Report: UK tabloid hacked into voicemails

[seemslikeadream]

GOOD MORNING BRITAIN

I LOVE THE SMELL OF ARRESTS IN THE MORNING

[blanc]

Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Fedorcio, who has had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the News of the World. In March Marunchak was named by BBC Panorama as the News of the World executive who hired a specialist to plant a Trojan on the computer of a former British intelligence officer, Ian Hurst.

Rees and Fillery were eventually arrested and charged in relation to the murder of Morgan. Charges against both men were later dropped, although Rees was convicted of plotting to plant cocaine on a woman so that her ex-husband would get custody of their children, and Fillery was convicted of possessing indecent images of children.

from the guardian article linked above http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/ju ... kah-brooks

During the NotW campaign following the Sarah Payne case, when they asked for info on paedophile crime, I was with a victim of r.a. while she telephoned them. To say the response of the journalist taking the call was inappropriate would be an understatement. Another survivor, on a different occasion, referred to this paper as satanic.

The quote above - 2 men, suspects in a murder, supported by illegal actions by NotW approved of by at least an assistant editor and defended by Brooks, who couldn't be upset in case the working relationship she had with the Met's media man went squiffy, were each convicted of offences which may not have been entirely unrelated, one of offences of a paedophile nature, the other of using criminal means to try to help someone to get custody of his children. 3 men who were obviously close associates then. And a paper which had way too much power, if they could interfere with a criminal investigation and warn off senior police personnel when they complained about it.



Unrelated to these comments, Hugh Grant has shot up in my estimation.

[gnosticheresy_2]

Hugh has a point. The media (both broadsheets & tabloids) is/are full of hacks & spooks.

Re the phone hacking shenanigans. It has not been mentioned at all that this 'phone-hacking' case first aired on 10th August 2006 ("News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman was charged in relation to phone taps of the royal family"), but, guess what, any further investigation of this story was gone the very next day (Friday 11th August 2006) - the day that the Airline Liquid Explosive alleged 'plot' broke (evening of 10th August).

Now what bigger story of a 'victim' of phone hacking than Royal Prince Charles? But note how the royal story sank then & how it is not mentioned now, however the mention of 7/7 victims family members airs on the 7/7 anniversary.

I don't doubt for a minute that the majority of print media in the UK is hopelessly compromised, what I do have issues with is some spurious notion that the entire HUGE catastrofuck that's going on at the moment is somehow to obstruct or confuse the anniversary of 7/7 when the far more relevant date in relation to this story is today 8/7/2011* as anyone who'd done more than a cursory examination would realise.

That's 8th July not 7th August for people who insist on putting the month first. Weirdos

[gnosticheresy_2]

ffs, this story is moving a supersonic speeds, I'd hardly made that post when this popped up:

Phone hacking: Police probe suspected deletion of emails by NI executive

• 'Massive quantities' of archive allegedly deleted
• Emails believed to be between News of the World editors

Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.

The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International.

According to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted 'massive quantities' of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a small fraction to be disclosed. One of the alleged deletions is said to have been made at the end of January this year, just as Scotland Yard was launching Operation Weeting, its new inquiry into the affair.

The allegation directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering. It is likely to be seen as evidence that the company could not pass a 'fit and proper person' test for its proposed purchase of BSkyB.

A Guardian investigation has found that, in addition to deleting emails, the company has also:

• infuriated police by leaking sensitive information in spite of an undertaking to police that they would keep it confidential; and

• risked prosecution for perverting the course of justice by trying to hide the contents of a senior reporter's desk after he was arrested by Weeting detectives in April.

News International originally claimed that the archive of emails did not exist. Last December, their Scottish editor, Bob Bird, told the trial of Tommy Sheridan in Glasgow that the emails had been lost en route to Mumbai. Also in December, the company's solicitor, Julian Pike from Farrer and Co, provided the High Court with a statement claiming that they were unable to retrieve emails which were more than six months old.

