The End Of News Corp?

[CptSternn]

By now everyone has heard about the huge scandal in the UK involving Rupert Murdoch's company.

Originally it was limited to News Of The World, but it has now spread to his other papers and has even jumped the pond and the FBI and Justice Department are looking into it.

Will the be the end for News Corp? If not will it be the end for Murdoch's involvement in News Corp? Technically the shareholders could vote him out if things get bad.

For those who haven't been following this I'll summarise it quickly.

News Of The World, a british tabloid, hacked the voicemail of phones of various people to get stories. These people included the royal family, various celebs, and politicians. It all came out back in 2003 and thanks to the cozy relationship between the government and News Corp they allowed News Corp to do their own internal investigation and then considered the case closed.

This however as we all know now was not the end. The paper continued to engage in this practice and as it turns out was engaged in even more illegal activity. This all came out recently when the family of a dead teen found NOTW hacked her phone while she was missing and deleted messages in efforts to get more people to record messages so they would have a better story. This of course effected the police investigation.

That then set off a chain of events which has led to the international fiasco we are witnessing today. It was found police had been paid off, politicians had secret meetings with top News Corp exec, and that they intentionally buried this who thing years ago at the behest of News Corp.

So now we have evidence arising showing they hacked the phones of 9/11 victims and other Americans, and therefore the US is now involved.

Even though it has been happening at multiple papers owned by News Corp and has been happening for years the top execs claim they knew nothing. This is not sitting well since they all signed off on their own internal investigation saying it was an isolated incident years ago. Either they are all lying or they are totally incompetent.

The issues which are in front of us now are this -

First, will any of the execs get jail time?

Second, under british law owners of media firms must have 'good character'. This means they could essentially shut down the entire Murdoch empire if things contiue to go the way they have been.

The same law exists in America, meaning if it happens in the UK, will the US then follow suit and revoke all of News Corps holdings in America?

Then you have this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZldFW...layer_embedded

Max Keiser points out that people own their own stories. You can't write about a persons personal stories unless you pay them for the rights. Under US law if Murdochs companies hacked peoples phones and computers as new evidence suggests then they could be in violation of those harsh new copyright laws which carry substantial prison time. It is a bit ironic Murdoch and his cronies help get those harsh new laws put into practice and now they may find themselves in violation of these very laws.

Anyone else following this?

[CuckooTuli]

This is relevant. And hilarious. I fucking love Steve Coogan. The angrier he gets, the more he sounds like Alan Partridge. By the time he delivers the classic line "Hitler was nice to dogs", even his facial expressions have caught up.

[CptSternn]

For those who want to know more check out this link - it covers everything :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/phon...=ILCNETTXT3487

[CptSternn]

More updates!

http://tinyurl.com/5td47tz

Murdoch backed down on Friday and accepted the resignations of confidants Brooks and Hinton, a 52-year veteran of the company and the top executive of Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

With these departures, attention will now turn to Murdoch's son and presumed successor, James, who took over the European operations of News Corp just as the crisis was beginning. He has admitted to approving the payment of out-of-court settlements when he did not have a complete picture of what had happened.

"First Brooks, then Hinton were the firewalls for James. There's no question he's on the hotseat next," said Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at City University of New York.

A direct apology from Rupert Murdoch, who has been summoned to answer questions before a parliamentary committee next Tuesday, will be carried in all national newspapers this weekend under the headline "We are sorry." The text was released by News International.

[CptSternn]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...breaking2.html

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, who resigned on Friday following allegations over her role in the UK's phone hacking scandal, has been arrested by police.

Several sources familiar with the situation said Ms Brooks (43) was being questioned as part of an investigation into allegations of illegal voicemail interception and police bribery at the News of the World tabloid she once edited.

Ms Brooks quit as head of News International, the British unit of Murdoch's News Corporation last Friday, but has denied she knew of the alleged hacking of thousands of phones, including that of a murdered schoolgirl.

[Ben Lahnger]

Tweeted by @edyong209:

"Rebekah Brooks has resigned! Sky bid dropped! N.o.t.W. extinct! Only four horcruxes left to go and Murdoch will be mortal again!"

Ahahahaha!

[Ben Lahnger]

Tweeted by @carlmaxim:

"Rebekah Brooks says her arrest 'came as a surprise'. The police did leave a message, but I guess someone must have deleted it.

Bwah-hah-hah-hah!

[CptSternn]

It's actually a fucking disgrace they arrested her! It is another ploy and shows how much power the murdochs have in the police department.

She was summoned to appear in front of parliment to answer questions. Just like when you are summoned to testify in congress, you have to appear and you cannot stay silence UNLESS you are doing so to not incriminate yourself in another ongoing police investigation.

