounds that this is the proper thing to do. But the wider interests should prevail and the sooner a decision is made to end plans to prosecute the better."

Don Foster, a veteran Lib Dem MP who advises the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, informally on media issues, called on the attorney general to block the "extremely bizarre" use of the act. "I understand the attorney general has the opportunity to use this power," Foster said after a fringe meeting, organised by the Hacked Off campaign, that was addressed by the actor Hugh Grant. "He should use it and say this is not in the public interest."

Foster, who praised the Guardian for "fantastic journalism" in exposing phone hacking, found unanimous support at the fringe meeting when he asked whether the Guardian's disclosure that Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked – the revelation that prompted the police use of the Official Secrets Act – was justified. The MP said: "If it was in the public interest for the Guardian to do what they did, it is extremely bizarre, it is almost unheard of, for the Metropolitan police to have used the Official Secrets Act as the basis for seeking to get hold of the information they want.

"It is absolutely vital that we find out first of all who actually signed off agreement to use the Official Secrets Act and, secondly, we have to have a very, very clear explanation of why they are doing it. A final decision is made by the attorney general as to whether to allow it to happen. The one good bit of news is that, in making his decision, the attorney general can use public interest as one of the criteria that he considers. I hope he will very seriously indeed."

The Met's actions were also condemned by other newspapers: in a leader in the Times, the Met is accused of using the Official Secrets Act "not to protect the public interest but as a punitive measure to curb journalistic inquiry and pursue a sectarian and self-interested campaign". It goes on to say that the "principle and the method in the Met's action are wrong. They are not only a constraint on the Guardian's reporting, but an attack on the principles of free expression, the workings of a free press and the future of investigative journalism".

The Daily Telegraph described the situation as a "direct attack on the freedom of the press" and "an intolerable abuse of power". Its leader asks if the Met are "seriously contemplating that the first prosecutions arising from the phone-hacking scandal should involve the very people who exposed it?"

Tom Brake, chair of the Lib Dem home affairs committee, said: "The use of the Official Secrets Act in these circumstances is very unusual, and all the more worrying because it does not allow the defendant to argue that their actions were in the public interest. The Met need to explain why they think it is appropriate to use the Official Secrets Act in this case. While this is clearly a matter for the police and the attorney general, I do question whether this action is in the public interest given everything that has happened, or indeed in the interests of investigative journalism."

The political unease was echoed in police circles. One insider asked: "When was the last time the OSA [Official Secrets Act] was used successfully against the media?"

The source added that the Met had to be seen to be rigorous, but threatening to get a production order requiring the handing over of notes and the revealing of sources was a step too far: "No one was expecting us to use the OSA. Usually the use of the OSA ends in tears." With the new Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, not due to start his job as Britain's top police officer officially until later this month, the source added: "He is not even in office and he is facing his first crisis."

Grant said at the Hacked Off meeting: "A lot of us victims and campaigners had come to the view that the new police inquiry – [Operation] Weeting under Sue Akers – were good cops. It was a new investigation. They were embarrassed by the behaviour of their predecessors and colleagues. So for them to suddenly turn on their fellow goodies in this battle is worrying and deeply mysterious."

The Met said that the application for a production order was made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and did not seek to use powers under the OSA. But the police said that the OSA was mentioned in the application because a possible offence under that act might have been committed

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: Milly Dowler's family offered £2m-plus settlement

Talks with News of the World publisher understood to be ongoing over payout that would include sizeable donation to charity

By Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 19 September 2011 12.03 EDT

Milly Dowler's family have been offered a multimillion-pound settlement by Rupert Murdoch's News International, in an attempt to settle the phone-hacking case that led to closure of the News of the World and the resignation of the company's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks.

It is understood that News International has made a settlement offer estimated by sources at more than £2m, a figure that includes a donation to charity. But the publisher and media group has not reached agreement with the Dowler family, whose lawyers were thought to be seeking a settlement figure of closer to £3.5m.

The seven-figure sums under negotiation are far larger than other phone-hacking settlements reached, reflecting the fact that the phone-hacking case affected a family who were victims of crime. Thirteen-year-old Milly Dowler went missing in March 2002 and was later found murdered.