The first hint that this was not true came in late January when News International handed Scotland Yard evidence which led to the immediate sacking of their news editor, Ian Edmondson, and to the launch of Operation Weeting. It was reported at the time that this evidence consisted of three old emails.

Three months later, on 23 March this year, Julian Pike formally apologised to the High Court and acknowledged that News International could locate emails as far back as 2005 and that no emails had ever been lost en route to Mumbai or anywhere else in India. In a signed statement seen by the Guardian, Pike said he had been misinformed by the News of the World's in-house lawyer, Tom Crone, who had told him that he, too, had been misled. He offered no explanation for the misleading evidence given by Bob Bird.

The original archive was said to contain half a terabyte of data - equivalent to 500 editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica. But police now believe that there was an effort to substantially destroy the archive before News International handed over their new evidence in January. They believe they have identified the executive responsible by following an electronic audit trail. They have attempted to retrieve the data which they fear was lost. The Crown Prosecution Service are believed to have been asked whether the executive can be charged with perverting the course of justice.

At the heart of the affair is a specialist data company, Essential Computing, based in Clevedon, near Bristol. Staff there have been interviewed by Operation Weeting. One source speculated that it was this company which had compelled News International to admit that the archive existed.

The Guardian understands that Essential Computing has co-operated with police and has provided evidence about an alleged attempt by the News International executive to destroy part of the archive while they were working with it. This is said to have happened after the executive discovered that the company retained material of which News International was unaware.


The alleged deletion has caused tension between News International and Scotland Yard, who are also angry over recent leaks. When the Murdoch company handed over evidence of their journalists' involvement in bribing police officers in late June, they wanted to make a public announcement, claiming credit for their assistance to police. They were warned that this would interfere with inquiries and finally agreed that they would keep the entire matter confidential until early August, to allow police to make arrests. In the event, this week, a series of leaks has led Scotland Yard to conclude that News International breached the agreement.

There was friction, too, in April when Weeting detectives arrested a senior journalist, James Weatherup. When they went to the News of the World's office to search his desk, they found that all of its contents had been removed and lodged with a firm of solicitors, who initially refused to hand it over. The solicitors eventually complied. A file is believed to have been sent to the Crown Prosecution service seeking advice on whether anybody connected with the incident should be charged.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/ju ... ernational

[MacCruiskeen]

One of the best things I've read about this whole repulsive affair is this, from the excellent sturdyblog - and I recommend reading it at source and following the numerous embedded links):


An Autopsy of The News of The World Affair

http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/07 ... ld-affair/

July 8, 2011


It is terribly unfair how most of us seem to have made up our minds about the Murdoch Press. The serious allegations against the News of The World have not yet been proven. Our reaction was quite unreasonable and disproportionate. It was based on accusation and innuendo. We decided to go on a witch-hunt before the ordinary processes of justice had run their course.

But here is the delicious irony: we have been conditioned to behave like this by the Murdoch Press.

Only a couple of days ago, the Attorney General made representations in the High Court seeking a ruling of contempt against tabloid publications, including The Sun, over the vilification of Chris Jefferies in the Joanna Yeates murder – hung, drawn and quartered before he was even charged. The Murdoch empire has been absolutely instrumental in establishing a climate of sensationalism which has taken hold of much of this country’s media in the last few decades. Their hacks are always among the first alligators at any given feeding frenzy; among the first sharks to catch the scent of blood of the unionist, the depressed, the eccentric, the immigrant or the homo and sink their teeth in. They lived by the sword and they died by the sword.

I have some sympathy with the 200 individual workers who have lost their jobs. However, they are a small drop in an ocean of the many thousands of workers being laid off by a government that News International helped elect – and bragged about having done so. And again, I find a healthy dose of irony in the editors of The Sun walking out in support of their colleagues, having attacked every single legitimate strike in the last 30 years as extremist, leftie posturing.

