Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Murdoch editor and Cameron spin doktor Coulson - incompetent or lying for his bosses?

Scotland Yard top cop Yates - incompetent or lying for his bosses?

Hmm - what have we here?

Rupert Murdoch telling the British Prime Minister to control his MPs and back the fuck off or else...

Phone hacking: Rupert Murdoch 'urged Gordon Brown' to halt Labour attacks

Former PM was asked to 'defuse' NoW row, says ex-minister

Ed Miliband calls for full details of 'criminal behaviour'

Toby Helm and James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Saturday 9 April 2011 22.16 BST

Rupert Murdoch used his political influence and contacts at the highest levels to try to get Labour MPs and peers to back away from investigations into phone hacking at the News of the World, a former minister in Gordon Brown's government has told the Observer.

The ex-minister, who does not want to be named, says he is aware of evidence that Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, relayed messages to Brown last year via a third party, urging him to help take the political heat out of the row, which he felt was in danger of damaging his company.

Brown, who stepped down as prime minister after last May's general election defeat for Labour, has refused to comment on the claim, but has not denied it. It is believed that contacts were made before he left No 10. The minister said: "What I know is that Murdoch got in touch with a good friend who then got in touch with Brown. The intention was to get him to cool things down. That is what I was told."

Brown, who became increasingly concerned at allegations of phone hacking and asked the police to investigate, had claimed that he was a victim of hacking when chancellor. He made Murdoch's views known to a select few in the Labour party.

In January, it was revealed Brown had written at least one letter to the Metropolitan police over concerns that his phone was targeted when he was still at the Treasury.

Suggestions that Murdoch involved Tony Blair in a chain of phone calls that led to Brown have been denied by the former prime minister. A spokesman for Blair said the claim was "categorically untrue", adding "no such calls ever took place". The allegation will, however, add to concerns about the influence Murdoch wielded over key political figures at Westminster and in Downing Street.

It will also raise further questions over the decision by David Cameron to appoint Andy Coulson, a former NoW editor who resigned over phone hacking, as his director of communications.

A spokesman for News International, the paper's owner, rebuted the claim, saying: "This is total rubbish."

Labour leader Ed Miliband weighed in on the hacking scandal , saying it was important to establish who knew what about "criminal behaviour" and when. "What we have seen is a serious admission of wrongdoing by News International," he said during a visit to Swindon. "We have now got to get to the bottom of any criminal behaviour, which is a matter for the police. We need to know who knew about these actions and when. We also need to know how far across the organisation knowledge of these actions went."

On Friday, News International issued a public apology to eight victims of phone hacking, including the actress Sienna Miller and Tessa Jowell, the former culture secretary in Tony Blair's government. It was the first time the company had admitted the practice was common at the News of the World.

However, questions remain over whether the victims will settle. Miller's solicitor, Mark Thomson, of law firm Atkins Thomson, said: "She is awaiting information and disclosure from the News of the World which has been ordered by the court and will consider her next steps once this is provided."

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said a decision on the planned takeover of BSkyB by News Corp would not be influenced by the controversy. A spokesman said: "The culture secretary has to make a quasi-judicial decision about the impact of the proposed merger on media plurality issues alone. Legally the culture secretary cannot consider other factors as part of this process and under law phone hacking is not seen as relevant to media plurality."

The scandal has focused attention on senior executives at News International, including its chief executive Rebekah Brooks, formerly Wade. Former MP George Galloway, who said he had been shown proof his phone had been hacked, claimed the NoW's apology was a "cynical attempt to protect the company's chief executive Rebekah Wade … Wade delivered the statement on Friday which sought to put an end to the controversy. However, by attempting to limit the admission of liability to the two years between 2004 and 2006 and by so doing effectively sacrificing two senior executives and former editor Andy Coulson she appears to be trying to exculpate herself from the scandal."

The publicist Max Clifford, who brought a private case against NoW that ended with a reported £1m settlement, said the newspaper had been forced into the apology. "It's now acknowledged this was widespread at News International."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/09...rdon-brown

[Jan Klimkowski]

And, now, subsequent to that highly damaging leak in my post above, we have what are doubtless sources close to Brown claiming Britain's top civil servant told the British PM to back the fuck off.

