Report: UK tabloid hacked into voicemails

[Stephen Morgan]

Thank God it was Craig Murray, and not David Icke who picked up on this. Otherwise people might dismiss him as a raving lunatic.

Yeah, I'm sure they'll take him completely seriously.

[dbcooper41]

Ms. Nova, who is 46 and is based in New York, is a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School who has been with the company since 1997.

if i'm reading this filing correctly as of june 20-2011 ms nova owned zero stock in news corporation.
as an officer of the company for 15 years does this seem unusual? did she own any previously which she dumped for some reason?

http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/insider/InsiderFilings.jsp?tkr=NWS&fid=1524062

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/17/style/weddings-janet-lapidus-and-kenneth-nova.html

Janet Beth Lapidus, a daughter of Ruth and Sidney Lapidus of Harrison, N.Y., was married last evening to Kenneth Mark Nova, a son of Lois Nova of Tenafly, N.J., and the late Dr. Harvey Nova. Rabbi Amiel Wohl officiated at the Pierre in New York.
Mrs. Nova, 31, is a vice president and an associate general counsel, in New
York, with the marketing and publishing groups of News America, the United
States subsidiary of the News Corporation. She graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and received her law degree from Columbia University.
Her father is a managing director in the venture capital department at E. M.
Warburg, Pincus & Company, the investment concern in New York. Her mother is the first vice president of the board of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic in White Plains.
Mr. Nova, 34, was until late last year a director of new business development at Random House, the publishing company in New York. He graduated from Tufts University and received a master's degree in management from Northwestern University. His mother retired as an English instructor at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, N.J. His father was the chief of neurosurgery at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, N.J.

[JackRiddler]

.

Fascinating look at the history of the Murdoch dynasty dating back to WWI:

http://counterpunch.org/page07182011.html

[Joe Hillshoist]

Reminds me of Operation Kratos, the Met's shoot-to-kill policy that resulted in the slaughter of Jean Charles de Menezes. The word kratos means 'power', 'strength' or 'rule', and Kratos was one of the gods who helped chain Prometheus (the rebel) to the rock.

Not to mention the psycho lead character in God of War.

[seemslikeadream]

Could Murdoch’s News Corp be behind Climategate too?

by Joseph Romm

19 Jul 2011 6:46 PM

Rupert Murdoch.Rupert Murdoch.Photo: World Economic ForumThere have been countless independent investigations into the scientists whose emails were hacked in November 2009. And the scientists have been (quietly) vindicated every time.

But we still don't know who hacked the emails! And now we know that one of the key investigative bodies tasked with tracking down the hackers -- Scotland Yard -- was compromised at the time.

How were they compromised? Neil Wallis -- the former News of the World executive editor -- became a "£1,000 ($1,613) a day" consultant to Scotland Yard in October 2009. Last week, he became the ninth person arrested in the metastasizing News Corporation scandal "on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to section 1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977."

Certainly Wallis had plenty of motive to join Scotland Yard just to keep an eye on the investigation into the phone-hacking scandal. Indeed, The New York Times reports Wallis "was reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case." But this also suggests how corrupt Wallis was -- and how corrupted Scotland Yard was.

In the light of the News Corp phone-hacking scandal, it is clear that Murdoch's outfit had means, motive, and opportunity for the Climategate email hacking. News Corp certainly has a history of defaming climate scientists and a penchant for hacking.

Indeed, in this country, a division of News Corp had a federal case brought against it for "hacking its way into Floorgraphics's password protected computer system." The complaint said News America had "illegally accessed plaintiff's computer system and obtained proprietary information" and "disseminated false, misleading and malicious information about the plaintiff." Sounds familiar, no?

After a few days of testimony, News Corp "settled with Floorgraphics for $29.5 million and then, days later, bought it, even though it reportedly had sales of less than $1 million." This behavior simply wasn't a big shock to News Corp.

So News Corp would obviously now be on the top of anybody's short list of possible suspects in the Climategate hacking. At the same time, we now know things were so cozy between News Corp, Wallis, and Scotland Yard that it is hard to believe News Corp would have been thoroughly investigated for Climategate, if they were investigated at all.