I have even less sympathy with arguments that the demise of the News of The World is a loss to press pluralism. The absence of this Jordan-obsessed rag is as much a loss to pluralism as the throwing away of last week’s shopping list is a loss to literature. In any case, I am certain we shall be able to glean the Murdochs’ take on current affairs from their remaining three publications (as well as the soon-to-emerge Sun on Sunday – the relevant web domains having been registered two days ago).

The idea is propagated that Rupert Murdoch is sitting in a swivel-chair somewhere, deep within his Bond-villain lair, stroking a white cat. He is shrewd. He is cunning. He is a foreigner. He should not be allowed to control such a large slice of our media. This is as obvious and solid a notion, as it is lazy and convenient. It obfuscates the real issue, which is that nobody – no entity, no one person, no corporation - nobody should hold such power.

This is why the government must now act to stop the proposed takeover of BSkyB. Do not be side-tracked by their protestations that it is up to OfCom to decide whether the license-holders are fit and proper persons. It is a red herring. It can be side-stepped by the appointment of a different, more palatable figurehead. The real grounds and the real decision belong to the Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt. He had originally stated that he was minded to refer the matter to the Competition Commission. News Corp then gave certain assurances. When assessing those assurances he stated:

“Some respondents also argued that News Corp could not be relied upon to abide by the requirements set out in the undertakings, citing previous guarantees and assurances given by News in the past, and the current phone hacking allegations against The News of the World. I have taken the view that News have offered serious undertakings and discussed them in good faith… whilst the phone hacking allegations are very serious they were not material to my consideration.“

Those assurances are still under consideration. In the light of recent revelations his position on their validity is untenable. Any assurances given by that organisation are not worth the smudgy, cheap paper they are printed on.

Rupert Murdoch took a massive risk yesterday. He needed to create some storm defences. He cynically decided to place them at a level where the blameless would be swept away and the culpable would be protected. His gamble was calculated to prevent cross-contamination of his other brands and, most crucially, to keep the proposed BSkyB takeover dry. I think he has failed in two significant ways:

Firstly, he has created an army of as many as 200 disgruntled whistle-blowers. The hope that not a single editor or journalist will have come across a document or email which implicates those responsible is naive. Watch out for leak after leak and revelation after revelation.

Secondly, he has removed the physical target for the public’s anger, without removing the guilty parties. The inevitable result is that the public’s anger will be directed upwards to News International – the organisation which now seeks to shelter the guilty. And they are guilty. Which ever way one looks at the matter they are guilty. At best they are guilty of gross incompetence – if one were to accept their ludicrous argument that they had no idea of the systemic immoral and illegal practices which took place under their watchful eye. At worst, they are the source of the infection.

And when I talk about “the guilty”, I very much include our glorious Prime Minister. All evidence points to Cameron having made a pre-election deal with Murdoch. Granted this evidence is circumstantial. But then again an apple falling from a tree is only circumstantial evidence of gravity. Make up your own mind:

As Leader of the Opposition he flew to a Greek island and met with Murdoch. Immediately afterwards he started announcing a variety of policies beneficial to the mogul’s interests, including downsizing OfCom and abolishing the BBC Trust. News Corp then delayed launching their takeover bid until a change of government. The moment Cameron was in office, Murdoch was one of the first people he saw at number 10. As recently as this spring he wrote columns for the News of The World, condemning the evils of regulation. As recently as a month ago he made a private speech at Murdoch’s Headquarters. As recently as Wednesday’s PMQs he stood by his decision to hire the beleaguered Andy Coulson as his PR guru. He also refused to call for the resignation of his horse-riding partner and gracious dinner hostess, Rebekah Brooks (aka Wade).



Rebekah… Like the similarly named heroine of the Daphne du Maurier novel and the Hitchcock film adaptation, her presence always felt – causing fire, destruction and mischief – but never actually there. Never actually at fault, it seems. During the Milly Dowler disappearance, and the hacking of her phone, she was apparently away. That’s right. The biggest story, the front-page story of that and many more weeks and the editor of the paper did not communicate with the employees working on it. Nothing odd about that. She was also away for the two weeks following the murders of the Soham girls. Apparently. She also knew nothing about payments to the police. Even though she said she did in front of the Parliamentary Committee, before Mrs Danvers steps in to “correct her”.