On truly ridiculous grounds.

And the coward Brown agreed to back off.

Gordon Brown phone-hacking inquiry halted by civil service

Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, blocked attempt by former PM to hold judicial inquiry into phone-hacking allegations

Nicholas Watt, Patrick Wintour and Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk, Sunday 10 April 2011 22.15 BST

Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, blocked an attempt by Gordon Brown before the general election to hold a judicial inquiry into allegations that the News of the World had hacked into the phones of cabinet ministers and other high-profile figures.

As News International prepares to pay compensation to victims of the illegal practice, the Guardian understands that Britain's most senior civil servant took steps to prevent an inquiry on the grounds that it would be too sensitive before last year's general election.

The then prime minister, who warned Peter Mandelson in 2009 that his phone had been hacked on behalf of the News of the World, wanted a judicial inquiry after new evidence of the illegal practice emerged that summer.

The Guardian revealed in July 2009 that Rupert Murdoch's News Group newspapers had paid more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal illegal phone hacking by private investigators on behalf of News of the World.

The revelations were of acute political sensitivity because Andy Coulson, editor of the News of the World between 2003 and 2007, was by then David Cameron's communications director. Coulson was asked to appear before the Commons culture select committee after the publication of the Guardian disclosures.

O'Donnell told Brown, who lost the support of the News of the World and its sister paper, the Sun, in the autumn of 2009, that it would be inappropriate to hold a judicial inquiry so soon before the election. Coulson was by then one of the most senior members of Cameron's inner circle and was appointed as the Downing Street director of communications after the general election. He has consistently denied any knowledge of wrongdoing, and resigned from No 10 in January saying coverage of phone hacking had made his job impossible.

The disclosure that O'Donnell blocked an inquiry came as Boris Johnson called for a "truth and reconciliation" commission to establish the full facts about phone hacking. In an interview on Sky News, the mayor of London said: "Plainly the police need to get on with it. But I would like to see the entire newspaper industry, what we used to call Fleet Street and indeed the media generally, have a general truth and reconciliation commission about all this. I think all the editors and all the proprietors should come forward, put their hands up, say whether they know of any of their reporters or employees who may or may not have been engaged in these practices which have now been exposed at the News of the World. I think that would be a very healthy development."

Johnson spoke out after News International issued a public apology on Friday to eight victims of phone hacking. These included the actor Sienna Miller, the former Labour culture secretary Tessa Jowell, the football agent Sky Andrew and the publicist Nicola Phillips.

Charlotte Harris of Mishcon de Reya, which represents Andrew, said she was advising her client not to accept compensation until he sees all the documentation in the possession of News International. Harris told Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "Sky Andrew has been finally offered an apology and we are thinking about what to do. There isn't actually a particular figure they have offered us for anything. The position Sky is taking is not disimilar to that of Sienna Miller and Nicola Phillips. It is: isn't this a bit early, we are just about to have disclosure of the documents, we need to have a look and see what has happened and get to the bottom of it and then we'll see where it goes from there."

Asked if she would advise her clients not to settle without disclosure of notes and emails, Harris said: "Yes. What we have at the moment is an apology and an admission, having been working on this for a very long time. We haven't even got near the truth yet. We have got orders that mean we are now going to be able to have a chance at getting to the bottom of it, so we need to find out. How are we meant to know what to accept if we don't know the full extent of what has happened?"

Harris added that thousands of phones could have been monitored. "If you consider that if you hack into one person's phone, you have access to everyone who has left a message for them. And then, if you go into the person who has left a message, you get all of theirs. You have got to be running into several thousand, just from that methodology. To put a figure on it, it is certainly not a handful - maybe 4,000, 6,000, 7,000 - a huge amount of people."The Guardian understands Gordon Brown was so concerned that News of the World was targeting Labour figures that he warned Peter Mandelson his phone had been hacked. Mandelson approached the information commissioner, but he did not confirm that his phone had been hacked.

