Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Magda Hassan]

Yes, noticed he had resigned...

[Magda Hassan]

Murdoch aware of police payments from day one

DateJuly 4, 2013

• Read later
  

"Still, I mean, it's a disgrace. Here we are, two years later, and the cops are totally incompetent" ... Rupert Murdoch. Photo: Reuters

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has admitted that his journalists paid British police for news tips from the day I first bought the News of the World.''
In an ironic twist, it appears that Mr Murdoch has been entrapped by one of his own journalists, who secretly taped a meeting that took place in the boardroom of his company's Wapping headquarters in London in March this year.
Mr Murdoch travelled to London to address some of his journalists after they had been arrested.
The tape has allegedly been obtained by British investigative website ExaroNews, which has released a full transcript on its website. ExaroNews says it will soon release an audio file of 13 minutes of the 45-minute meeting.

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The alleged comments prompted one British MP to call for police questioning of Mr Murdoch.
According to the transcript, Mr Murdoch tells senior staff at The Sun that he was aware his journalists had been bribing police and public officials from the day he bought its sister paper, the News of the World, in 1969.
We're talking about payments for news tips from cops: that's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it,'' Mr Murdoch is heard saying on the tape.
I remember when I first bought the News of the World, the first day I went to the office… and there was a big wall-safe… And I said, What's that for?'.
And they said, We keep some cash in there.' And I said, What for?' They said, Well, sometimes the editor needs some on a Saturday night for powerful friends. And sometimes the chairman [the late Sir William Carr] is doing badly at the tables, and he helps himself …..''
Mr Murdoch also alluded to succession plans at News Corp, telling staff that either his son Lachlan Murdoch or senior executive Robert Thompson would take over the company, in an apparent sidelining of James Murdoch.
Graham Dudman, The Sun's former managing editor, asked: "Will the company's support vanish overnight if you're not here?"
Mr Murdoch responds: "Yes, if I wasn't here, the decision would be, well, it will either be with my son, Lachlan, or with Robert Thomson [News Corporation chief executive]. And you don't have any worries about either of them."
The tapes reveal a media baron in a far different mood from the one who told MPs when before a Commons select committee that this was "the most humble day of his life".
On the tape, Mr Murdoch vents his anger at the continuing police investigation into the alleged phone-hacking and illegal payments to officials by journalists working for his media empire.
The News Corp boss was heard describing the treatment of journalists who had been arrested as a "disgrace" and suggesting that he regretted the extent to which the company had co-operated with the investigation.
Mr Murdoch is heard railing at the way the police behaved.
"Still, I mean, it's a disgrace. Here we are, two years later, and the cops are totally incompetent," he said.
When one of the journalists present questioned why so much material had been handed over to the police by News Corp's management and standards committee, Mr Murdoch indicated that he believed they had gone too far.
"Because - it was a mistake, I think. But, in that atmosphere, at that time, we said, 'Look, we are an open book, we will show you everything.' And the lawyers just got rich going through millions of emails," he said.
Mr Murdoch also appeared to suggest that any journalists who were convicted and jailed in connection with the inquiry could get their jobs back.
"I will do everything in my power to give you total support, even if you're convicted and get six months or whatever," he said.
"You're all innocent until proven guilty. What you're asking is: what happens if some of you are proven guilty? What afterwards? I'm not allowed to promise you - I will promise you continued health support - but your jobs. I've got to be careful what comes out - but, frankly, I won't say it, but just trust me."
Labour MP Tom Watson said Mr Murdoch's comments contrasted with his contrite appearance before the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee two years ago.
News Corp released a statement defending Mr Murdoch, stating he had shown "understandable empathy" with staff.
"Mr Murdoch never knew of payments made by Sun staff to police before News Corp disclosed that to UK Authorities. Furthermore, he never said he knew of payments. It's absolutely false to suggest otherwise," the company said.
UK Labour MP Tom Watson called for police to question Mr Murdoch over the alleged comments.
Rupert Murdoch told Parliament one thing and told his staff another. He told Parliament that he was fully co-operating with the police, he told his staff that it was a mistake they were co-operating with the police,'' Mr Watson told the UK's Channel 4 News.
A spokesman for News Corp told Channel 4 News: No other company has done as much to identify what went wrong, compensate the victims, and ensure the same mistakes do not happen again.
with PA and wires



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/media-...z2YDk5wx00

[Magda Hassan]