I believe, that the News of the World hacking scandal is the best thing that could have happened to the media sector in the UK; a truly serendipitous event. If we learn lessons from it, there is no doubt in my mind that this country will be better and freer. But we must learn the right lessons.

The truth is Rupert Murdoch’s empire is a product of our times; a Thatcherite dream of entrepreneurship. Capitalism is a primarily male construct and so, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is preoccupied with size. What the last few days prove is something that a significant and growing school of political and economic science has been arguing: size presents opportunities for efficiencies and economies of scale and scope, up to a point. Beyond that point it produces crude oil cartels that price-fix; banks that are too big to fail; corporations that hoard food securities to the detriment of the starving; telecom giants that refuse to pay tax; media conglomerates which bribe officials for information and openly state that they control the outcomes of elections. In short, entities so large as to think they can operate outside ordinary ethical and legal constraints.

It is up to us to stop them. And the biggest, the most gloriously positive lesson of the last few days is this: With a few gutsy politicians like Chris Bryant and Tom Watson, a few driven journalists, a few doggedly determined bloggers and a public that is sick to the back teeth of being treated like idiots, we can.

http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/07 ... ld-affair/

[coffin_dodger]

"BBC Radio Five Live is reporting that the offices of the Daily Star have been raided by police."

Can't be sure if the the police are there to arrest someone... or assist with shredding of certain documents.

[seemslikeadream]

[seemslikeadream]

Murdoch's American Sins: Less Sensational, But More Dangerous
Posted: 7/7/11

For more than three decades, as global press baron Rupert Murdoch amassed more and more power over both the journalism and the politics of the Western world -- usually to the detriment of both -- the question lingered in the air. What, if anything, could possibly bring down the empire of this turn-of-the-millennium Citizen-Kane-without-the-sled, a man who seemingly had the power to pick American presidents and collected British prime ministers as easily as Wingo cards on the way to fame and billions of dollars?

Now, not long after Murdoch celebrated his 80th birthday, we may finally know the answer.

It wasn't the years of influence trading on a global scale, but his paper's ruthless treatment of a murdered 13-year-old and her family.

That's always the way, isn't it? The stunning news today is that Murdoch is shutting down his reportedly most lucrative publication, the sleazy British News of the World tabloid, in the wake of a phone hacking scandal marked by intercepting messages left for the slain girl, Milly Dowler, in a way that impeded the police probe and gave her parents false hope she was still alive. The power of the scandal seemed a fitting a bookend to a week in which we debated what kind of news pushes our buttons -- and why.

It was only Tuesday here in America that a nation staggering from a years of a high unemployment -- with a crisis of governmental gridlock looming -- stopped to absorb every detail of a lurid Florida murder case -- and that shouldn't surprise anyone: It's as easy to get emotionally wrenched by the death of an adorable 2-year-old and the flaunting of bad motherhood as it's hard to wrap yourself around the true meaning of $14 trillion, or understand why there are no new jobs in America anymore.

Viewers prefer human dramas involving total strangers over the ideological debates that affect our actual lives; likewise, journalists crave these simpler morality plays of good and evil -- where the facts are smaller yet objectively provable or disprovable -- over the ever-so-complicated big picture. In American politics, we saw a president impeached for lying about an extramarital affair of no national import, while no punishment even close to that was seriously discussed for his successor who invaded a sovereign nation under false pretenses, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

And so now it's the simple memory of a slain Brtitish teenaged girl -- with the added shock that family members of casualties in that Iraq War and in Afghanistan were also phone-hacked, and reports of police officers taking bribes from journalists -- that brings the world's largest media empire to the edge of the abyss.

