Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Below is the current list of known meetings between Scotland Yard's finest and the Murdoch Empire. Some details were obtained through Freedom of Information requests.

Sir Ian Blair was Met Police Commissioner before Stephenson.

News International meetings with senior Metropolitan Police officers

Date Occasion Attendees Source
SOURCE: DEE DOOCEY

.November 8, 2005. Dinner with News of the World Andy Hayman FOI request

.February 1, 2006. Lunch with Editorial Staff, The Times Andy Hayman Response to request from MPA

.February 1, 2006. Lunch with Editorial Staff, The Times Sir Ian Blair (Commissioner), Paul Stephenson (Deputy Commissioner) Response to request from MPA

.March 1, 2006. Meeting Editor, Sunday Times Sir Ian Blair (Commissioner) Response to request from MPA

.April 25, 2006. Dinner with News of the World Andy Hayman FOI request

.June 1, 2006. Meeting Editor, The Sun Sir Ian Blair (Commissioner) Response to request from MPA

.September 1, 2006. Dinner with Deputy Editor, News of the World Paul Stephenson (Deputy Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.November 1, 2006. Lunch, Editor Sunday Times Sir Ian Blair (Commissioner) Response to request from MPA

.December 1, 2006. Meeting Editor The Times Sir Ian Blair (Commissioner) Response to request from MPA

.March 29, 2007. Lunch with News of the World Andy Hayman FOI request

.June 1, 2007. Lunch Editorial Staff, News of the World Sir Ian Blair (Commissioner) Response to request from MPA

.July 1, 2007. Drinks Reception, The Times Andy Hayman Response to request from MPA

.September 1, 2007. Lunch Editor The Sun Sir Ian Blair (Commissioner) Response to request from MPA

.September 5, 2007. Lunch with News of the World Andy Hayman FOI request

.November 1, 2007. Dinner with Deputy Editor, News of the World Paul Stephenson (Deputy Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.November 16, 2007. Lunch with News of the World Andy Hayman FOI request
.February 1, 2008. Dinner with Deputy Editor, News of the World Paul Stephenson (Deputy Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.April 1, 2008. Dinner Deputy Editor The Sun Sir Paul Stephenson (Deputy Commissioner) Response to request from MPA

.August 29, 2008. Lunch with The Times John Yates FOI request

.October 1, 2008. Meeting with Deputy Editor, News of the World Paul Stephenson (Deputy Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.October 1, 2008. Dinner with Deputy Editor, News of the World Paul Stephenson (Deputy Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.January 6, 2009. Lunch with The Sun John Yates FOI request

.February 1, 2009. Dinner with Deputy Editor, News of the World Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.March 20, 2009. Lunch with The Sun John Yates FOI request

.April 1, 2009. Lunch Editor The Sun Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.May 1, 2009. Dinner with Deputy Editor, News of the World Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.June 1, 2009. News Corporation reception Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.June 1, 2009. Lunch Editor The Times Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.June 1, 2009. Dinner with Deputy Editor, News of the World Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.July 1, 2009. Lunch Editor Sunday Times Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.September 8, 2009. Dinner with The Sunday Times John Yates FOI request

.November 1, 2009. Lunch Head of News, Sky News Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.November 5, 2009. Dinner with Editor and Crime Editor News of the World John Yates FOI request

.April 1, 2010. Lunch Chief Executive News International Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.June 1, 2010. News Corporation reception Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

.November 1, 2010. Drinks Editor The Sun Paul Stephenson (Commisioner) Response to request from MPA

Source.

[Peter Lemkin]

Let me guess.....Murdoch paid for those meals and drinks...and more...much, MUCH more did he pay them for......:cheer: :mexican:

[Jan Klimkowski]

Bejeezus....

The revelations keep on coming thick, fast and spectacular.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has announced that it is investigating an allegation that John Yates helped the daughter of the former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis get a job in the Metropolitan police.

Reported by The Guardian.

Yates has denied the allegation.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Helter Skelter

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again

News of the World phone hacking whistleblower found dead

Death of Sean Hoare who was first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson knew of hacking not being treated as suspicious

Amelia Hill, James Robinson, Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 July 2011 18.04 BST

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.

Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home.

Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.

"The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

Hoare first made his claims in a New York Times investigation into the phone-hacking allegations at the News of the World.

He told that newspaper that not only did Coulson know of the phone-hacking, but that he actively encouraged his staff to intercept the phone calls of celebrities in the pursuit of exclusives.

In a subsequent interview with the BBC he alleged that he was personally asked by his then-editor, Coulson, to tap into phones. In an interview with the PM programme he said Coulson's insistence that he didn't know about the practice was "a lie, it is simply a lie".