Scotland Yard seeks Rupert Murdoch secret tape

In tape, Murdoch is heard admitting to Sun journalists that payments to public officials were part of 'culture of Fleet Street

• Josh Halliday
  
• The Guardian, Saturday 6 July 2013 03.59 AEST
  

Link to video: Rupert Murdoch calls police incompetent in secret recording - audioScotland Yard detectives were on Friday attempting to track down a secret recording of Rupert Murdoch admitting to Sun journalists that payments to public officials were part of "the culture of Fleet Street".
A police officer connected to the Operation Elveden investigation into illicit payments from journalists has made a formal request to Exaro News, the investigations website that broke the story, to hand over the undercover tape.
DCI Laurence Smith told Exaro News that the police would seek a production order compelling it to disclose the recording if it did not do so voluntarily. It is understood the police have also approached Channel 4, which aired a small part of the recordings.
The development is the clearest indication yet that police in London are ready to examine Murdoch's private disclosures since the tapes emerged on Wednesday night. Murdoch is recorded saying the culture of paying police officers for stories "existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely."
Mark Watts, the editor-in-chief of Exaro News, said he had not handed any material to Scotland Yard and the force had not made clear "what they want, or why exactly they want it".
He said: "We are making public everything that we have, and I cannot see how else we can help. Like everyone else, they just need to keep logging on to Exaro. One thing is for certain, unlike News International, we will not under any circumstances betray confidential sources."
Although the 82-year-old media mogul did not admit knowing that any of his employees specifically paid public officials, he was recorded on two separate occasions describing the practice as part of the culture of Fleet Street.
On one clip published by Exaro News, an unidentified Sun journalist asks him: "I'm pretty confident that the working practices that I've seen here are ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated. Would you recognise that all this predates many of our involvement here?"
Murdoch replies: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops. That's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it." Earlier in the tape, Murdoch tells the Sun journalists: "I don't know of anybody, or anything, that did anything that wasn't being done across Fleet Street and wasn't the culture."
News UK, formerly known as News International, has maintained that Murdoch "never knew of payments made by Sun staff to police before News Corporation disclosed that to UK authorities". Scotland Yard, meanwhile, said it would not give a "running commentary" on Operation Elveden.
The press law campaign group Hacked Off on Friday urged the Commons culture, media and sport select committee to recall Murdoch, and said he "may have committed contempt of parliament".
Evan Harris, the associate director of the group, wrote to the cross-party committee's chairman, John Whittingdale MP, saying: "There is a strong prima facie case that Mr Murdoch may have committed contempt of parliament by misleading your committee over his true response to the police investigations into phone hacking and bribery of public officials.
"As far as the victims of phone hacking are concerned, the appropriate course of action is for the committee to recall him at the earliest available opportunity to explain the discrepancies between the expressions of remorse he made to you and the defiant and unrepentant tone of his private remarks earlier this year."
The leaked recordings revealed for the first time the level of bitterness harboured by arrested Sun journalists towards News Corporation's management and standards committee (MSC), which was tasked with handing over internal documents to the police. After the first arrests in early 2012, a source close to the MSC described the operation as "draining the swamp".
In an interview published on Friday, the Sun's crime editor, Mike Sullivan, said of that phrase: "After 20 years on the paper, I admit I felt sick to my stomach at that. And I still do." Sullivan was arrested under Operation Elveden in January 2012 and cleared in April 2013.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jul...CMP=twt_gu

[Jan Klimkowski]

Why has Rupert Murdoch not been arrested for perjury?

Although the 82-year-old media mogul did not admit knowing that any of his employees specifically paid public officials, he was recorded on two separate occasions describing the practice as part of the culture of Fleet Street.
On one clip published by Exaro News, an unidentified Sun journalist asks him: "I'm pretty confident that the working practices that I've seen here are ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated. Would you recognise that all this predates many of our involvement here?"
Murdoch replies: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops. That's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it." Earlier in the tape, Murdoch tells the Sun journalists: "I don't know of anybody, or anything, that did anything that wasn't being done across Fleet Street and wasn't the culture."
News UK, formerly known as News International, has maintained that Murdoch "never knew of payments made by Sun staff to police before News Corporation disclosed that to UK authorities".

[Jan Klimkowski]

Sniff sniff....