Right now, there's still a big disconnect between the uproar over the Murdoch empire in Great Britain -- salacious, tabloid-style crimes committed by tabloid journalists -- and closer scrutiny of the press baron's operation in the United States, which in addition to the highly profitable Fox television network also includes the politically influential Fox News Channel, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post among its outlets.

I would argue there's no disconnect at all.

There are important differences but also key similarities between the way that Murdoch -- an Australian by birth who amassed a lot of a fortune first in the UK and finally in America, where he is now a citizen -- does business on either side of the Atlantic. The common denominator is a seamless rinse-repeat cycle of using his media power to gain political influence and then using that influence to gain greater wealth. In England, the dirty tricks and apparent lawbreaking of The News of the World helped Murdoch on the wealth side by selling lots of newspapers with scoops about racy murders and celebrity gossip -- but it's less clear how that pseudo-journalism mucked up the nation's broader politics.

In the U.S. of A., it's a different story, and it cannot be understated. Here, Murdoch's sins were less sensational -- but more important, arguably a matter of life and death on some stories. With his most audacious move, the invention of the Fox News Channel, Murdoch and his minions created a vortex of misinformation and emotion draped in an American flag that changed a nation's politics for the worse. That affects a lot more people than phone hacking, no matter how heartless that was.

Murdoch had help from brilliant, cynical aides on both sides of the pond. In England, it was the massively ethically challenged, wild-eyed redhead Rebekah Brooks; in America, it is the frumpy and grumpy Roger Ailes, the only man to run the Fox News Channel since it was launched in the mid-1990s. As recent documents have shown, Ailes -- who learned the American conservative politics of middle-class resentment at the foot of the master, Richard Nixon -- was long involved in a scheme for a conservative TV counterweight to the so-called "liberal media." But it took the arrival of Murdoch years later to execute the plan with the vision that a conservative cable news network could make millions in profits while wielding influence on a scale that a "Headless Body in Topless Bar" newspaper could only dream of.

But Ailes and Murdoch -- with a typical disregard for the consequences -- created a monster as their FNC grew in popularity over the course of the 2000s. They held onto to their millions of viewers by playing to their emotions, and to what they felt was true about America -- regardless of whether it was actually true. Over the years, misinformed Fox viewers wielded more and more clout over a directionless Republican Party that in turn drove the U.S. body politic, with disastrous consequences.

You want examples?

Iraq and the war on terrorism: America's misguided "pre-emptive war" in the oil-rich Persian Gulf would not have been possible unless the 9/11 attacks and a response to terrorism became conflated with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which for all its horrors had nothing to do with the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Fox News Channel, and its parade of GOP-talking-point infused hosts and military "experts," helped to make sure that wrongful conflation took place, as later evidence proved.

A 2003 poll by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks found that regular Fox News viewers were significantly more likely than other news consumers to believe one of three significant falsehoods about the Iraq war -- that Iraq was somehow connected to 9/11, that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, or that global opinion was in favor of the war. These jingoistic myths -- most heavily adopted by Fox viewers -- fueled years of continued fighting in a war in which thousands of Americans and Iraqi civilians died needlessly.

Climate change: It's hard to believe in 2011, but there was a time a few years ago when a majority of Republicans, just like a majority of all Americans, believed that man-made global warming was real and needed to be addressed in some fashion. That was before a parade of global warming skeptics and outright deniers on Fox News Channel -- a development that was actually encouraged by FNC top management. Most famously, FNC's Washington bureau chief wrote in a December 2009 memo " we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."

In recent years, Fox News Channel has found a variety of ways to spread misinformation and outright lies about the state of the world's climate -- claiming, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that the world is actually cooling -- and the plan has worked. A majority of Republicans now believe that climate change theories endorsed by 90 percent of the world's leading climatologists are a hoax, and more importantly, so do the political leaders they elect. Fox-fueled opposition scuttled what appeared to be momentum for climate change legislation in Washington, even as the planet records its hottest years on record and predictions of future food shortages and natural disasters grow more dire.