It emerged in July that Milly Dowler's mobile phone had been hacked after her death. Voicemails were accessed on behalf of the News of the World, and messages left for her were deleted to make room for more recordings. This gave the family false hope that she was still alive, because messages were disappearing.

On Monday afternoon there was growing speculation that a deal is close, although other sources familiar with the negotiations indicated that there are still enough matters unresolved to mean that an agreement in principle had not yet been reached behind the scenes.

Sienna Miller accepted £100,000 from News International after the publisher accepted unconditional liability for her phone-hacking and other privacy and harassment claims in May. A month later Andy Gray accepted £20,000 in damages plus undisclosed costs.

Other lawyers bringing phone-hacking cases are privately indicated that they would be advising many of those bringing actions to try and reach a settlement rather than take their cases to lengthy and expensive trials. A handful of cases have been taken forward as lead actions by Mr Justice Vos, to establish a benchmark for settlements in future lawsuits.

Murdoch met with the Dowler family in July, shortly after the original story about hacking into her phone broke, making what the family's lawyer, Mark Lewis, said was a "full and humble" apology. The News Corporation chairman and chief executive "held his head in his hands" and repeatedly told the family he was "very, very sorry".

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: Met failed to consult before invoking Official Secrets Act

DPP and attorney general not contacted prior to Scotland Yard attempt to force the Guardian to reveal journalistic sources

By David Leigh, Vikram Dodd and Owen Bowcott

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 19 September 2011 16.01 EDT

Scotland Yard officers failed to consult either the director of public prosecutions or the attorney general before invoking the Official Secrets Act to try to force the Guardian to reveal journalistic sources, it has been revealed.

Keir Starmer, the DPP, said he was approached for advice by the Metropolitan police professional standards squad only this afternoon, following leading articles in all Britain's major newspapers condemning police behaviour in pursuing the Guardian's sources for their revelations about the phone-hacking scandal. Prosecutions under the section of the Official Secrets Act concerned, Section 9 (2) of the 1989 legislation, can go ahead only with the specific consent of Starmer, who is an independent professional lawyer. Other sections of the act, concerned with espionage, require the consent of the attorney general, Dominic Grieve.

Grieve's office said he had not been consulted in advance.

Although police are not technically required to get the DPP's permission at an early stage of inquiries, Starmer told a media law conference he encouraged sensitive police investigations to be carried out from an early stage in close consultation with the DPP's lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service.

Asked about the Guardian case, he said: "We have now been asked to advise on the Official Secrets Act … We are now engaged in providing advice."

Police want a court order to force Guardian reporters to reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that the murdered Milly Dowler's phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claim that the reporter Amelia Hill may have "incited" a source to break the Official Secrets Act. At the Metropolitan police it was being maintained the decision to plunge its new commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, into controversy was taken by relatively junior officers without his knowledge. The Metropolitan police said: "The decision to apply for the production order was an operational one made by the senior investigating officer (SIO) with the benefit of legal advice, as is normal practice. The matter was not referred to a more senior level."

Scotland Yard's legal director is Edward Solomons, and the head of the professional standards department, which is bringing the action against the Guardian and its reporters, is deputy assistant commissioner Mark Simmons. Both reported directly to Hogan-Howe, according to the Metropolitan police organisational chart.

Under Section 9 (2) of the 1989 act, prosecutions for leaks involving police, prisons and the justice system, normally through corrupt links with criminals, are allowed to take place with the consent of the DPP. This is less of a hurdle than imposed for the other sections of the act, which need a political go-ahead from the attorney general, who supervises the DPP. But it appears the Met did not take advice from any outsider before serving production orders on the Guardian and Hill.

An Old Bailey judge is to be asked on Friday to sign off on the orders, forcing the Guardian to hand over material identifying its sources for the Dowler revelation and for stories identifying former executives from the Murdoch media empire who had been arrested for questioning, including David Cameron's former PR chief, Andy Coulson, and the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.

The police claim a detective on the official hacking inquiry, Operation Weeting, may have leaked details to the Guardian in "a gratuitous release of information that was not in the public interest". The Guardian says its stories revealed crucial information that was entirely in the public interest and that it has a duty to protect its sources. The Guardian has not paid police officers for its information.