Critics of Murdoch have urged the government not to decide on his bid to take control of BSkyB until the allegations have been fully investigated. But advisers to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, say he is prevented by law from taking the scandal into account when he considers whether it is appropriate for News Corporation to be allowed to buy all of BSkyB. The £8bn merger, which the minister has already said he is minded to approve, is being examined on its impact on "media plurality". However, Hunt's lawyers say that phone hacking cannot be considered in an inquiry as regards plurality. They say it could only form part of a "suitability of persons" test into whether Murdoch and the bosses of News Corporation were appropriate individuals to own BSkyB. That test was designed to prevent pornographers, for example, becoming media owners - but it cannot now be invoked in the case of the Murdoch merger. The Enterprise Act that covers the UK's merger rules only allows one referral on one set of grounds, which means £8bn deal could only ever have been referred for political approval on either media plurality or suitability of persons grounds, but not both.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said: "We never comment about any advice from a cabinet secretary to a prime minister on any issue."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/10...il-service

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said: "We never comment about any advice from a cabinet secretary to a prime minister on any issue."

The archetypal British deep state response when caught committing nefarious deeds. :finger:

[Magda Hassan]

That test was designed to prevent pornographers, for example, becoming media owners - but it cannot now be invoked in the case of the Murdoch merger.

But Murdoch is if nothing else a pornographer? Surely?

Jim Hacker could surely have handled this scandal better than Brown has.

[Magda Hassan]

Nothing from MI5 on any of this? They must be central to it in all sorts of ways?

[Peter Lemkin]

This scandal [as most others] clearly shows the chain of 'command' Big Business==> Pols [who grovel at their every request....or is that every command...] The EXACT same things [and more than just newspapers looking for stories and dirt] are going on in most every country now.

[Magda Hassan]

Why did News International retreat on phone hacking?

10Apr11 10:01 am
by Brian Cathcart
James Murdoch was quoted this weekend as saying in New York that his father's company has now put the phone hacking problem "in a box" so that everybody would not be "sucked into it", causing the whole business to "sputter".
Well maybe. News International has always had a cultish, us-against-the-rest character, so its mind is hard to read, but the truth surely is that the company's lawyers have known for weeks if not months that they could not win most or perhaps any of the private cases brought by people who believe they were victims of News of the World hacking.
It may be that the decisive moment came a month or so ago, when the judicial authorities made a simple and for them almost routine decision. About 25 separate legal actions were in the works and it was no secret that papers were being prepared for more, so it was thought sensible and efficient to direct all of them towards one judge, who would then be versed in all the common factors and issues. The chosen judge was Mr Justice Vos, who had until then been hearing the preliminaries in the combined cases of Andy Gray and Steve Coogan. For News International this was surely a disaster, because in those preliminary hearings they had road tested some of their most important defences and found Vos unsympathetic to the point of dismissiveness.
Perhaps the most significant moment came during a court hearing in January, when Vos was briskly reviewing matters before ruling on a particular point of procedure. He said this:

The main point argued in Mr Gray's case was that none of the 12 calls known to have actually been made from Mr Mulcaire's landlines to Mr Gray's voicemail box number was long enough to allow interception of Mr Gray's voicemail messages. The Defendants relied in this regard on the evidence that . . . it normally takes nine seconds to access any real messages when a call is made to a voicemail direct dial number.

Here, in other words was one of the central pillars of the News International case. Glenn Mulcaire had, by whatever nefarious means, acquired all the numbers and codes required to access Andy Gray's voicemails, but did he actually listen to them? Yes, he had called the relevant number, but the company argued that no proof had been provided of him actually hearing a message; on the contrary, what evidence there was suggested he had failed to do so. By implication, it could not be shown that Mulcaire had breached Gray's privacy. Here is what Mr Justice Vos had to say about that:

. . .it seems to me that, in Mr Gray's case, there is abundant evidence that Mr Gray's voicemails were intercepted, and a strong inference that some misuse will have been made of the confidential information thereby obtained. The 12 calls that have already been proved may well not be the whole story. And at least three of them were long enough for some information to have been obtained …

He added that there was every reason to expect much more data on the telephone traffic to emerge, both from the police and the company, and that in any case he saw no reason to rely on telephone traffic data alone.

. . . the documents from Mr Mulcaire's own handwritten notes are more than enough to satisfy me that interception of Mr Gray's voicemails was something that Mr Mulcaire was undertaking regularly.

Vos was equally sceptical about the company's argument that it could not be proved that Mulcaire, if he really did hack Gray's messages, was doing it for the News of the World.