The 2010 elections: The right-wing tide that changed the direction of Congress last November was powered by a large turnout of conservative voters, who once again -- as research showed -- were misinformed on the issues if their primary source of information was Fox News. It started with what the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking outfit Politifact called its Lie of the Year for 2010 -- the reporting on Fox News that President Obama's health care plan was "a government takeover" of the system.

But that was just one area where Fox News viewers had bad info, according to a new report (PDF) by the Program on International Policy Attitudes; this study found that FNC watchers were much more likely to think that their taxes went up (they were cut in 2009 for most Americans) or that health care reform increases the deficit (it lowers it) or that Obama was possibly not born in the United States.

There's more, but I think you get the idea. Meanwhile, misinformed Fox viewers are the tail wagging the dog of American politics; just ask the now former South Carolina congressman who had the nerve to criticize the then-popular, now-departed FNC host Glenn Beck before his 2010 primary defeat. Increasingly, it's impossible to tell where Fox News stops and the Republican Party begins, which is why it wasn't surprising to hear that FNC's Ailes even lobbied a would-be candidate, New Jersey's Chris Christie, to enter the 2012 White House race. Did Ailes think that would be good for the country or good for ratings?

That's the kind of ethical question that doesn't get asked any more at Murdoch's Fox News Channel than it was asked at Murdoch's News of the World. But the stakes in this country -- endless wars, looming environmental disasters, lousy policies that are leaving America mired in economic despair -- are far greater. So if you are outraged tonight by what the Murdoch empire was up to in Great Britain all these years -- and you should be -- than you should be doubly outraged by what they've pulled off here.

The only real question for America is what are we going to do about Rupert Murdoch now?

[Stephen Morgan]

"BBC Radio Five Live is reporting that the offices of the Daily Star have been raided by police."

Can't be sure if the the police are there to arrest someone... or assist with shredding of certain documents.

The Star isn't a Murdoch paper, so it may be an attempt to shift some of the attention away from the Met's underworld friends as Murdoch HQ.

[gnosticheresy_2]

"BBC Radio Five Live is reporting that the offices of the Daily Star have been raided by police."

Can't be sure if the the police are there to arrest someone... or assist with shredding of certain documents.

The Star isn't a Murdoch paper, so it may be an attempt to shift some of the attention away from the Met's underworld friends as Murdoch HQ.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/20 ... l#block-62

STATEMENT FROM THE DAILY STAR SUNDAY:

"Scotland Yard today sought the help of the Daily Star Sunday as they investigated allegations of Police corruption involving the News of the World and its former Royal Editor Clive Goodman.

They confirmed they were similarly carrying out these routine checks at all places where Mr Goodman has worked as a freelance since he left the News of the World.

Officers formally requested any-and-all computer material that Goodman had been involved with during his occasional shifts as a freelance reporter at the paper over the last year to cross-check it with his activities in his News of the World role.

They were particularly interested to check Mr Goodman's current email contacts to cross-match them with those from his time at the News of the World.

There was no suggestion whatsoever that Mr Goodman had acted improperly during his occasional shifts at the Daily Star Sunday, and we can confirm that no payments of any kind were ever made by the newspaper to Clive Goodman contacts.

After requesting the Daily Star Sunday's help, Police were invited to visit the newspaper's offices where they were provided with a copy of all Mr Goodman's computer activity.
The three officers were similarly invited to examine any desk where Mr Goodman may have sat during shifts. They left after approximately two hours with a disc of Mr Goodman's computer activity.

For the record, the Daily Star Sunday has never carried, and has never been accused of carrying, any story that might have stemmed from phone-hacking."

[gnosticheresy_2]

edit: double post

[hanshan]

...

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/rebekah-brooks-must-know-some-serious-shit-201107084049/

Rebekah Brooks must know some serious shit


08-07-11

REBEKAH Brooks is clearly keeping the Murdochs out of jail, it has emerged.