The aftermath of Leveson inquiry: Soca chief is accused of misleading MPs over hacking

Claims and counter-claims surround computer hacker's hard drives at centre of police investigation

Tom Harper The Independent

Sunday 07 July 2013



One of the UK's most senior law enforcement officers has been accused of misleading Parliament by a victim of hacking. Trevor Pearce, director general of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), told MPs that vital evidence of computer hacking commissioned by companies and individuals had been passed to a Scotland Yard investigation into the criminal activities of private detectives.

But Ian Hurst, a victim of computer-hacking by investigators working for the News of the World, claims that the hard-drive evidence was never given to Scotland Yard and he has lodged a formal complaint with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

Mr Pearce told MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee last week that hard drives seized by Soca in 2009 had been handed to the Metropolitan Police "two or so years ago". However, Met officers are adamant that they have only obtained "piecemeal" disclosure from Soca and still do not have the original computers belonging to a hacker who is thought to have been employed by law firms, wealthy individuals and telecoms giants.

For reasons that remain unclear, it is understood Scotland Yard has been assured by Soca, whose role is to "disrupt criminal networks", that they have been passed all the relevant evidence required to mount successful prosecutions but they have not been given the original material.

Keith Vaz MP, chairman of the committee, said he will question the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, over the disputed events when he gives evidence to MPs next Tuesday. He said: "These allegations also raise worrying questions about the level of co-operation between our lead agency on organised crime and the force in charge of counter-terrorism."

Investigators from Soca seized the hard drives from the hacker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, during a raid in 2009. Despite evidence of criminality, he was not prosecuted until the phone-hacking scandal erupted in 2011. In the wake of widespread public outcry over the phone-hacking of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, Scotland Yard was forced to launch an investigation into the hard drives seized by Soca two years earlier.

Last week, Mr Vaz asked: "In respect of the hard disk of [the hacker] … has that disk now been given to [the Met] so they can conduct their investigations?" Mr Pearce replied: "As soon as we became aware that there may have been information on that... all of that information the hard drive, supporting documentary evidence, statements, and indeed follow-up inquiries from our officers, was provided to the Metropolitan Police." He later emphasised that Scotland Yard had been passed the computers "for some significant period of time".

It is understood Mr Pearce's statement has caused uproar inside Scotland Yard as this completely contradicts private assurances made by its own officers for the last two years.

A leaked Soca report codename Project Riverside shows the agency knew six years ago that criminal PIs were being hired by insurance companies and debt collectors, but next to nothing was done.

It can also be revealed that Met detectives leading investigations into evidence gathered years ago by Soca have still not been passed a full, unredacted copy of Project Riverside. Mr Hurst reported Mr Pearce to the IPCC.

He said: "This is rapidly descending into a farce. It provides no comfort to victims of crime."

Serious questions have also been raised over other sections of Mr Pearce's evidence to MPs. He was asked about a story in The Independent that revealed police had intelligence for 15 years that showed private detectives had infiltrated the Met's witness protection programme but failed to tackle the offenders.

Mr Pearce said: "Other than seeing the media reporting, I have never heard anything formally; as a law enforcement officer who has had significant engagement with the undercover world, I have not heard of that before."

However, the Project Riverside report states: "Operations... provided examples of private investigator activities which threaten to undermine the criminal justice system as follows … [including] attempting to discover the location of witnesses under police protection to intimidate them."

Tom Watson, the campaigning Labour MP, said: "It's a very surprising assertion given that Mr Pearce's own report states the complete opposite." A Scotland Yard spokesman insisted they were happy with Soca co-operation. A Soca spokesman said: "Soca will be responding to the committee next week. It would not be appropriate to offer media commentary before responding to the Home Affairs Committee."

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Channel 4 News film included an interview with Louise Mensch, now ensconced in America.

Two years ago, as an MP, she was part of the Parliamentary investigation into phone hacking:

On 19 July 2011, in the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Mensch took part in the questioning of James and Rupert Murdoch over the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

On 6 August 2012, Mensch announced her decision to resign as the MP for Corby in order to spend more time with her family in New York City.[2] Mensch had appeared likely to be promoted in the expected September government reshuffle

(sni)

In June 2012, Mensch joined forces with former Labour digital adviser Luke Bozier to set up a social networking website - a topic-based rival to Twitter focusing on politics.[43][44][45] The site named Menshn[46] - a reference to "mention" - allows users to select their topic of interest. Mensch hopes to raise venture capital finance.[45] The site was slated by IT industry experts for its lack of security.[47][48] Menshn closed in February 2013.[49]

After the closure of menshn, Mensch announced she was setting up a style and fashion blog called unfashionista. The website, http://unfashionistas.com, was covered widely in the British press. The Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and others all ran articles - giving it mixed reviews [50] - and Mumsnet.com made her a featured blogger on their bloggers' network.
Sun Columnist

After quitting Parliament Mensch wrote articles for a number of newspapers, including the Murdoch-owned Times and Sun. In January, 2013 she became a columnist for the Sunday Sun.