. . . since Mr Mulcaire was contracted to NGN, I disagree. Moreover, Mr Mulcaire's own notes and the reference to "Greg" therein supports that case, even though it remains to be proved that "Greg" was Greg Miskiw, a NotW journalist.

(NGN, by the way, is News Group Newspapers, the arm of News International which operates the News of the World and the Sun.)
If, at the turn of the year, Murdoch's people thought they could fight their cases against people in Andy Gray's position with a reasonably chance of success, this sort of rubbishing from a leading judge must have brought them up short. Then, when they learned that all the cases would be heard by the same judge, the outlook must have been transformed. A chance of success became a serious risk of expensive and serial humiliation.
And worse still was the prospect that Glenn Mulcaire would lose the case he is due to bring to court, perhaps as early as next month (and not before Vos), in which he was set to argue that he should not be obliged to reveal whom he dealt with on these matters at the News of the World on the ground that he risked incriminating himself. With Vos already kicking them around, they apparently decided not to wait.
That said, it should be noted that the company's statement contains some vaguely defiant language suggesting they are not giving up entirely. On the one hand, this is natural: they want to drive hard bargains on compensation and send a signal that they won't pay out in frivolous, unfounded claims. On the other hand, they may yet take some cases to court to try and define the limits of their liability, because there are a lot of loose ends here. A final note: while Andy Gray is said to be on the list for a compensation offer, Steve Coogan is not. What does this mean? Only that Coogan's case is less well advanced than Gray's. His lawyers are gathering information, and Vos appears to believe that they will make it stack up.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London. He tweets at @BrianCathcart ENDS
http://blog.indexoncensorship.org/2011/0...e-hacking/

[Jan Klimkowski]

Murdoch manager Rebekah Brooks/Wade squirms, and attempts to rewrite history.

Of course Mr Murdoch's editors don't get involved in anything as tawdry and sordid as bribing police officers m'lud, despite my admission of such payments back in 2003 which led to Andy Coulson telling me to shut up.... :nosmilie:

Rebekah Brooks: I have no knowledge of actual payments to police

News International chief clarifies 2003 statement that 'we have paid the police for information in the past'

James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 April 2011 15.42 BST

The former Sun editor, Rebekah Brooks, told a powerful group of MPs on Monday she has no knowledge of any actual payments the paper might have made to police offers in exchange for information.

In a letter to the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, Brooks, who is now chief executive of the paper's parent company News International, said she had no "knowledge of any specific cases" in which payments to police might have been made.

Brooks was responding to a request from the committee made last month to detail how many police officers received money from the Sun, which she edited from 2003 to 2009, and when the practice ceased.

Brooks, who edited the Sun's sister title the News of the World before moving to the daily in early 2003, told MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee eight years ago:"We have paid the police for information in the past."

In her letter to the home affairs select committee chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, Brooks said she was grateful for the opportunity to clarify the evidence she gave in March 2003.

She added that she was talking in general terms about the newspaper industry and its relationship with the police, rather than the paper she edited specifically, when she appeared before the culture media and sport committee in 2003.

"As can be seen from the transcript, I was responding to a specific line of questioning on how newspapers get information," Brooks wrote. "My intention was simply to comment generally on the widely-held belief that payments had been made in the past to police officers.

"If, in doing so, I gave the impression that I had knowledge of any specific cases, I can assure you that this was not my intention."

According to the transcript of 11 March 2003 on the culture select committee website, Labour MP Chris Bryant asked both Brooks and Andy Coulson, then editor of the News of the World, whether "either of your newspapers ever use private detectives, ever bug or pay the police?".

A long answer from Brooks followed about the use of private detectives and listening devices in the public interest, in which she gave a specific example of where a News of the World reporter recorded a conversation to establish that a woman was "selling her daughters" to local "paedophiles", but which did not address the question of whether the police had been paid for news stories.

Bryant then followed up, asking specifically: "And on the element of whether you ever pay the police for information?"

Brooks replied: "We have paid the police for information in the past." Bryant then asked her "will you do it in the future?", to which she answered: "It depends."