In a statement on Monday night the Met said: "The application for a production order against the Guardian newspaper and one of its reporters is part of an inquiry by officers from the MPS Directorate of Professional Standards Anti-Corruption Unit (DPS), not Operation Weeting ... The MPS cannot respond to the significant public and political concern regarding leaks from the police to any part of the media if we aren't robust in our investigations and make all attempts to obtain best evidence of the leaks."

Dunja Mijatovic, the representative on freedom of the media for the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, wrote to the foreign secretary, William Hague, saying she was greatly concerned about the potentially chilling effect on investigative journalism and media freedom of the Official Secrets Act moves: "The right of journalists to protect the identity of their confidential sources has been repeatedly declared a basic requirement for freedom of expression by the OSCE."

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, wrote to Hogan-Howe asking "whether this marks a change in the Metropolitan police's approach to the behaviour of journalists who seek and receive confidential information in the public interest".

The DPP's own official guidance makes it clear that police should normally proceed against reporters with caution. "Investigation and prosecution of cases involving the leaking of confidential information to journalists can present especial difficulty ... the courts have demonstrated a reluctance to order disclosure of journalistic sources ... freedom of the press is regarded as fundamental to a free and democratic society.The ability of a journalist to protect a source of information is afforded significant protection by the law."

The second charge police say they are contemplating, is "misconduct in public office". The DPP's guidance also warns against unwise use of this charge: "Not every act of misconduct by a public official is capable of amounting to a criminal offence. There is a threshold and it is a high one."

At the Lib Dem conference, where delegates called for tougher sanctions against tabloid misbehaviour, the party's deputy leader, Simon Hughes, said the Met's attack on the Guardian's sources was inappropriate. "That was responsible journalism," he said. He hoped the government would not allow the prosecution of such sources to proceed.

Mark Lewis, the solicitor representing the family of murder victim Milly Dowler, told delegates that the "official secrets" that the Dowler family were concerned about were not the leaks to the Guardian in 2011, but the secrets kept by the Met police between 2006 and 2011, which he said prevented the family – and thousands of other victims of hacking – from knowing they were victims at all.

Stephens said later: "Someone in the Met should lose their pips for the suggestion that journalists should be criminalised."

Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, said: "It was brave investigative journalism that brought this matter of huge public concern to light, therefore the Metropolitan police and CPS need to take great care not to do anything that would undermine the ability of the press to shine a light on issues of public interest in the future.

"The attorney general and director of public prosecutions should be seriously questioning whether any action currently proposed would be compatible with these aims."

Lord Lester, the Liberal Democrat human rights lawyer, said that it seemed to be "an abuse of the Official Secrets Act" to use it to force journalists to hand over information unless "unless there's an overwhelming public interest to the contrary". He added: "I'm not aware of that overwhelming public interest in this case. I hope the Metropolitan Police will reconsider."

Another prominent London media lawyer, Caroline Kean, said: " I think it's outrageous. They must be using it to prevent other leaks. It does seem extraordinarily draconian."

Jean-Yves Dupeux, a media lawyer from Paris, said he did not think the police's attempt to force the Guardian to reveal its sources would succeed in the European courts. "It's contrary to Article 10 of the human rights convention," he maintained. "Perhaps it might work in something very important like a terrorist or human trafficking case, but not [against] journalists for phone hacking

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: attorney general to decide over Guardian prosecution

Dominic Grieve and CPS would assess whether Official Secrets Act case would be in public interest before it went ahead

By James Robinson and Owen Bowcott

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 19 September 2011 08.39 EDT Article history

Lawyers condemn Met's use of the Official Secrets Act Link to this video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/19/phone-hacking-attorney-general-guardian

The attorney general's office has said he would rule on whether a prosecution of the Guardian under the Official Secrets Act was in the public interest before a case could proceed.

A spokesman said on Monday that Dominic Grieve would liaise with the Crown Prosecution Service to assess whether there is sufficient evidence that the act had been breached and whether such a step would be in the public interest.