Channel 4 News introduced her as a Murdoch columnist.

Her line in the interview, which can be seen here, was that Channel 4 News was creating a mountain out of a molehill, and there was nothing important in the tape recording of Murdoch's meeting with his hacks.

She also stated that there was no need for Murdoch to be recalled by the Parliamentary Committee on which she recently sat.

Power and Hypocrisy, once again.

09 July 2013 UK Channel 4 News


Police to investigate Rupert Murdoch's knowledge of bribes

Rupert Murdoch is to give evidence to MPs over revelations in a recording broadcast by Channel 4 News, as it emerges police are to investigate what he knew about payments to police and officials.

The new investigation into the media mogul's role in payments to public officials, together with his invitation to appear again before the Commons culture, media and sport committee, follow a Channel 4 News broadcast of a secret recording of Mr Murdoch speaking candidly to a group of journalists from the Sun newspaper in March this year.

The tape, obtained by the investigative website Exaro, was requested by police investigating payments to public officials by journalists.

Exaro said that a detective chief inspector on Operation Elveden made clear that the audio of Murdoch's comments was relevant to its investigation because it "may contain evidence of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office".

The new line of police inquiry follows demands from MPs Tom Watson and Ben Bradshaw that the tape should be in the hands of the police for their investigation.

It comes exactly two years after the closure of the News of the World, at one time the jewel in Mr Murdoch's newspaper crown, amid public backlash over allegations of phone hacking.

Seventy people, including journalists from the Sun newspaper, have so far been arrested as part of Operation Elveden. But this is the first time that Operation Elveden is known to be scrutinising Murdoch's personal role in the practice of paying officials for information.

The audio clips of Mr Murdoch's comments at the private meeting make up around 19 minutes.
'Incompetent' police

The tape reveals Mr Murdoch's comments about "incompetent" police, his regrets over the internal News Corp investigation into the scandal, and promises to protect Sun journalists.

It shows the 82-year-old as never before: raging against the police and claiming that the inquiry into corrupt payments to public officials has been blown out of proportion.

"I mean, it's a disgrace. Here we are, two years later, and the cops are totally incompetent," he says.

The head of a $30bn media empire was speaking to a room full of Sun newspaper journalists, including, Channel 4 News understands, some who had been arrested over claims they had paid public officials, including police officers.

Some of those present decided to secretly record parts of the encounter.

"The idea that the cops then started coming after you, kick you out of bed, and your families, at six in the morning, is unbelievable," he says.

"But why are the police behaving in this way? It's the biggest inquiry ever, over next to nothing."

He continues: "And now they're arresting their own, who never even took money... They're going to put all newspapers out of business".
'Saying different things'

Tom Watson MP said the tape suggested that Mr Murdoch was saying different things in private than he was in public, to the Commons select committee and the Leveson inquiry.

"What it [the tape] says is that Rupert Murdoch told parliament one thing and told his staff another. He told parliament he was fully cooperating with the police, he told his staff that it was a mistake that they were cooperating with police."

He added: "There is a man who sat before parliament and said he had the highest integrity - that they were working their way through it and that people who hacked phones or paid police would be immediately dealt with.

"And then you hear him reassuring people that if they go to jail they might get their jobs back. I'm sure that this audio and this transcript should be in the hands of the police."

Mr Watson has also written to senior US senators asking them to investigate the contents of the tape.