At that point Coulson cut in, saying: "We operate within the code and within the law and if there is a clear public interest then we will. The same holds for private detectives, subterfuge, a video bag whatever you want to talk about."

Vaz wrote to Brooks at the end of last month following evidence given to the home affairs select committee in March by John Yates, the acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, in which he said Scotland Yard was undertaking "research" on whether police officers had received payments from newspapers.

The Labour MP for Leicester East also wrote to Yates in March on behalf of the home affairs select committee asking for more details about this research.

In the same evidence session Yates reiterated his claim that the Crown Prosecution Service had initially advised the Met to adopt a narrow interpretation of the law relating to phone hacking during its initial investigation into allegations of widespread hacking at the News of the World.

He said that advice "permeated the whole investigation/inquiry" and helped explain why the police had only identified a small number of victims.

The committee has asked Yates to supply a copy of the legal advice the Met received from the CPS when Yates reviewed the hacking evidence last autumn.

Yates said its advice changed after a case conference held in October 2010, during which the CPS made it clear that a wider definition of what constitutes a hacking offence should be adopted.

MPs have asked for copies of the legal advice supplied before and after that October meeting. A spokeswoman for Vaz said he had received a reply from Yates and the committee is likely to make it public in due course.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, contradicted Yates's claims about the CPS advice when he appeared before the home affairs committee earlier this month.

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

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Met clearly conducted a non-investigation.

I wonder why? mileymad:

This is not incompetence. It is far more sinister.

If Mulcaire was the Mechanic, and the likes of Coulson and Rupert Murdoch the Facilitators, who were the Sponsors?

I have a pretty good working hypothesis.

Phone hacking: 45 messages from John Prescott were intercepted, court hears

The former deputy prime minister is seeking permission for a judicial review into police handling of the phone-hacking affair

Nick Davies guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 May 2011 14.20 BST

The private investigator at the centre of the phone-hacking affair intercepted 45 voicemail messages from the then deputy prime minister John Prescott and emailed them to the News of the World, the high court has heard.

Lord Prescott's lawyers told the court that he had been the victim of "an unfortunate history of misinformation" by the Metropolitan police, who had told him repeatedly that he was not a victim of hacking.

But the court heard that the investigator Glenn Mulcaire had targeted Prescott by listening to messages which he left on the phone of his chief of staff, Joan Hammell.

Mulcaire had then sent a News of the World executive an email containing 45 messages as well as instructions about how to continue accessing Hammell's phone.

The new evidence emerged in a hearing in which Prescott, the former Europe minister Chris Bryant and the Met's former deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick are seeking permission for a judicial review of police handling of the affair.

They say police failed to conduct an effective inquiry and failed to inform them they were victims.

Lawyers for the Met conceded there had been "some operational shortcomings" and that there had been cases where some victims had not been informed even though the evidence was clear.

But they said the evidence in the claimants' cases had not been clear. They revealed that, having seized 10,000 pages of notes from Mulcaire, the original inquiry in 2006 had failed to enter the material on a computer system.

In 2009, after the Guardian revived the affair, Scotland Yard had finally started transferring the material to a database but had overlooked numerous documents and scanned others in a form that was not searchable.

The result for the police, according to James Lewis QC, was that:

Prescott was told there was no evidence that he was a target of Mulcaire, even though his name was listed on notes the investigator had kept about the hacking of Hammell.

Bryant was told only that his name and number had been found in Mulcaire's notes, whereas in fact his name was linked to a list of 23 phone numbers that could only have been obtained by hacking his voicemail, according to Hugh Tomlinson QC.

Paddick was told there was no evidence he was a victim even though a print-out from Mulcaire's computer named him as "a project" and handwritten notes included phone details for him, his partner, his former partner and numerous associates.

The court heard that the email containing Prescott's 45 messages had been handed to police by the News of the World in January this year.

Mr Justice Foskett said he would deliver a judgment as to whether the judicial review should continue in the near future.

[Magda Hassan]

Hackees made an offer they can't refuse...