By arresting her they made sure she won't say shit next Tuesday when she appears before the inquiry. It was the only thing that would stop her from testifying, and the fact the police did that now shows how dirty they really are. They provided her with the only thing she needed to stay silent.

[CptSternn]

...and the proof the cops are fucking dirty -

http://www.independent.ie/world-news...r-2823881.html

Paul Stephenson, Britain's most senior police officer, resigned last night over his close links to the former News International executive Neil Wallis.

Pressure on the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police -- who was already under fire over the revelation that he hired former 'News of the World' deputy editor Mr Wallis as a public relations consultant -- intensified over the weekend after it emerged he accepted hospitality from a health resort that also employed Mr Wallis to promote its services.

Right after he authorised giving brooks her means to evade the inquiry he quit. Fucker.

He would be what the attorney general is in America. He signed off on the first investigation where they silenced everything and turns out he has been taking expensive gives from news corp for years. His last act was to help them out one more time before he quit.

Talk about corruption.

[CptSternn]

http://tinyurl.com/64ybf3y

London's top 2 police resign in UK hacking scandal

LONDON (AP) — Britain's spreading phone hacking and police bribery scandal forced two of London's top police officers to resign in less than 24 hours and prompted Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday to call for an emergency session of parliament.

Scotland Yard chief Paul Stephenson stepped down Sunday night, followed out the door Monday by Assistant Commissioner John Yates. Yates was the official who decided two years ago not to reopen police inquiries into phone hacking and police bribery by tabloid journalists, saying he did not believe there was any new evidence to consider.

Detectives reopened the investigation earlier this year and now say they have the names of 3,700 potential victims.

British Home Secretary Theresa May announced Monday that a police inspectorate will examine possible police corruption.

She told lawmakers that at moments like this "it is natural to ask whom polices the police" and announced that the Inspectorate of Constabulary would look at links between the police and the press in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

The spate of high-profile resignations have made it even harder for Cameron to contain the intensifying scandal that is threatening his leadership and knocking billions off of Rupert Murdoch's global media empire.

[CptSternn]

News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...rld-sean-hoare

[CptSternn]

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/w...mes/index.html

News Corp.-owned media outlets say people are overreacting to News Corp. scandal

The Wall Street Journal says we should all take a deep breath and relax about the whole "phone-hacking" thing that is currently roiling Great Britain. It's not a big deal, News Corp.'s widespread criminality. It's just a silly English craze, like Girls Aloud, or binge drinking.

Fox News says we should stop worrying about the News of the World (which it suggests was actually the victim of some sort of "hacking") and worry instead about ... other hacking, that isn't related to News Corp.

Even the Washington Post, which has no reason to defend News Corp. besides the fact that the Washington Post has the worst opinion section in America, says the important thing now is that British investigators not go "too far" in investigating News Corp.

I think it's time for a quick refresher: News Corp. is accused of not just phone-hacking but also bribery of police officers and illegal access to private medical and banking records, obtained with the assistance of multiple private investigators and a convicted con artist. The crimes may not have been limited to the now-shuttered News of the World, but may have also included the Sunday Times. News Corp. withheld information from Parliament and paid hush money to hacking victims in order to avoid making the extent of its crimes public. People in charge of the News of the World during the hacking and the coverup of the hacking went on to much more powerful and influential positions in News Corp. and in the current Conservative government. The Guardian's suggested questions for Rebekah Brooks, James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch are also a good summary of the scandal as we now understand it.

In other words, the most outrageous and disgusting revelation -- that a murdered girl's voice mail was hacked -- is actually not the most serious crime that News Corp. is accused of. And that revelation does not even take into account the lengthy coverup.

The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (Britain's top cop, in tabloid parlance) has now resigned because of News Corp.'s corruption of the Met. In his resignation he pointedly criticized Prime Minister David Cameron, who is personally close to Rebekah Brooks and who hired former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as a top aide. The commissioner's resignation was followed by that of Britain's top counter-terrorism official.

This isn't an aberration, either. This is News Corp.'s corporate culture in action. David Carr points out that News Corp.'s disregard for silly "laws" and "regulations" extends to its American operation, and a News America executive whose anti-competitive practices cost the company hundreds of millions of dollar in settlement money was punished by ... being named the publisher of the New York Post, and head of News America.

So right now, no one is remotely guilty of overreacting. In fact, everyone is behaving the way they really should have behaved years ago, when the Guardian first began reporting on all of this. News Corp. blamed one stooge and then went about its business under the assumption that it was too powerful in the U.K. to ever take responsibility for its actions. They were almost right, too!

[Renatus]

I don't see why there is so much debate over fears of a new law? Why is a new law even necessary? They broke already existing laws, laws that the press just like everyone else are required to follow. They make it sound like the freedom of the press includes the freedom to ignore certain laws. Am I wrong?