How cozy? Staff at News Corp's News of the World tabloid apparently routinely paid off members of the Metropolitan Police Service, aka Scotland Yard -- payments that were "condoned" by then-editor Andy Coulson, who later became chief spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron.

How cozy? The Guardian dropped this bombshell Friday: "Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis." Scotland Yard shilling for News Corp? I don't think people would have believed this had they seen it in a blockbuster movie.

How cozy? As The New York Times explains, the Yard hardly investigated the phone hacking scandal, ignoring mountains of evidence for years.

And then we have the social coziness:

Executives and others at the company also enjoyed close social ties to Scotland Yard's top officials. Since the hacking scandal began in 2006, Mr. Yates [the assistant commissioner] and others regularly dined with editors from News International papers, records show. Sir Paul Stephenson, the police commissioner, met for meals 18 times with company executives and editors during the investigation, including on eight occasions with Mr. Wallis while he was still working at The News of the World ...

Just after Christmas last year Sir Paul recovered from surgery at a Champneys Spa in Hertfordshire, and his $19,000 bill was paid by a friend, the spa's managing partner, Sky News reported. Sir Paul learned Saturday that Mr. Wallis had worked as a public-relations consultant for the spa ...

So I think it is quite safe to say that it is unlikely Scotland Yard pursued any serious investigation into the possibility that News Corp was involved in Climategate.

Now, it is entirely possible that News Corp wasn't involved. But there is no way of knowing until we get a thorough and independent investigation.

Here's one more astrological coincidence of the highest order: In October 2009, Wallis became a senior consultant to Outside Organisation -- a PR firm and crisis management agency, which ... wait for it ... "was used by the [University of East Anglia] following the Climategate scandal."

What's funny is that if you go over to the denier sites, like Climate Audit, the hiring of Wallis's firm by the University of East Anglia (UEA)'s Climatic Research Unit is somehow further evidence of their corruption, that they were trying to carry out "covert" operations to clear their name. One article reports:

Wallis led on the University of East Anglia "climategate" job, when Outside was drafted in to help the university's Climatic Research Unit defend itself against charges of scientific misconduct.

In fact, most people think that UEA's crisis management was catastrophically bad for months -- "covert" is a good word for it, though I prefer "virtually nonexistent." I can't imagine wanting to put on your resume that you were the guy in charge of UEA's PR after Climategate. It'd be like saying you advised President Bush on how to handle PR around his response to Hurricane Katrina. Of course, Wallis won't be getting many PR jobs for the foreseeable future.

Whether there is anything more than just extreme coincidence in Wallis leading on UEA's Climategate defense, I do know that when the deniers say it is cooling, you can be certain it is warming, and when they say there is no smoke, you can be sure it is a hellish, record-breaking wildfire.

In any case, it is time for an independent investigation into the Climategate email hacking. We now know that for four years, Scotland Yard sat on evidence suggesting the phones of "nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims" had been hacked.

So the Climategate investigation should not involve Scotland Yard, and should investigate whether News Corp had any involvement. It could start by investigating whether News Corp hacked the phone of any climate scientists.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Could Murdoch’s News Corp be behind Climategate too?

by Joseph Romm

19 Jul 2011 6:46 PM

Rupert Murdoch.Rupert Murdoch.Photo: World Economic ForumThere have been countless independent investigations into the scientists whose emails were hacked in November 2009. And the scientists have been (quietly) vindicated every time.

But we still don't know who hacked the emails! And now we know that one of the key investigative bodies tasked with tracking down the hackers -- Scotland Yard -- was compromised at the time.

How were they compromised? Neil Wallis -- the former News of the World executive editor -- became a "£1,000 ($1,613) a day" consultant to Scotland Yard in October 2009. Last week, he became the ninth person arrested in the metastasizing News Corporation scandal "on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to section 1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977."

Certainly Wallis had plenty of motive to join Scotland Yard just to keep an eye on the investigation into the phone-hacking scandal. Indeed, The New York Times reports Wallis "was reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case." But this also suggests how corrupt Wallis was -- and how corrupted Scotland Yard was.

