Posted on 07/05/2011 10:01:37 PM PDT by Nextrush
New allegations have emerged of payments to the police as the row around the News of the World escalates.
The paper's owners have passed to the police e-mails which appear to show that payments were authorised by the then editor, Andy Coulson.
It comes as a solicitor representing some of the relatives of people who died in the 7/7 bombings says families may have been victims of hacking.
MP's will hold an emergency debate in the House of Commons later.
BBC business editor Robert Preston says the e-mail disclosure was "a significant development."
He said it had an important political dimension, in that Mr. Coulson went to work as director of communications at 10 Downing Street. Mr. Coulson resigned from that post in January.
Our correspondent says it also shows that the police investigation into alleged illicit techniques used by the News of the World to obtain stories goes much wider than an examination of the hacking of mobile phones....
The latest developments came after allegations private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, working for the News of the World, hacked the phone of murdered girl Milly Dowler when she was missing.
News International has promised the "strongest possible action" if it is proven Milly's phone was hacked.....
The Guardian has claimed Mulcaire intercepted messages left by relatives for Milly while she as missing and that the News of the World deleted some messages it had already listened to in order to make space for more to be left......
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
While we have been hung up on Casey Anthony, this story from the UK will grab a lot of MSM attention in coming days.
Its a scandal about a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Will Fox News cover this one????
You can be sure MSNBC and CNN will.....I can hear Michael Savage savaging "Rupert Moloch" right now.....
I don’t think this story is going to play in the US. Who cares what a Brit paper does, no matter who owns it.
Fire the people who did it and get on with life.
Sure...the left will try and paint Rupert, but he is so far removed from a tabloid lengths down in his portfolio that I don’t think they will get any traction.
“Will Fox News cover this one????”
Probably about as likely as NBC doing an expose on GE concerning how much it could make off the global warming scam (carbon credits).
I think people are too ready to play this down. The Sun and News of the World have so much “previous” for disgusting activity that even when celebrities and ministers were complaining of phone hacking most people just rolled their eyes.
When it comes to hacking the phones of missing schoolgirls and deleting messages off so that the investigating officers mistakenly think the missing person is still answering the phone, or tapping the phone of a distraught father in the hope of getting an exclusive, or tapping the phones of terror victims for some juicy padding for the news coverage, that’s beyond the pale.
A relative of mine was killed in a freak accident, and her distraught siblings (under the age of 10) were confronted by a Sun journalist shouting through the letterbox asking for comments, within 48 hours.
The Sun, obviously, is trying to pretend this is not a big news story, but it has to be. For the paper to be doing this kind of thing for years, it was either authorized from the top - or a consequence of mismanagement.
Let’s not forget, the Sun is the paper who consistently argue that anyone in a senior position - Sharon Shoesmith for example - should be sacked because “the buck stops at the top”, even if their hands aren’t dirty, because to be ignorant of such organizational failings implies manifest incompetence.
So, following their very own incessant editorial logic, someone at News International should go, either for malfeasance or incompetence.
The people who hate Rupert Murdoch and News Corp (and they are legion) will use this story to the hilt.
And if any of the allegations have any truth to them, I will be disgusted by them as well.
With respect I think you’re missing the big picture.
With coppers taking bungs to hand out victims’ phone numbers, PIs getting into those voicemail accounts and so on, News International having close ties to both the Blair government and Prime Minister Cameron, this scandal has the potential to be very big indeed.
Put it this way - Watergate would certainly lose its crown for “most explosive scandal” if anyone can prove that the police AND the government were in on it.
There is a big picture emerging here to be sure.
You make a good point.
But I am concerned about some other dimensions.
This is a big hit for Murdoch with news that adverstisers are pulling out in the UK over the scandal.
And there are calls for some sort of media watchdog because of the scandal.
Regulation of the press??????????
Disgusting.
Anyone involved with this should be looking at cell walls for many, many years. I don’t give a damn who owns that paper, anyone who knew anything about what was going on (or should have) should be sent away for a long, long, long while. and be a pariah for the rest of their days on earth.
Though that may be English, could you translate that into an American idiom?