[CuckooTuli]

Anyone watching Rupert & James Murdoch on the select committee live right now? Sr. is playing the old man card to the point where you'd honestly think he was borderline senile.

[Mr.Doobie]

Murdoch is fucking evil and it's about time he got dragged through the mud.

[Saya]

Has Chomsky said anything about it yet? Either he's depressed or doing his "I told you so" happy dance.

[CptSternn]

Fox is using the UK as a test audience for their new reality TV show - Are You Smarter Than A Selectively Deaf Media Mogul?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...ne-hacking-pie

Tycoon expresses regret for News Corporation's involvement in scandal but insists he was kept in dark

Rupert Murdoch defiantly insisted on Tuesday he was not responsible for what he called "sickening and horrible invasions" of privacy committed by his company, claiming he had been betrayed by disgraceful unidentified colleagues and had known nothing of the cover-up of phone hacking.

During a three-hour grilling at the culture select committee, disrupted by a protester throwing a plate of shaving foam, the once all-powerful News Corp chairman and chief executive told MPs: "I am not responsible."

In a halting performance, at times pausing, mumbling and mishearing, Murdoch said those culpable were "the people I hired and trusted, and perhaps then people who they hired and trusted". But he denied the accusation he had been "willfully blind" about the scandal.

Flanked by his son James, the chairman of News International, Murdoch said he and his company had been betrayed in a disgraceful way, but argued he was still the best person to clean up the company, adding in a rehearsed soundbite that his day in front of the committee represented "the most humble day of my life".

In a Westminster hearing screened worldwide, he repeatedly tried to avoid identifying the specific culprits in his company, often blaming earlier legal counsel for inadequate advice or leaving his son to explain his behaviour.

But in separate testimony to the home affairs select committee, Lord Macdonald, the former head of the CPS, now on contract with News International, revealed it had taken him three to five minutes to examine documents kept by the company's solicitors showing widespread criminality at the company.

Macdonald said in his view the criminality revealed was "completely unequivocal", adding when he reported his findings to the News International board recently there was surprise and shock. He said: "I cannot imagine anyone looking at the file would not say there was criminality," including payments to police.

The file was kept at the solicitors Harbottle & Lewis, and the police investigation is now centring on which executives tried to conceal its contents. In May 2007 Harbottle & Lewis sent a two-paragraph letter to News International executives claiming their examination of the documents showed there was no evidence any senior executives knew of illegal activities by the reporter Clive Goodman, or of any other illegal activities.

[CptSternn]

Police examine bag found in bin near Rebekah Brooks's home

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...rebekah-brooks

Detectives are examining a computer, paperwork and a phone found in a bin near the riverside London home of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International.

The Guardian has learned that a bag containing the items was found in an underground car park in the Design Centre at the exclusive Chelsea Harbour development on Monday afternoon.

The car park, under a shopping centre, is yards from the gated apartment block where Brooks lives with her husband, a former racehorse trainer and close friend of David Cameron.

It is understood the bag was handed in to security at around 3pm, and that shortly afterwards Brooks's husband, Charlie, arrived and tried to reclaim it. He was unable to prove the bag was his and the security guard refused to release it.

Instead, it is understood that the security guard called the police. In less than half an hour, two marked police cars and an unmarked forensics car are said to have arrived at the scene.

Police are now examining CCTV footage taken in the car park to uncover who dropped the bag. Initial suspicions that there had been a break-in at the Brooks's flat have been dismissed.

David Wilson, Charlie Brooks's official spokesman, told the Guardian that Charlie Brooks denies that the bag belonged to his wife. "Charlie has a bag which contains a laptop and papers which were private to him," said Wilson.

"They were nothing to do with Rebekah or the [phone-hacking] case."

Wilson said Charlie Brooks had left the bag with a friend who was returning it, but dropped it in the wrong part of the garage. When asked how the bag ended up in a bin he replied: "The suggestion is that a cleaner thought it was rubbish and put it in the bin." Wilson added: "Charlie was looking for it together with a couple of the building staff.

"Charlie was told it had gone to security, by which stage they [security] had already called the police to say they had found something.

"The police took it away. Charlie's lawyers got in touch with the police to say they could take a look at the computer but they'd see there was nothing relevant to them on it. He's expecting the stuff back forthwith."

Rebekah Brooks was arrested on Sunday under suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, and of corrupting police officers. She is due to appear before the Commons culture, media and sport select committee on Tuesday afternoon.

Hah! That evidence dump did not go at all as well as planned.

[CptSternn]

Murdoch rejects blame for hack scandal at hearing

http://tinyurl.com/44jotfq

In a three-hour grilling Tuesday, 80-year-old Murdoch insisted he was at fault only for trusting the wrong people at the News of the World, and noted that the newspaper made up a tiny portion of his vast media empire.