"It is a matter for the police to decide how best to carry out any investigation," he said. "If the police provide evidence that would support a charge under section 5 of the Official Secrets Act the attorney general's consent would be required.

"If that stage is reached, the attorney general, with the DPP, will consider whether there is sufficient evidence and whether the public interest is in favour of bringing a prosecution."

Scotland Yard's decision to use the act as part of its bid to force Guardian journalists including Nick Davies and Amelia Hill, who revealed that Milly Dowler had her phone targeted by the News of the World, to reveal their sources has been condemned by rival newspapers and senior politicians.

Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor-in-chief, has said the paper will resist the attempt by the Metropolitan police to reveal its sources "to the utmost".

Scotland Yard applied for a production order last week against the Guardian "in order to seek evidence of offences connected to potential breaches relating to misconduct in public office and the Official Secrets Act".

A senior investigating officer applied for the production order under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, citing potential breaches of the Official Secrets Act, the force said.

Actor Hugh Grant, who has become one of the most high-profile figures to campaign against phone hacking and media intrusion of privacy, on Sunday condemned police efforts to force journalists to disclose confidential sources, saying Scotland Yard's decision was "worrying and deeply mysterious".

Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster, the party's culture spokesman, also on Sunday said Grieve should use his discretion to rule that invoking the Official Secrets Act was not in the public interest.

"I understand the attorney general has the opportunity to use this power," Foster told the Guardian. "He should use it and say this is not in the public interest."

Lawyers from around the world attending an international legal conference in London on media legislation condemned the Metropolitan police's resort to the Official Secrets Act.

Lord Lester, the Liberal Democrat peer who was addressing the conference, said that it seemed to be "an abuse of the Official Secrets Act" to use it to force journalists to hand over information unless "unless there's an overwhelming public interest to the contrary".

He added: "I'm not aware of that overwhelming public interest in this case. I hope the Metropolitan police will reconsider."

Lord Lester said it reminded him of past governments' resorting to the Official Secrets Act in such prominent cases as the Crossman diaries (where an attempt was made to prevent publication of cabinet conversations) and the Spycatcher revelations.

Sandra Baron, director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York, which organised the London conference, said: "The use of the Official Secrets Act against a newspaper is going to result in a miscarriage of justice.

"The act has no basis for being used against a newspaper, particularly one that has been serving the public interest to such a degree. Why would it ever be thought that it was in the public interest to muzzle or intimidate the media?"

Dave Heller, also of the Media Law Resource Center, added: "I would have thought that the Official Secrets Act was to do with national security and state secrets … not leaks of police information. It's quite absurd."

Matt Woodley, a media lawyer from Edmonton, Canada, said that use of the Official Secrets Act "seemed to be a very strong-armed tactic".

"It's very draconian. What it will do is make sources more reluctant to come forward and speak to journalists," he added. "It will create a sense that they are not protected so that stories which should be revealed will not come out."

The London media lawyer Caroline Kean said: "I don't think they should be prosecuting the Guardian. I think it's outrageous.

"They must be using it because they don't think there's any other power that will give them such a remedy. They must be using it to prevent other leaks. It does seem extraordinarily draconian."

Robin Shaw, a solicitor from Davenport Lyons which acts for Private Eye, was surprised at reference to the Official Secrets Act. "It's difficult to see what would be the basis for this," he said. "The law gives a lot of protection to journalists' sources … Perhaps it's to frighten others off.

"This is the first time they have sought to use [the Official Secrets Act] for quite a long time, particularly the police. They would have to have a really strong case to have any chance of success."

Jean-Yves Dupeux, a media lawyer from Lussan et Associes in Paris, said he did not think the police's attempt to force the Guardian to reveal its sources would succeed in the European courts.

"It's contrary to article 10 of the human rights convention," he maintained. "Perhaps it might work in something very important like a terrorist or human trafficking case, but not [against] journalists for phone hacking."

Mark Harty, a barrister who specialises in media cases in Dublin, said that in Ireland using such legal tactics to force journalists to reveal their sources were unlikely to be tried. "The Guardai [police] wouldn't try it," he said. "They have attempted on occasions to muscle people but they have been very easily rebuffed. Government ministers would not have supported it."