In the light of the News Corp phone-hacking scandal, it is clear that Murdoch's outfit had means, motive, and opportunity for the Climategate email hacking. News Corp certainly has a history of defaming climate scientists and a penchant for hacking.

Indeed, in this country, a division of News Corp had a federal case brought against it for "hacking its way into Floorgraphics's password protected computer system." The complaint said News America had "illegally accessed plaintiff's computer system and obtained proprietary information" and "disseminated false, misleading and malicious information about the plaintiff." Sounds familiar, no?

After a few days of testimony, News Corp "settled with Floorgraphics for $29.5 million and then, days later, bought it, even though it reportedly had sales of less than $1 million." This behavior simply wasn't a big shock to News Corp.

So News Corp would obviously now be on the top of anybody's short list of possible suspects in the Climategate hacking. At the same time, we now know things were so cozy between News Corp, Wallis, and Scotland Yard that it is hard to believe News Corp would have been thoroughly investigated for Climategate, if they were investigated at all.

How cozy? Staff at News Corp's News of the World tabloid apparently routinely paid off members of the Metropolitan Police Service, aka Scotland Yard -- payments that were "condoned" by then-editor Andy Coulson, who later became chief spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron.

How cozy? The Guardian dropped this bombshell Friday: "Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis." Scotland Yard shilling for News Corp? I don't think people would have believed this had they seen it in a blockbuster movie.

How cozy? As The New York Times explains, the Yard hardly investigated the phone hacking scandal, ignoring mountains of evidence for years.

And then we have the social coziness:

Executives and others at the company also enjoyed close social ties to Scotland Yard's top officials. Since the hacking scandal began in 2006, Mr. Yates [the assistant commissioner] and others regularly dined with editors from News International papers, records show. Sir Paul Stephenson, the police commissioner, met for meals 18 times with company executives and editors during the investigation, including on eight occasions with Mr. Wallis while he was still working at The News of the World ...

Just after Christmas last year Sir Paul recovered from surgery at a Champneys Spa in Hertfordshire, and his $19,000 bill was paid by a friend, the spa's managing partner, Sky News reported. Sir Paul learned Saturday that Mr. Wallis had worked as a public-relations consultant for the spa ...

So I think it is quite safe to say that it is unlikely Scotland Yard pursued any serious investigation into the possibility that News Corp was involved in Climategate.

Now, it is entirely possible that News Corp wasn't involved. But there is no way of knowing until we get a thorough and independent investigation.

Here's one more astrological coincidence of the highest order: In October 2009, Wallis became a senior consultant to Outside Organisation -- a PR firm and crisis management agency, which ... wait for it ... "was used by the [University of East Anglia] following the Climategate scandal."

What's funny is that if you go over to the denier sites, like Climate Audit, the hiring of Wallis's firm by the University of East Anglia (UEA)'s Climatic Research Unit is somehow further evidence of their corruption, that they were trying to carry out "covert" operations to clear their name. One article reports:

Wallis led on the University of East Anglia "climategate" job, when Outside was drafted in to help the university's Climatic Research Unit defend itself against charges of scientific misconduct.

In fact, most people think that UEA's crisis management was catastrophically bad for months -- "covert" is a good word for it, though I prefer "virtually nonexistent." I can't imagine wanting to put on your resume that you were the guy in charge of UEA's PR after Climategate. It'd be like saying you advised President Bush on how to handle PR around his response to Hurricane Katrina. Of course, Wallis won't be getting many PR jobs for the foreseeable future.

Whether there is anything more than just extreme coincidence in Wallis leading on UEA's Climategate defense, I do know that when the deniers say it is cooling, you can be certain it is warming, and when they say there is no smoke, you can be sure it is a hellish, record-breaking wildfire.

In any case, it is time for an independent investigation into the Climategate email hacking. We now know that for four years, Scotland Yard sat on evidence suggesting the phones of "nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims" had been hacked.

So the Climategate investigation should not involve Scotland Yard, and should investigate whether News Corp had any involvement. It could start by investigating whether News Corp hacked the phone of any climate scientists.