...

The scandal began as a blip in 2005, when the News of the World published a story about Prince William suffering a knee injury. Royal officials became suspicious about the closely held data and alerted police. An inquiry led to one of the paper's reporters and a private investigator being jailed for intercepting communications.

The Guardian newspaper then found out that Murdoch's papers had paid out more than $1.6 million (1 million pounds) to settle lawsuits involving allegations of eavesdropping on phone messages. The scandal became a crisis for News International this month with the revelation that the News of the World had hacked into the phone of a 13-year-old murder victim, Milly Dowler, in hopes of getting material for news stories.

...

Brooks described allegations of voicemail intercepts of crime victims as "pretty horrific and abhorrent." She said she had been told by employees of the tabloid that allegations of phone hacking by News of the World journalists were untrue, and that she realized the gravity of the situation only when she saw documents lodged in a civil damages case by actress Sienna Miller last year.

Brooks also said she had never knowingly sanctioned a payoff to a police officer.

Asked whether she had been lied to by senior employees at the newspaper, Brooks said she could not answer because of the criminal investigation.

...

The erupting scandal has revealed a cozy relationship between British police and the press. Paul Stephenson, who resigned as London's police commissioner Sunday, told lawmakers Tuesday that 10 of the Metropolitan Police's 45 press officers used to work for News International.

...

After the hearing, Rupert Murdoch sent News International staff an email saying that the company has taken responsibility, and that the allegations "directly contravene our codes of conduct and do not reflect the actions and beliefs of our many employees."

He said the company will cooperate fully with authorities and added, "Those who have betrayed our trust must be held accountable under the law."

More to come this week as the cross reference the testimony.

You have brooks saying she didn't know anything until she saw the payments made by the murdochs. You have the murdochs saying they didn't know anything because brooks didn't tell them. They are both pointing the finger at each other right now.

Then the revelation that 10 of the 45 members of the police press office were former murdoch employees and were not only giving up sensitive information they were also helping to kick the investigation against the company under the rug by hiding evidence.

The best part is murdoch saying everyone who broke the law should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Except him, because he is just an old man who knew nothing about any of thise even though he was CEO and signed off on millions in 'hush' payments to people whose phones were hacked.

It was also pointed out the murdochs are personally paying for the legal services of everyone arrested so far, including the private investigators whom they previously said they had no ties with.

[CptSternn]

Phone hacking: Met police to investigate mobile tracking claims

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...obile-tracking

Scotland Yard has been asked to inspect thousands of files that could reveal whether its officers unlawfully procured mobile phone-tracking data for News of the World reporters.

There were half a million requests by public authorities for communications data in the UK last year – of which almost 144,000 were demands for "traffic" data, which includes location.

A Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) member has asked the force to investigate allegations that News of the World reporters were able to purchase this data from police for £300 per request.

The claims were made by Sean Hoare, the News of the World whistleblower, days before he was found dead at his home on Monday. His disclosure about the purchase of illicit location data was first made to the New York Times, which said the practice was confirmed by a second source at the tabloid. Police have said Hoare's death was not suspicious.

[CptSternn]

James Murdoch under threat as UK scandal spreads
http://tinyurl.com/3mj7n87

LONDON (AP) — Media scion James Murdoch, his father's heir apparent, was under fire Friday over claims by former newspaper executives that he misled lawmakers about what he knew, and when, about Britain's phone-hacking scandal.

The allegations raise questions not only about his succession to the helm of the media empire but about what he may have relayed to Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and controlling shareholder.

The younger Murdoch's credibility was tested after he told a parliamentary committee this week that he was not aware of evidence that eavesdropping at the News of the World went beyond a jailed rogue reporter. The assertion was contradicted by two former top staffers, who insisted they told him years ago about an email that suggested wrongdoing at the paper was far more widespread.

The claim brings more trouble for the 38-year-old Murdoch, who heads the Europe and Asia operations of his father's News Corp., as his family fights a scandal that has already cost it one of its British tabloids, two top executives and a $12 billion bid for control of a lucrative satellite broadcaster.

James Murdoch has stood by his testimony, but Prime Minister David Cameron joined opposition lawmakers — and some shareholders — in demanding answers.

Lying to parliament is illegal, and Tom Watson, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker, called for Scotland Yard to investigate.

"This is the most significant moment of two years of investigation into phone hacking," Watson told the BBC, adding that the public dispute between senior Murdoch executives showed the company was "fracturing in front of our very eyes."

As everyone knew was going to happen, the murdochs have tried to put all the responsibility on underlings and say they knew nothing. Turns out though the underlings in this case, the top new corp lawyer and board executive are having none of it and are not going to take the fall on this one sure.