[Magda Hassan]

Press bullies say get stuffed' to Leveson and the rule of law Brian Cathcart

1007

2013The people who run our largest newspaper groups are telling us that they are above the law, above the verdicts of public inquiries and above the will of parliament. They don't care what the public thinks and they don't give a fig for the views of the people whose lives they have been caught trying to wreck.
Found guilty of "wreaking havoc" with the lives of innocent people, they have been urged to change the way they regulate themselves so that, for the first time, the interests of the public are put before those of proprietors and editors. That way we might not see a repeat of the long string of recent press outrages.
Their response is to say: "Get stuffed". Instead of learning from their mistakes and embracing change, they now announce the creation of the Independent Press Standards Organisation and defiantly tell us it will meet the regulatory standards they have chosen to set themselves.
This means they pick and choose what complaints they will handle and they keep the right to bury their grudging corrections on page 94. It means they make the public pay for access to arbitration assuming they have an arbitration service at all, because in their scheme it's optional. And it means, fatally, that they pack the boards of regulatory bodies with people that they know will make all key decisions in their interests.
In short, the Independent Press Standards Organisation will be the discredited Press Complaints Commission (PCC) all over again, but this time dressed in new clothes. This conforms fully to the pattern of press conduct over the past 70 years, when every time the public demanded change they obliged by doing something purely Lord Justice Leveson's word "cosmetic". We don't have to put up with this any more.
On 18 March all parties in parliament backed a royal charter that embodies the cautious and moderate recommendations on press self-regulation made after exhaustive hearings by the Leveson inquiry. That charter painstakingly shields the press from political interference while offering new protections for the public from unethical press conduct.
Lord Justice Leveson foresaw that some newspaper groups would be reluctant to participate in a system that was actually effective. In his inquiry he was urged by many to make his system compulsory, but this was opposed by newspapers and it was their arguments he listened to. So instead of compulsion he proposed incentives, or sticks and carrots a series of advantages in law to becoming members of the proper self-regulator, and disadvantages to staying out. Chief of these are advantages for members in the allocation of costs after libel and privacy trials.
All this is in the royal charter of 18 March and the supporting legislation. What needs to happen now is that the charter should receive final approval by the Privy Council and come into action. A charter-compliant self-regulator will then be established, the incentives will come into force and we will see after that whether newspapers hold out. All of this was mapped out under the all-party agreement in parliament itself a rare and possibly unique phenomenon.
The press bosses behind today's initiative have a horror of self-regulation they do not control, so they are engaged in relentless and cynical legal manoeuvres to delay the 18 March royal charter. It was supposed to happen in May, and for obscure reasons has still not happened and probably will not happen at the next meeting of the Privy Council on Wednesday. The House of Lords has already expressed its fury at this, and Lord Prescott has resigned from the Privy Council in protest. Here again, the will of parliament and government is being defied by a tiny, wealthy, anti-democratic clique of proven bullies, whose respect for the law of the land is well summed up in Rupert Murdoch's remarks to Sun journalists, as revealed last week. Do they run the country? The time has come to decide.
Brian Cathcart is the Executive Director of Hacked Off

[Jan Klimkowski]

It is not known what Lord Leveson intends to do with this report of much wider police corruption than he is currently investigating.

The rumours are that the answer was a Public Immunity Certificate preventing disclosure....

30 March 2012 UK Channel 4 News

New police corruption alleged in secret report

Andy Davies Home Affairs Correspondent

Exclusive: Corrupt police officers are accused of deleting intelligence reports from the national police computer on the orders of criminal gangs in a secret report passed to the Leveson inquiry.

The confidential report produced by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in 2008, found that private investigators, linked to organised criminals, used corrupt serving and former police officers to delete intelligence records from law enforcement databases and access details of police operations. The report has been seen by Channel 4 News Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies.

The eight-page report, which has been passed to the Leveson inquiry into police corruption and media ethics, warns of "rogue" private investigators "providing organised crime groups with counter-surveillance techniques" and attempting to discover the identities of informants and witnesses under police protection.

The details in the report entitled "Private Investigators: The Rogue Element of the Private Investigation Industry and Others Unlawfully Trading in Personal Data" have never been disclosed publicly before, because the report is labelled "exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000".

Soca analysed five UK Law enforcement operations leading up to 30 September 2007. The report says: "Four of the operations provided examples of corrupt individuals including serving and former police officers, a bank employee, employees in a communications service provider, a public service employee, and a HM Prison Service Employee. All of these were used by private investigators to facilitate access to information."

The former head of anti-corruption at the Met Police, Bob Quick, told Channel 4 News: "There were occasions where cases involved officers removing evidence, destroying evidence.

"This was infrequent but when it occurred it was serious. There were indications that that relationships existed with private investigators and ex-police officers who were suspected of corruption."

"If police operations against serious criminals are being undermined then that's very significant for justice and safety in this country."