Given how loud they bleat about global warming and the mileage they have got out of it ...

Maybe.

Jack, Murdoch owns 70% of the newspapers in Australia, in some cities he has a monopoly, in most cities actually. Dad would have been so proud.

BTW John Monash got a university named after him. War might suck but Monash actually gave a shit about his men and wanted to keep as many of them alive and get as many home as he could. The evacuation of Gallipoli that he ordered was the best retreat in history. My great uncle was there actually. At the battle of Hammel he is remembered by troops for having hot meals delivered to front line soldiers. (He commanded Hammel which is remembered for other reasons too.) That might not seem like much of a recommendation, but Monash basically went on to win the war for the Allies, helped change the way war was fought and brought about the idea that it was a commanders job to be responsible for the well being and safety of his soldiers. Not to treat them as cannon fodder. He was also knighted on the battlefield by whoever the pommy king was, which hadn't happened in 200 years or more.

Funnily enough his parents were German Jews who moved to Australia from Prussia.

They were fluent German speakers, as was Monash himself and really its a bit of a fluke that at no time during the war was his German heritage questioned or used against him. Who knows how WW1 would have turned out if his parents had stayed in Germany. If PKD was around he could have written a ripper story about that.

[Harvey]

Absolutely concur with the Craig Murray blog BTW. Undoubtedly spot on.

Still no sign of the Lulzsec emails.

I thought it's worth noting that Lulzsec just before their first dissolution, 'obtained' A T & T (confirmed obsolete) data that was hacked by a third party and released it along with a bunch of other stuff. No doubt A T & T promptly went through their servers deleting reams of sensitive emails and logs in the interests of security.

In order to understand them, just as the anti-virus vendors are the single biggest beneficiary of malicious code, perhaps we should also wonder who benefits most from Lulzsecs combined antics?

Just as we might ask who benefitted from the epidemic of data loss a few years ago. For a not so brief history up to 2008 visit http://attrition.org/dataloss/ It's an eye opener.

[seemslikeadream]

Mass. Labor fund latest to sue Murdoch, News Corp.
By Barry B. Burr
July 20, 2011, 4:01 PM ET

The Massachusetts Laborers’ Pension and Annuity Funds, Burlington, filed suit against K. Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., and the company’s other directors, seeking to recover “millions of dollars” in losses and strengthen corporate governance over alleged mismanagement and breaches of fiduciary duty exposed by the News of the World phone hacking scandal, according to the lawsuit.

The suit, filed in Delaware Chancery Court on July 15, accuses Mr. Murdoch and the board of “failure to take any action to investigate, control, and limit the fallout from the hacking scandal” that “caused the company to lose billions of dollars in value,” the lawsuit stated. The company’s market value fell $7 billion from July 4 when the scandal first began to unravel through July 11, the suit said.

The law firm of Labaton Sucharow is representing the fund in the suit.

Judge John W. Noble is presiding over the case.

Teri Everett, News senior vice president corporate affairs and communications, couldn’t be reached for comment.

On July 8, the Central Laborers Pension Fund, Jacksonville, Ill., the New Orleans City Employees’ Retirement System and Amalgamated Bank amended an earlier separate suit they filed March 17 against News directors, accusing the company of nepotism.

In their amended complain, the institutional investors accuse Mr. Murdoch and the other directors of breach of fiduciary oversight and corporate governance failures in the phone hacking scandal, claiming it caused losses of “hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions” in shareholder value.

That suit, also filed in Delaware Chancery Court before Mr. Noble, seeks to recover losses related to the scandal.

In both suits, proceeds from any recovery would be reinvested in the company

.

[8bitagent]

That is one of the strangest political toons I've ever seen...surreal, wonderful yet I don't fully understand it.

[Harvey]

That is one of the strangest political toons I've ever seen...surreal, wonderful yet I don't fully understand it.

1) Cameron is a cock. Worse, he's an effete cock. (sheathed) Taking this theme further, he's not only an empty suit, he's an empty comdom...

2) He kept using the 'music stopped' metaphor, 'the music stopped' on his 'watch.' Today he mixed his metaphors even further and said the "The clock has stopped on my watch" hence the image.