Sienna Miller awarded £100,000 over phone hacking

Actress Sienna Miller is one of several celebrities accusing the News of the World of breach of privacy
Continue reading the main story Related Stories

• Phone-hacking probe: Key people
  
• 'Police payment' probe considered
  
• Hacking row 'legal can of worms'
  

Sienna Miller is set to accept £100,000 in damages from the News of the World, after the paper admitted liability over the hacking of the actress's phone.
The newspaper will make a full disclosure in private to her legal team to show the extent of all wrongdoing.
Lawyers for Ms Miller said there had been a full admission of liability and that she had been vindicated.
The News of the World said it was "pleased we have managed to bring this case to a satisfactory conclusion".
"Several weeks ago we admitted liability in certain cases and offered a genuine and unreserved apology. We hope to resolve other cases swiftly," the newspaper's statement said.
8,000 e-mails [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13390991#story_continues_2][/url]

"For the record, reports that we have been ordered to disclose 8,000 e-mails to Ms Miller are inaccurate.
"The error stems from a reference in court to the fact that a total of 8,000 e-mails were being searched to ascertain whether any Sienna Miller-related material was amongst them."
Following a two-day hearing at the High Court, Mr Justice Vos indicated he would give his full judgment next week.
Four alleged victims have already reached out-of-court settlements with the newspaper, including celebrity publicist Max Clifford, who received a reported £1m.
On Thursday News Group's QC, Michael Silverleaf, told Mr Justice Vos at the High Court it admitted liability unconditionally for all the wrongs alleged by the actress and accepted responsibility for compensating her.
Ms Miller's counsel, Hugh Tomlinson QC, said the proposed settlement would include the provision of information by the News of the World "concerning the extent of the wrongdoing".
'Harassment'
Mr Tomlinson said: "I make the position clear that Ms Miller is proceeding in this way precisely because Mr Silverleaf indicated yesterday all her claims have been admitted - misuse of private information, breach of confidence, publication of articles derived from voicemail hacking and a course of conduct of harassment over a period of more than 12 months.

"In those circumstances, her primary concern is not how much money is awarded by way of compensation but to know exactly what the extent was of the hacking which took place and, having obtained an order which will enable her to know that - so far as it is knowable - that meets all her requirements from this action."
The settlement is likely to be formalised by the court next Friday.
The News of the World's admission to Ms Miller marks a new chapter in a scandal which dates back to 2006, when the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for hacking into the mobile phone voicemails of royal aides.
Since then, a series of inquiries and legal cases have been exploring just how widespread the practice was, with implications for the police, celebrities and politicians.
More and more celebrities and public figures have alleged their phones have been hacked and some have launched legal actions against the paper or the police for allegedly failing to investigate.
News International, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, has offered to co-operate fully with a Metropolitan Police inquiry.
The News of the World's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, 50, and former news editor Ian Edmondson, 42, were arrested last month on suspicion of having unlawfully intercepted voicemail messages. They were released on bail until September.
Speaking to the BBC's Newsnight programme, actor Hugh Grant described the invasion of privacy by tabloid newspapers as a "massive scandal".
Mr Grant said police had told him he had been a victim of phone hacking although he did not specify which publication was involved.
He said: "To me there is no distinction between mugging someone for their wallet and watch and selling it on the street and mugging them for their privacy and selling it in a newspaper."
Mr Grant added: "It doesn't feel right that just because you've had a bit of success, one of the most basic human rights is in this country is effectively removed from you."

[Jan Klimkowski]

See post #77 in this thread here for more details of the Murdoch Empire hacking of a "rogue" or "double rogue" British military intelligence agent with knowledge of some of the filthiest secrets of Britain's dirty war in the island of Ireland.

Then this from March this year:

The News of the World phone-hacking scandal is set to reach a new peak of embarrassment for the paper and for Scotland Yard with the naming of the sixth and most senior journalist yet to be implicated in illegal news-gathering.

A BBC Panorama programme claims that Alex Marunchak, formerly the paper's senior executive editor, commissioned a specialist snooper who illegally intercepted email messages from a target's computer and faxed copies of them to Marunchak's News of the World office.

The embarrassment is heightened by the fact that the target was a former British army intelligence officer who had served in Northern Ireland and was in possession of secrets which were deemed so sensitive that they had been suppressed by a court order.

Rupert Murdoch's News International, which owns the News of the World, has claimed repeatedly that only one of its journalists the former royal correspondent, Clive Goodman was involved in illegal news-gathering. When Goodman was jailed in January 2007, Scotland Yard chose not to interview any other journalist or executive on the paper.