Image
Last seen being bundled into a Range Rover near Wapping tube station
As James Murdoch closed the most successful newspaper in the western world rather than sack a devious harpie, experts said that harpie must have some weapons-grade shit up her sleeve.

Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: "Jesus fucking Christ, they must have killed a tramp."

The News of the World will be axed on Sunday, followed a day later by Brooks returning to work at a desk that is obviously filled with grisly secrets.

And today Brooks' former protegé Andy Coulson will be arrested and charged with not wearing a disguise and following James and Rupert Murdoch when they went on one of their late night, East End killing sprees.

Martin Bishop, media analyst at Madeley-Finnegan, said: "No-one was calling for the paper to be closed, apart from the usual Twitter monkeys. If they had sacked Brooks and waved a batch of former executives off to prison, then slowly but surely things would have returned to normal, what with the British public being, you know, idiots.

"I reckon there's a refrigerated dungeon full of Brazilian kids and Rupert eats a fresh one every day."

Meanwhile accountants raised the possibility that the whole thing is just an elaborate tax dodge.

Despite the Murdochs' effort to draw a line under calling their Sunday tabloid journalism the News of the World, tax experts caught the faint whiff of financial genius.

Helen Archer, from Porter, Pinkney and Turner, said: "I would not be surprised if Rupert Murdoch invented phone hacking after discovering a loophole which allows you to save hundreds of millions of pounds if you shut down a newspaper based on outrage.

"And even though they pay fuck all tax anyway, a good accountant can always get you a refund."

But Professor Brubaker added: "Nah, I reckon it's got something to do with a grainy photo of some oiled teenage boys, forming a human pyramid."

...

[hanshan]

...

Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Fedorcio, who has had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the News of the World. In March Marunchak was named by BBC Panorama as the News of the World executive who hired a specialist to plant a Trojan on the computer of a former British intelligence officer, Ian Hurst.

Rees and Fillery were eventually arrested and charged in relation to the murder of Morgan. Charges against both men were later dropped, although Rees was convicted of plotting to plant cocaine on a woman so that her ex-husband would get custody of their children, and Fillery was convicted of possessing indecent images of children.

from the guardian article linked above http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/ju ... kah-brooks

During the NotW campaign following the Sarah Payne case, when they asked for info on paedophile crime, I was with a victim of r.a. while she telephoned them. To say the response of the journalist taking the call was inappropriate would be an understatement. Another survivor, on a different occasion, referred to this paper as satanic.

The quote above - 2 men, suspects in a murder, supported by illegal actions by NotW approved of by at least an assistant editor and defended by Brooks, who couldn't be upset in case the working relationship she had with the Met's media man went squiffy, were each convicted of offences which may not have been entirely unrelated, one of offences of a paedophile nature, the other of using criminal means to try to help someone to get custody of his children. 3 men who were obviously close associates then. And a paper which had way too much power, if they could interfere with a criminal investigation and warn off senior police personnel when they complained about it..

the elephant in the room (paedophile connection)


...

[Harvey]

I was gutted when MP Vince Cable (a good guy amongst a nest of vipers) was honeytrapped by the tabloids .

More than likely he was led into his ill advised loquaciousness by his own colleagues. I thought at the time that it was a trange stumble for such an experienced politician, off the record comments to a bunch of hacks? Really? Having scorched his own impartiality, on the record, it was a clear indication that Murdoch had the blessing of Cameron and Clegg to acquire BSkyB.

Which he will in due course.

[Searcher08]

I was gutted when MP Vince Cable (a good guy amongst a nest of vipers) was honeytrapped by the tabloids .

More than likely he was led into his ill advised loquaciousness by his own colleagues. I thought at the time that it was a trange stumble for such an experienced politician, off the record comments to a bunch of hacks? Really?

It was in the context of the hacks posing as constituents visiting his MP surgery.

I like Vince (he is my local MP) - he is not exciting, he works hard, is dedicated to what he does, and lives local.