Taking a bung - accepting a bribe. On BBC Newsnight last night, the process was explained by what we call a "poacher turned gamekeeper" - a former Metropolitan Police guy explained that an officer would set up a fake informant in the system, puts what he already knows (and is confidential) against that fake informant so it appears he got his information from an external source, and then meets with a journalist, hands over the files, and walks away with a big wad of dough. One example given was of a private ex-directory home phone number of a relative of a 7/7 bomb victim, who gave the number to a police officer while trying to trace the victim - a number which within 48 hours was on News of the World's list of numbers to consider for snooping. Bear in mind if the police were to tap that line without probable cause, they would be in a world of hurt.
This way, the paper trail leads to a non-existent informant, not to the police officer.
This is a big hit for Murdoch with news that adverstisers are pulling out in the UK over the scandal.
Yes - lots of big name companies are doing it because they don't want to be associated with organisations that (it's now alleged) were wire-tapping terror victims, rape victims and their families, murder victims and their families, veterans and their families... Barely an hour goes by without us thinking "They can't have stooped any lower" only to hear that, yes, they probably have. I notice the British Legion - famously pro-Murdoch because of Help For Heroes - are also talking about walking away from the News of the World simply because of the allegations about how they've been treating the very soldiers they claim to be supporting.
And there are calls for some sort of media watchdog because of the scandal.
Not from the politicians!
For decades the press have been asked, very nicely, to do nothing more than curb their own excesses (in terms of them breaking the law with impunity and treating crime victims and their families with a complete lack of passion).
Trouble is, time and time again they've proved they couldn't care less about bribing police officers, illegally tapping phones, rifling through people's bins, stalking and harrassing victims of crime, and so on. Thirty years or more of chance after chance to clean up their act, and this shows just how much contempt the press has. And don't think for a minute this is going to remain targeted at Murdoch - even the left wing Mirror Group is in the crosshairs, as is the Daily Mail.
The politicans, to their great credit, have resisted statutory regulation at every opportunity over that period - although part of that is due to the sheer electoral muscle the press can wield. Yes there is a regulator, and the Press Complaints Commission, but the latter is toothless and the former has a very limited remit. It's quite likely there will be calls for these to be given more teeth if the industry doesn't do something itself (like create a code of conduct it has any intention of adhering to).
But you cannot have an entire industry with pockets as deep as the press, breaking the law with complete impunity, persistently and apologetically, for perpetuity, thinking they can get away with it just by buying off the victims or bankrupting the victims in lengthy court processes, without people eventually coming to conclusion that the press' claims that self-regulation will help, is a joke.
I'm waiting for Question Time tonight where I fully expect the audience to go to town on this and DEMAND regulation while the politicians on the panel remonstrate that this'd be a step too far.
So what does this all really mean? Is this the LEFT trying to silence the RIGHT and get FoxNews off the air? This is what it seems like to me, I confess I don’t understand all this.
I would find it highly unlikely that one newspaper outlet would have exclusive knowledge (and chutzpah) on this sleazy way to gather information and did not act in the same way to remain "competitive".
Since it appears that our news will remain Casey Anthony for the foreseeable future, please post any further news and add my name to your TO: header.
Thanks again for explaining what 'taking a bung' means. Was it Churchill who said we were separated by a common language?
Thanks, Dude. (Bloke)
http://tinyurl.com/Do-One-NOTW
Looks like Rupert took the John Galt route and just scuttled the whole newspaper.
Had this been the NY Times, they would have angled for a Pulitzer.
Shame on them...
This is nothing to do with left, right, or Fox News. It’s about a British newspaper systematically bribing police officers, tapping phones illegally, stalking victims of crime...
A year ago the whole British political establishment was running scared of News International, they could make or break a government. This week the revelations have been so scandalous that News International has closed the newspaper down.
Don’t buy into the idea Murdoch caved in to pressure from the British government, because he’s never done it before and he probably never will. The sheer fact is he has caved in after pressure from the sponsors, the advertisers, and the paying public, who in one voice cried in unison for him to do something - but I don’t think anyone expected him to pull the plug on a newspaper that’s a century and a half old.
Stay tuned....There are repercussions in the UK and it will probably inspire MSM, Soros funded journalists in the US to go after Fox News, The New York Post and other News Corp-Murdoch media outlets.
They may use investigative reporting and or sting operations.
You know what a bung-hole is, right?
This idiom means cops take it up the butt.
Shag you, bloke!
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