And Panorama reports that the illegal interception of emails happened in July 2006, when the prime minister's former media adviser Andy Coulson was editing the paper.

Coulson has given evidence to a parliamentary select committee and on oath at a criminal trial, denying that he knew anything of any illegal activity during his seven years at the News of the World.

Panorama obtained details of a fax sent to the office of Marunchak on 5 July 2006, apparently containing copies of emails which had been written by Ian Hurst, a former army intelligence officer. Marunchak was then based in the News of the World's Dublin office, editing the Irish edition. Hurst was believed to be involved in writing a book titled Stakeknife, eventually published under the pseudonym Martin Ingram, which details the alleged involvement of British intelligence in assassinations in Northern Ireland. Hurst had been the subject of court orders obtained by the Ministry of Defence.

Panorama traced Hurst and showed him the fax. He confirmed on camera that the emails had come from his computer. "The hairs on the back of my head are up," he told them. Hurst then contacted a specialist hacker who he suspected was responsible, met him in a local hotel and confronted him, while the BBC secretly filmed the exchange.

The hacker whose name cannot be revealed for separate legal reasons confessed his role and added: "It weren't that hard. I sent you an email that you opened, and that's it ... I sent it from a bogus address ... Now it's gone. It shouldn't even remain on the hard drive ... I think I programmed it to stay on for three months."

Hurst then asked the hacker who had commissioned him to do this. The hacker replied: "The faxes would go to Dublin ... He was the editor of the News of the World for Ireland. A Slovak-type name. I can't remember his fucking name. Alex, his name is. Marunchak." Marunchak declined to answer questions when the BBC confronted him.

The BBC claim that Marunchak was introduced to the specialist hacker by Jonathan Rees, the private investigator whose involvement with corrupt police officers was detailed by the Guardian on Saturday. Internal News International records show that Marunchak regularly employed Rees from the late 1990s, and that during 2006, the News of the World paid Rees more than £4,000 for research relating to Stakeknife, the codename for the British intelligence mole inside the IRA whose activities were known to Ian Hurst.

Marunchak is the sixth News of the World journalist to be implicated in the affair. Documents published by the Guardian in 2009 include an email containing the transcripts of 35 illegally intercepted voicemail messages, sent by a junior reporter, Ross Hindley, for the chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck. Paperwork disclosed in court cases suggests that Clive Goodman, Ian Edmondson and Greg Miskiw commissioned phone-hacking. Goodman was jailed; Edmondson has been sacked but not charged with any offence; Miskiw is believed to have been interviewed by police in 2005 but never charged with any offence.

And here it is suggested that Murdoch Empire contractors hacked Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, top cops Stevens & Yates, and the governor and deputy governor of the Bank of England.

Firstly, they all deserve to be hacked, each and every one, so :monkeypiss:


Secondly, and more seriously, hacking the PM and senior politocos, two of the most senior police officers in the land, and the country's top central bankers MUST be a national security matter.

And yet it is not being so treated.

In the thread here, the British govt is effectively declaring non-violent protest and strike action against austerity cuts as national security matters. And yet Murdoch editors can hire PIs to hack the messages of some of the most powerful people in the country and not even be asked to account for their actions!!!!!

I call :moon2:

I further note that Murdoch hack Andy Coulson, NOTW editor during some of these incidents, was subsequently hired by Prime Minister David Cameron, who knew all this history, as his top spin doktor.

Or Head of the Tory Propaganda Ministry.

According to journalists and investigators who worked with him, Rees exploited his position as a freemason to make links with masonic police officers who illegally sold him information on targets chosen by the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror and the Daily Mirror. One close contact, Det Sgt Sid Fillery, left the Metropolitan police to become Rees's business partner and added more officers to their network. Fillery was subsequently convicted of possession of indecent images of children.

Some police contacts are said to have been blackmailed into providing confidential information. One of Rees's former associates claims that Rees had compromising photographs of serving officers, including one who was caught in a drunken coma with a couple of prostitutes and with a toilet seat around his neck. Rees claimed to be in touch with corrupt Customs officers, a corrupt VAT inspector and two corrupt bank employees.