Edited September 19, 2011 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

Rupert Murdoch pays Dowlers £3m for phone hacking

The Independent

By Cahal Milmo and James Cusick

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

The family of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler have been offered nearly £3m by Rupert Murdoch's News International as the company tries to draw a line under the single most damaging incident in the phone-hacking scandal.

The huge payout, which The Independent understands is to be divided between Milly's family and charities designated by them, comes after Mr Murdoch held his head in his hands in a meeting with the teenager's parents this summer and repeatedly apologised for the interception of her voicemails by his News of the World.

The revelation in July that the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire accessed Milly's mobile phone on behalf of NOTW after her disappearance in March 2002 – and that messages were deleted from her phone, giving her family false hope that she was still alive – was a tipping point in the hacking saga, unleashing a wave of public anger and revulsion which ultimately forced the closure of the 168-year-old tabloid. The revelation sparked an unprecedented risis in the Murdoch empire. The main principles of the settlement between NI and the Dowler family have been agreed and the package is expected to be finalised in the coming days. It is likely that Mr Murdoch personally approved the payment to the Dowlers.

The cash sum will be divided between damages paid for the distress caused to her parents and sister, and a separate sum for charities chosen by the Dowler family. It is understood that Murdoch will personally sign the £1m cheque for the charities. Following a memorial service for their daughter in 2002, Sally and Bob Dowler set up Milly's Fund, a charity that aimed to promote public safety and was later wound into the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.

The Dowlers will remain core participants in the Leveson inquiry into the media. Mark Lewis, the lawyer representing the Dowlers, was unavailable for comment last night.

The settlement dwarfs other payments made so far in the scandal, including the £100,000 paid to the actress Sienna Miller. NI also paid £700,000 to the footballers' union boss Gordon Taylor in 2008 and £1m to the publicist Max Clifford last year.

The settlement with the Dowlers, who this summer saw former bouncer Levi Bellfield convicted of Milly's murder, means the total cost to NI of paying damages to victims is almost certain to significantly exceed the £20m the company set aside to meet the burgeoning number of High Court lawsuits against it.

News International has said it will offer settlements in all cases where it is accepted that there is evidence of phone hacking and is claimed to be tabling higher payments in return for the signing of a confidentiality clause by some victims.

A spokeswoman for the company said yesterday: "News International confirms it is in advanced negotiations with the Dowler family regarding their compensation settlement. No final agreement has yet been reached, but we hope to conclude the discussions as quickly as possible."

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has been a vociferous campaigner on the issue, said: "There were other families of crime victims targeted by News International. News Corp shareholders were told that cleaning up the hacking cases would cost £20m in the civil courts. This settlement shows the final cost to shareholders will be considerably more than that. There will be questions to answer at the News Corp AGM next month."

Chris Bryant, the Labour MP and one of the named litigants coming before Mr Justice Vos in January, said: "It the least they could do in the circumstances. Let us remember that News International have known all along that News of the World hacked into Milly Dowler's phone and deleted messages which led her family to believe their daughter was still alive. That is playing God with people's lives."

The transformation of the phone-hacking scandal from a story about gathering gossip on celebrities to a firestorm about how Britain's biggest newspaper group interfered with a police investigation into the murder of a child was a nadir for Mr Murdoch. He requested a private meeting with Milly's parents and her sister Gemma at which he repeatedly told them he was "very, very sorry". Mr Lewis, speaking at the time, said: "He was very humbled and very shaken and very sincere. I don't think somebody could have held their head in their hands so many times and say that they were sorry."

The Independent Police Complaints Commission last month launched an investigation into claims that a detective with Surrey Police passed information from the Dowler murder hunt to the NOTW.

How the case unfolded

21 March 2002

Milly Dowler, 13, disappears after school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

14 April 2002

The News of the World publishes a first edition story quoting from voicemails left on her mobile phone. The story is changed for later editions.

20 September 2002

Milly's remains are found in woods.

September 2009

News International executives tell MPs phone hacking was an isolated incident, confined to royal editor Clive Goodman.