[seemslikeadream]

That is one of the strangest political toons I've ever seen...surreal, wonderful yet I don't fully understand it.

Cartoonist Steve Bell reveals in the Guardian today why he draws the Prime Minister with a condom on his head.

Bell writes: "When I first drew David Cameron at a party conference I saw smoothness and a distinct air of plausibility... the more I saw of Cameron, the more his smoothness seemed to develop and encompass all his other features.

"His well-upholstered, upper-class plumpness and his big, watery eyes were bound up more and more in his baby-bottom complexion. His smoothness soon seemed to take on an other-worldly quality, a kind of androgynous sleekness that accompanied his transformation of the erstwhile "Nasty party" into the Sunshine, Springtime and Fluffy Cloud party...

"Then came the prolonged expenses scandal and Cameron's energetic protestations of complete transparency. The only fully transparent organism that I could think of was a jellyfish; either that or, what was it about those odd folds of skin from his ear to his neck? A balloon that's been twisted.

"This January the Tories' first election billboard appeared, with Cameron's supposedly airbrushed face looming large on the left. But I knew, having inspected him at close quarters, that he really was that smooth. He was going to cut the deficit, not the NHS. Total moral opportunism combined with a complete, engorged and erectile sense of his own responsibility. Thus it was that the condom unrolled over his smooth head. It seemed so perfect and so apt, to me at least, and so after some initial opposition, I elected to run with it."

Bell recounts how he met up with Cameron during the general election campaign at a service station. "We shook hands. He asked me: "The condom . . . where does that come from?"

"A dozen things passed through my mind, such as: "They have machines in places like this . . ." I thought for a moment. What I said was, "It's to do with the smoothness of your complexion," though actually at the time his face was looking a little raw. He seemed genuinely interested and claimed to have enjoyed the one I'd drawn of him in that day's paper as a large sausage on a butcher's weighing machine."

[Harvey]

That is one of the strangest political toons I've ever seen...surreal, wonderful yet I don't fully understand it.

Cartoonist Steve Bell reveals in the Guardian today why he draws the Prime Minister with a condom on his head.

Bell writes: "When I first drew David Cameron at a party conference I saw smoothness and a distinct air of plausibility... the more I saw of Cameron, the more his smoothness seemed to develop and encompass all his other features.

"His well-upholstered, upper-class plumpness and his big, watery eyes were bound up more and more in his baby-bottom complexion. His smoothness soon seemed to take on an other-worldly quality, a kind of androgynous sleekness that accompanied his transformation of the erstwhile "Nasty party" into the Sunshine, Springtime and Fluffy Cloud party...

"Then came the prolonged expenses scandal and Cameron's energetic protestations of complete transparency. The only fully transparent organism that I could think of was a jellyfish; either that or, what was it about those odd folds of skin from his ear to his neck? A balloon that's been twisted.

"This January the Tories' first election billboard appeared, with Cameron's supposedly airbrushed face looming large on the left. But I knew, having inspected him at close quarters, that he really was that smooth. He was going to cut the deficit, not the NHS. Total moral opportunism combined with a complete, engorged and erectile sense of his own responsibility. Thus it was that the condom unrolled over his smooth head. It seemed so perfect and so apt, to me at least, and so after some initial opposition, I elected to run with it."

Bell recounts how he met up with Cameron during the general election campaign at a service station. "We shook hands. He asked me: "The condom . . . where does that come from?"

"A dozen things passed through my mind, such as: "They have machines in places like this . . ." I thought for a moment. What I said was, "It's to do with the smoothness of your complexion," though actually at the time his face was looking a little raw. He seemed genuinely interested and claimed to have enjoyed the one I'd drawn of him in that day's paper as a large sausage on a butcher's weighing machine."

He's being polite.

[8bitagent]

Thanks for the explanation. I never in a hundred years would have guessed that was suppose to be a condom, heh.

[seemslikeadream]

I adore Bell

one of my favs of bush

[Harvey]

I adore Bell.

Yes. Some think he's cruel. He's not, he's motivated by a fine anger. And it's no less than they deserve.