It is not clear what action has been taken in the wake of these findings. The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Keith Vaz MP, told Channel 4 News on Thursday: "What we will have to do, and I will discuss this with colleagues on the committee, is to call in the then Home Secretary (Jacqui Smith) to ask whether or not she knew about what was going on, and certainly ask Soca to come in because this is signed off by Soca - they're supposed to be there to protect us from serious and organised crime. "

"If they knew that there was this widespread deletion of information, and the connection between private investigators and police officers who were involved in inappropriate action, it's very important that they come before the committee and explain themselves, as a matter of urgency."

The confidential Soca report details illegal acts by (unnamed) private investigators which go far beyond the sphere of privacy, describing how criminal gangs used private investigators to access police computers, enabling them to see - and even delete - evidence linked to live cases.

Under the heading Perverting the Course of Justice, the report records two operations providing:

"examples of private investigator activities which threaten to undermine the criminal justice system, as follows:

a. accessing the Police National Computer to perform unauthorised checks;

b. accessing internal police databases including those containing serving officers' private details;

c. unauthorised checking of details of vehicles involved in surveillance on PNC (Police National Computer);

d. accessing details of current investigation against a criminal or criminal group;

e. checking premises and vehicles for technical equipment deployed by law enforcement;

f. identifying current law enforcement interest in an organised crime group;

g. deleting intelligence records from law enforcement databases;

h. providing organised crime groups with counter-surveillance techniques;

i. accessing their own or associates' recorded convictions;

j. attempting to discover identity of CHISes (Informants)

k. attempting to discover location of witnesses;

l. attempting to discover location of witnesses under police protection to intimidate them;

m. accessing DVLA databases."

Currently there is no regulation of the private investigation industry, despite the fact that the Private Security Industry Act 2001 allowed specifically for licensing to be introduced. Anyone can undertake private investigative activity regardless of skills, experience or criminality. No one knows how many private investigators are operating in the UK. Estimates vary between 2000-10,000.

Soca warned the Home Office in its 2008 report: "The ability of the investigators to commit such criminality is supported by the absence of regulation in the industry, an abundance of law enforcement expertise either through corrupt contacts or from a previous career in law enforcement, easy access to specialist experts and abuse of legally-available technology."

A Home Office spokesperson told Channel 4 News: "We are considering whether to regulate private investigators. In the meantime they are subject to the law on intercepting communications like everyone else."

It is not known what Lord Leveson intends to do with this report of much wider police corruption than he is currently investigating.

[David Guyatt]

.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Hmmmmm.......

What's going down here?

The SOCA / Leveson "let's just not mention blue chip companies & the powerful" coziness has been discussed in the pages above, but Rob Wilson MP is effectively making charges of treason here.


Backbench Tory MP Rob Wilson called for both Sir Ian and Mr Pearce to be sacked if they continue to block the release of the list of names.

The MP for Reading East said in a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May last night: It is entirely unacceptable for Soca to put its own reputation and commercial interests before its duties to the public in tackling serious criminality.

Many people will rightly see Soca's actions as an abuse of the Official Secrets Act and the Human Rights Act. It appears that Soca is in danger of losing its way in taking the decisions it has.

Tackling serious and organised crime is an incredibly important function in a civilised country. It will be difficult for the public to have confidence in Soca while it appears there is one law for the rich and powerful, and another for the rest.'

Police won't name big firms and lawyers who hack phones - to protect their human rights

Police refused to publish names of companies accused of hiring private eyes
The Serious Organised Crime Agency has a list of those accused
Publishing names might breach the Human Rights Act, they claim
The agency said that publishing the list could damage the firms' commercial interests by tainting them with guilt

By Jack Doyle

PUBLISHED: 00:21, 20 July 2013 | UPDATED: 00:22, 20 July 2013 Daily Mail

Lord Justice Leveson's report into hone hacking did not mention blue-chip companies

Police are refusing to publish the names of law firms, blue-chip companies and celebrities accused of hiring private investigators to break the law to protect their human rights'.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency has a list of those accused of paying private eyes to dig for information, including using illegal means such as phone hacking.

But yesterday it emerged that the agency, dubbed Britain's FBI, is suppressing the names, claiming that to publish them might breach the Human Rights Act. It cited Article 8, the right to a private and family life.

The agency also claimed that publishing the list could damage the firms' commercial interests by tainting them with guilt.

Last night one Tory MP called for the heads of Soca to be sacked if they continue to block the release of the list.