4 July 2011

A lawyer for the Dowler family reveals their intention to sue NI after The Guardian discloses Milly's phone was targeted and voicemails deleted.

10 July 2011

NI announces the closure of the NOTW, saying "mistakes" have been made.

15 July 2011

Rupert Murdoch meets the Dowlers and repeatedly apologises.

19 September 2011

NI agrees £3m financial settlement with the Dowler family.

[Douglas Caddy]

James Cusick: For those yet to settle, this will be a game-changer

News Corp shareholders may soon be alerted to the legal reality that the damages fund of £20m is woefully short

The Independent

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

The scale of the settlement deal between News International and the Dowler family can be described as game-changing.

NI has previously used its substantial financial muscle to secure confidentiality agreements and out-of-court deals, especially in the private phase of the phone-hacking scandal, when the company was effectively hiding the illegal practices in its newsroom.

Lawyers representing the current queue of civil litigants, now standing at around 30, were not using the earlier NI payments to Gordon Taylor, Sienna Miller and Leslie Ash – all victims of News of the World phone hacking – as the benchmark for what the Murdoch empire was prepared to pay them in settlement.

Most were instead looking to the hearings scheduled for January next year at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Mr Justice Vos has been managing the group of six civil litigants who were expected to be the test cases determining the damages settlements for other victims.

The cases include the actor Jude Law, the Labour MP Chris Bryant, the designer Kelly Hoppen, the former England footballer Paul Gascoigne, the football agent Sky Andrew, and Sheila Henry, whose 26-year-old son died in the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London.

For those whose names were simply found in the archive of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator employed by NOTW, lawyers were expecting nothing like the scale of earlier settlements. The lack of evidence, at least so far, that NOTW used all the numbers, may have contributed to lowering expectations.

News International itself, while expecting the Dowler settlement to be large, had set aside £20m to cover the total costs of damages that were still in the legal pipeline. However the £3m settlement for the Dowler family, which dwarfs earlier deals, sends a powerful signal to those still in the queue. As Tom Watson points out, News Corp shareholders may soon be alerted to the legal reality that the damages fund of £20m is woefully short.

When Mr Justice Vos begins in January, it may not be wrong to assume that NI will have reduced the number of test cases before him. Lawyers for the victims of phone hacking want compensation. In or out of court, it doesn't matter.

Paying seven-figure sums to one family, and seven figures to their designated charities, means that News International may have finally realised that its once-powerful defences are no longer as strong or as sustainable. The flood gates may just have opened.

[John Dolva]

Penny ante by THE Don.

Wonder how it'd go if a mafia crim was buying off witnesses? Would his assets be frozen or anything like that?

[Steve Knight]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8777717/Phone-Hacking-Scotland-Yard-drops-Official-Secrets-Act-bid-against-Guardian.html

Phone Hacking: Scotland Yard drops Official Secrets Act bid against Guardian

The Metropolitan Police has backed down in its attempt to use the Official Secrets Act to force a national newspaper into revealing its journalistic sources.

By Mark Hughes, Crime Correspondent

8:51PM BST 20 Sep 2011

Scotland Yard had intended to take the Guardian newspaper to court on Friday in an attempt to force the newspaper into revealing how it obtained information that missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s mobile phone had been hacked.

However, following discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the force has abandoned its application for production orders against the newspaper.

The decision comes following heavy criticism of the force’s attempt to make the Guardian, and one of its journalists, hand over information which would have revealed the source of many of the newspaper’s phone hacking stories.

Various MPs, including the shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis, questioned the Yard’s attempt. While many national newspapers carried leading articles condemning the Metropolitan Police’s apparent attack on press freedom.

And today the former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith told the Daily Telegraph that the force’s decision to invoke the Official Secrets Act was “unusual” and could threaten press freedom.

The force made the application, which would force the newspaper to hand over material which would identify the source of several phone hacking stories the paper has revealed, on Friday.

But advice from Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, was not sought until Monday afternoon, three days after the application was made. The consent of the DPP is required for most prosecutions under the Official Secrets Act.

The DPP was engaged in discussions with officers from the Metropolitan Police’s professional standards department, the team which made the application for the production order.