An investigator who worked for Rees claims he was commissioning burglaries of public figures to steal material for newspapers. Southern Investigations has previously been implicated in handling paperwork which was stolen by a professional burglar from the safe of Paddy Ashdown's lawyer, when Ashdown was leader of the Liberal Democrats. The paperwork, which was eventually obtained by the News of the World, recorded Ashdown discussing his fears that newspapers might expose an affair with his secretary.

The Guardian has confirmed that Rees also used two specialist "blaggers" who would telephone the Inland Revenue, the DVLA, banks and phone companies and trick them into handing over private data to be sold to Fleet Street.

One of the blaggers who regularly worked for him, John Gunning, was responsible for obtaining details of bank accounts belonging to Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex, which were then sold to the Sunday Mirror. Gunning was later convicted of illegally obtaining confidential data from British Telecom. Rees also obtained details of accounts at Coutts bank belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Kent. The bank accounts of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, are also thought to have been compromised.

The Guardian has been told that Rees spoke openly about obtaining confidential data belonging to senior politicians and recorded their names in his paperwork. One source close to Rees claims that apart from Tony Blair, Straw, Mandelson and Campbell, he also targeted Gaynor Regan, who became the second wife of the foreign secretary, Robin Cook, the former shadow home secretary, Gerald Kaufman; and the former Tory minister David Mellor.

It is not yet known precisley what Rees was doing with these political targets, although in the case of Peter Mandelson, it appears that Rees obtained confidential details of two bank accounts which he held at Coutts, and his building society account at Britannia. Rees is also said to have targeted his brother, Miles Mandelson.

Separately, for the News of the World, Glenn Mulcaire was hacking the voicemail of the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, Straw's successor as home secretary, David Blunkett, the media secretary, Tessa Jowell, and the Europe minister, Chris Bryant. Scotland Yard has repeatedly refused to reveal how many politicians were victims of phone hacking, although Simon Hughes, Boris Johnson and George Galloway have all been named.

The succesful hacking of a computer belonging to the former British intelligence officer Ian Hurst was achieved in July 2006 by sending Hurst an email containing a Trojan program which copied Hurst's emails and relayed them to the hacker. This included messages he had exchanged with at least two agents who informed on the Provisional IRA Freddie Scappaticci, codenamed Stakeknife; and a second informant known as Kevin Fulton. Both men were regarded as high-risk targets for assassination. Hurst was one of the very few people who knew their whereabouts. The hacker cannot be named for legal reasons.

There would be further security concern if Rees's paperwork confirmed strong claims by those close to him that he claimed to have targeted the then Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir John Stevens, who would have had regular access to highly sensitive intelligence. Sir John's successor, Sir Ian Blair, is believed to have been targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, although it has not been confirmed that Mulcaire succeeded in listening to his voicemail. Assistant commissioner John Yates was targeted by Rees when Yates was running inquiries into police corruption in the late 1990s. It appears that Yates did not realise that he himself had been a target when he was responsible for the policing of the phone-hacking affair between July 2009 and January 2011.

Targeting the Bank of England, Rees is believed to have earned thousands of pounds by penetrating the past or present mortgage accounts of the then governor, Eddie George, his deputy, Mervyn King, who is now governor, and half-a-dozen other members of the monetary policy committee.

According to police information provided to the Guardian in September 2002, an internal Scotland Yard report recorded that Rees and his network were engaged in long-term penetration of police intelligence and that "their thirst for knowledge is driven by profit to be accrued from the media".

Operation Weeting has been investigating phone hacking by the News of the World since January. The paper's assistant editor, Ian Edmondson, chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, and former news editor James Weatherup have been arrested and released on police bail.

So, after all that, Scotland Yard's finest rozzers come up with the lame motive that all this hacking was simply driven by the profit motive.

That might be the case with some of the celebrity hacking, which demonstrably led to salacious scoops designed to sell more papers.

The notion that hacking prime ministers, police commanders and central bank governors was driven by the profit motive is risible.

Unless profit motive is used as a synonym for political and commercial leverage, aka blackmail.

I think we should be told.

I know we won't be.

So, :monkeypiss::monkeypiss::monkeypiss: on all their houses.