And senior MPs who are investigating the scandal criticised the agency for its lack of transparency.

Labour's Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, wrote to Soca to ask for all the information Soca holds on private investigators and their links with the police and private sector'.

He said: Soca has indicated that it is prepared to give the client list to us in confidence. This has still not been received. It is a disappointment that this is yet another document the committee has had to receive in secret from Soca.'

More...

Blue-chip companies that hired corrupt private investigators will stay secret despite demands from MPs for them to be revealed
DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Hacking, hypocrisy and a flawed inquiry

He added: In view of the public interest, openness and transparency may be the only way that the public can be reassured that no one is above the law and [that] Soca have done all they can to address this issue.'

Mr Vaz said he will write to the leading 100 legal firms and every firm in the FTSE 100 to ask them if they have ever commissioned private investigators and for what.
Labour¿s Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, wrote to Soca to ask for 'all the information Soca holds on private investigators and their links with the police and private sector'

Labour's Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, wrote to Soca to ask for 'all the information Soca holds on private investigators and their links with the police and private sector'

On June 24 he wrote to Sir Ian Andrews, the chairman of Soca, to ask him to provide the committee with a list of clients who hired private investigators to break the law that Soca is aware of', setting a deadline of June 28.

In a letter dated July 12, published on the committee's website on Wednesday, Sir Ian a former Ministry of Defence mandarin said publishing the information could substantially undermine the financial viability of major organisations by tainting them with public association with criminality'.

The evidence has now been formally classified', he added.

Detailing his reasons, he said there was a lack of certainty' over whether the investigators' clients had guilty knowledge' and were aware of what was going on. And he said naming them could undermine their right to a private and family life under the Human Rights Act.

He also cited the possible prejudice which any publication might have on ongoing criminal investigations and future regulatory action'.

He wrote: This reflects the fact that the information it contains, if published, might prejudice individual security or liberty, impede the investigation (or facilitate the commission) of serious crime or substantially undermine the financial viability of major organisations by tainting them with public association with criminality.'

The list of clients stems from a Metropolitan Police investigation codenamed Operation Millipede which led to the jailing of four private detectives in January last year.
How the Daily Mail has reported the issue since June

How the Daily Mail has reported the issue since June (above and below)
How the Daily Mail has reported the issue since June (above and below)

The court heard personal information was blagged' by private investigators who impersonated targets while phoning banks, building societies and telephone companies.

But no details of the men's alleged clients came out in court.

Last month it emerged that a Soca report into private investigators that was submitted to the Leveson Inquiry but not mentioned in Lord Justice Leveson's report or published on the inquiry website alleged widespread misbehaviour by businesses other than the media.

The confidential document, codenamed Project Riverside, contained intelligence material on the wider use of private investigators outside the media.

It alleged that law firms, insurance companies, wealthy individuals and even councils were paying for information.
Rob Wilson said in a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May that it is entirely unacceptable for Soca to put its own reputation and commercial interests before its duties to the public

Rob Wilson said in a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May that it is entirely unacceptable for Soca to put its own reputation and commercial interests before its duties to the public

One hacker reportedly said that 80 per cent of his client list was blue-chip companies and high-profile individuals, with the rest relating to the media.

Questions have been asked on why little apparent action has been taken either to disrupt this trade in information or to target those paying for it.

They are reported to include a corporate giant, a celebrity broadcaster, a media personality and a wealthy businessman.

Both Sir Ian and Trevor Pearce, the agency's director general, were summoned to return before the MPs after details of what the agency knew, which date back six years or more, came to light.

The agency has agreed to allow Mr Vaz and members of the committee to see a copy of the list of names, on the condition it is not made public.

Backbench Tory MP Rob Wilson called for both Sir Ian and Mr Pearce to be sacked if they continue to block the release of the list of names.

The MP for Reading East said in a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May last night: It is entirely unacceptable for Soca to put its own reputation and commercial interests before its duties to the public in tackling serious criminality.

Many people will rightly see Soca's actions as an abuse of the Official Secrets Act and the Human Rights Act. It appears that Soca is in danger of losing its way in taking the decisions it has.

Tackling serious and organised crime is an incredibly important function in a civilised country. It will be difficult for the public to have confidence in Soca while it appears there is one law for the rich and powerful, and another for the rest.'

Scotland Yard's continuing investigations into newspapers are expected to cost nearly £40million by the time they conclude in April 2015.