Last night a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “The CPS has asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter.

“In addition the Metropolitan Police has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders.”

The order against the Guardian was sought under the police and criminal evidence act, but the application said that potential offences may have been committed under the Official Secrets Act.

A serving detective on Operation Weeting, the Yard’s phone hacking investigation has been arrested on suspicion of leaking information to the newspaper, including the revelation that the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked.

Scotland Yard believe the 51-year-old officer may have breached the Official Secrets Act.

The application for a production order asked that the Guardian, and its reporter Amelia Hill, hand over material which would disclose its sources for the Milly Dowler story and also who provided them with information which allowed it to reveal almost immediately the identities of those arrested in the hacking scandal.

The Scotland yard statement explained that “there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources.”

But it adds: “It is not acceptable for police officers to leak information about any investigation, let alone one as sensitive and high profile as Operation Weeting.”

The force also did not rule out applying for production orders against the newspaper in the future, saying: “This decision does not mean that the investigation has been concluded. This investigation has always been about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that.”

Edit : Quote tag fail.

Edited September 20, 2011 by Steve Knight

[Douglas Caddy]

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011, 7:59 P.M. ET

Justice Seeks Info From News Corp.

The Wall Street Journal

By THOMAS CATAN And DEVLIN BARRETT

U.S. prosecutors have sent News Corp. a letter seeking information about possible payments made by its U.K. tabloid newspapers to British policemen, according to people familiar with the matter.

The letter of request, sent last week, is part of a Justice Department investigation, these people said, into whether the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. law that prohibits companies from bribing foreign officials.

The fact the Justice Department chose to issue a "letter of request" rather than a criminal subpoena suggests the department has opted for a less confrontational approach to the matter, legal experts say.

Several people familiar with the case described the letter as part of ongoing communications between the company and the government about producing documents related to possible violations of U.S. law.

Earlier this year, News Corp. retained Mark Mendelsohn, the Justice Department's former head of FCPA enforcement, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported. During his time at the Justice Department, Mr. Mendelsohn encouraged companies to come clean about suspected FCPA violations in return for more lenient treatment by the government. He allowed many companies to conduct their own internal investigations using outside counsel under Justice Department oversight. Mr. Mendelsohn didn't respond to request for comment.

The existence of the letter was earlier reported by Bloomberg News. Spokeswomen for both News Corp. and the Justice Department declined to comment on the letter. News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

The Justice Department is conducting a separate investigation into allegations by a U.K. tabloid newspaper that a News Corp. publication tried to hack into the telephone accounts of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder met with victims' families who were concerned about the allegations.

Investigators haven't found hard evidence so far in probing whether News Corp.'s U.K.-based journalists might have hacked the phones of 9/11 victims, people familiar with the matter have said.

News Corp. says the kind of phone hacking that allegedly took place at its now-defunct U.K. newspaper News of the World didn't occur in the U.S. In July, a News Corp. spokeswoman said the company had "not seen any evidence to suggest there was any hacking of 9/11 victims' phones, nor has anybody corroborated what are clearly very serious allegations."

There are a number of reasons the Justice Department might ask a company to submit information voluntarily rather than pursuing a criminal subpoena. Legal experts who work on FCPA cases say sending a letter of request is a way to seek information and put a company on notice without alarming shareholders in a case where evidence of wrongdoing isn't clear cut. A company would likely have to notify the Securities and Exchange Commission in a filing if it received a subpoena.

Though responding to the request is theoretically voluntary, it's unlikely that News Corp would choose to ignore it, former Justice Department officials said.

At a parliamentary hearing in 2003, Rebekah Brooks, then editor of The Sun newspaper, admitted to making payments to policemen for stories. "We have paid the police for information in the past," she said, in comments that touched off a raucous debate in Britain.

In a March 2011 letter to a parliamentary committee, Ms. Brooks clarified that, in her 2003 testimony, she had merely intended to comment on the "widely-held belief" that payments had been made in the past to police officers. But she said she had no knowledge of any specific cases.

The company quickly clarified that it wasn't its practice to pay policemen and Ms. Brooks has since changed her stance. At a new set of parliamentary hearings this year, Ms. Brooks said she had never made payments to police, or sanctioned payments, for information.

Ms. Brooks was editor of the News of the World during the time when its reporters were alleged to have hacked into thousands of people's cellphone voice messages. She went on to become chief executive of News Corp.'s British newspaper unit, News International, before resigning in July amid the hacking scandal.

News Corp. is still attempting to settle a stream of lawsuits that have followed the phone hacking revelations. The company's U.K. newspaper unit plans to pay about £3 million ($4.7 million) tied to recent allegations that News of the World hacked the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler in 2002.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: how the Met came to the Guardian looking for evidence

Scotland Yard claimed that that article about Milly Dowler, and others, had been one of a number of 'gratuitous' leaks

By Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 20 September 2011 16.57 EDT

The Milly Dowler phone hacking story prompted the closure of the News of the World, the resignation of Rebekah Brooks and is expected to lead to a near £3m apology payout to the family involved.

Yet, when officers from the Metropolitan police came to the Guardian last week, they offered a different view: that it was not an example of journalism in the public interest, but, in effect, a product of espionage.

The officers demanded evidence – specifically notebooks and other information held by Guardian journalist Amelia Hill, one of the authors of the Milly Dowler story, in an effort to discover its source.

Their claim was that that article, and others about Operation Weeting, the police investigation into phone hacking, had been one of a number of "gratuitous" leaks from the enquiry team.

Indeed, so gratuitous were the leaks that the police demand for evidence indicated they believed there may have been a breach under the Official Secrets Act.

The demand was so unusual that it was not just the Guardian that was scrambling to comprehend the law. The police demand for evidence, a production order under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), came with the allegation that there were breaches of the obscure sections 4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act.

The right to preserve the anonymity of sources is enshrined in law, and there is a public interest defence against a (normal) Pace order. But there is no public interest defence to breaches of the Official Secrets Act. Lawyers have speculated that the almost unprecedented use of section 5 of the Official Secrets Act was to bolster the Met's argument for seizing the reporter's notebooks and records

The results were all too predictable. Last Friday, the Guardian went public, revealing that the police had asked for a court ruling on the legality of the demand this Friday. Remarkably, support for the newspaper was widespread, with trenchant leading articles from the Financial Times and the Daily Mirror, which both recognised the importance of protecting journalistic sources. Meanwhile the Sunday Times, part of Rupert Murdoch's media stable, called on the Met to "call off its legal dogs". Even Richard Littlejohn, the Daily Mail columnist, announced, after advising his readers to "pour yourself a stiff drink", that he was "about to defend the Guardian" in a column.

Politicians swiftly joined in. At their party conference, the Liberal Democrats were quick to voice support; asked by MP Don Foster at a fringe meeting attended by Hugh Grant whether there was a public interest in publishing the Milly Dowler story, every one of the 200 or so hands went up. On Monday, Labour followed suit – and both parties called on politicians or senior officials to intervene. As Fleet Street rallied around and politicians followed, the authorities struggled.

So obscure were Sections 4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act that the office of the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, thought it had the power to review whether a prosecution under the act would be brought if the Guardian refused to comply with the request to produce evidence.

In fact, the power as regards these clauses lies with Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, and it turned out that the police had failed to inform his officials until Monday.

It was unclear, also, whether the new Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, was aware of his officers' threat to use the Official Secrets Act. Only days into his tenure, and the new commissioner suddenly found his force embroiled in an unnecessary controversy over the same issue that had forced the resignation of his predecessor, Sir Paul Stephenson.

Ultimately, it was understood Hogan-Howe was not aware; that the request, it appeared, had come from a relatively junior level – although that did not mitigate the force or importance of the demand.

Under such public pressure, the police decision to retreat is a relief. Through brilliant – or diabolical – legalism, the Met appeared to find a way to tear up the rights of journalists to protect their sources.

That the Met chose not to proceed might deny a judge the chance to rule on a test case, but it is better to avoid setting a precedent if that precedent would have had the effect of putting every whistleblower from the public sector at risk of exposure, because they could be deemed to have breached the Official Secrets Act.