At the time a Downing Street spokeswoman said Coulson totally and utterly denied the allegations and said he had "never condoned the use of phone-hacking and nor do I have any recollection of incidences where phone-hacking took place".

Sean Hoare, a one-time close friend of Coulson's, told the New York Times the two men first worked together at the Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At the News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of his activities. Coulson "actively encouraged me to do it," Hoare said.

In September last year he was interviewed under caution by police over his claims that the former Tory communications chief asked him to hack into phones when he was editor of the paper, but declined to make any comment.

Hoare emerged back into the spotlight last week, after he told the New York Times that reporters at the News of the World were able to use police technology to locate people using their mobile phone signals in exchange for payments to police officers.

He said journalists were able to use a technique called 'pinging' which measured the distance between mobile handsets and a number of phone masts to pinpoint its location. Hoare gave further details about the use of 'pinging' to the Guardian last week.

Speaking to a Guardian reporter last week, Hoare repeatedly expressed the hope that the hacking scandal would lead to journalism in general being cleaned up and said he had decided to blow the whistle on the activities of some of his former News of the World colleagues with that aim in mind.

He also said he has been injured at a party the previous weekend while taking down a marquee erected for a children's party. He said he had broken his nose and badly injured his foot when a relative accidentally struck him with a heavy pole from the marquee.

Hoare also emphasised that he was not making any money from telling his story. Hoare, who has been treated for drug and alcohol problems, reminisced about partying with former pop stars and said he missed the days when he was able to go out on the town.

[Peter Lemkin]

Uh...Oh...when they start dying....then it REALLY is heating/hotting up! This is gonna be a rough ride. Please fasten seat belts! Those with Kevlar vests, this might be the time to put and keep them on! Passing the dead on the fast lane only. :mexican: ""The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."" Hmmmmm....I hope they are 'ongoing' at a more rigorous level than before!!! "There's nothing suspicious about the death of Sean Hoare, except the timing."
:banghead:
Get a clue coppers! I'll wager ten quid it is not 'unexplained' - but directly, if not criminally, related to Rupertgate! The Met/Scotland Yard is so entangled in this, they may have to recuse themselves.....this is really turning weird and ugly fast. Expect many more unexplained deaths, sadly.
:gossip: Next!!!!!????????

[Jan Klimkowski]

In anticipation of major US lawsuits, Murdoch has hired Oliver North's former attorney, who's been described as "the legal equivalent of a nuclear war".

Who is Rupert going to point his missile at?

Rupert Murdoch assembles US legal team over phone-hacking scandal

Appointment of litigation veteran Brendan Sullivan suggests News Corp boss is readying for bitter legal battle in America

Ed Pilkington in New York guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 July 2011 17.25 BST

Rupert Murdoch is assembling a team of US lawyers with expertise in fighting large federal criminal cases, suggesting he is readying himself for a bitter legal battle in America as a result of the phone-hacking scandal.

At the centre of the team is Brendan Sullivan, one of America's most experienced lawyers, who over 40 years in litigation has acquired a reputation for taking on difficult and sensitive cases. He represented Oliver North, the US marine corps officer, in congressional hearings over the Iran-Contra affair.

At the time of the hearings in 1987, Sullivan was described by the Washington Post as "the legal equivalent of nuclear war". A fellow lawyer said: "He asks no quarter and gives no quarter."

Sullivan describes himself as a specialist in "high-profile criminal litigation", whose typical clients include major companies involved in "criminal investigations, litigation or government regulatory matters". He is the author of Techniques for Dealing with Pending Criminal Charges or Criminal Investigations.

Sullivan was probably brought on board by Murdoch last week on the recommendation of Joel Klein, the former US assistant attorney general who the News Corporation chief has entrusted with leading its internal investigation into the phone-hacking scandal.

Klein's wife, Nicole Seligman, who is now the top lawyer at Sony, used to work for Sullivan's firm, Williams & Connolly, in Washington.

The appointment of Sullivan revealed last week by the New York Times's Dealbook blog is being seen as an indication that Murdoch is preparing for the worst. In the UK, News International has already set aside about £20m in preparation for compensation payments to victims of its phone-hacking activities, and pressure is now building in the US for criminal and civil legal action.

The FBI has already launched an investigation into allegations that News of the World journalists tried to obtain phone records of 9/11 victims, and several prominent members of Congress have called for an inquiry into News Corp under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that penalises US-based firms for bribery abroad.

News Corp, which is headquartered in the US, is considered vulnerable as employees at News of the World are accused of having bribed UK police officers.

The US securities and exchange commission could also bring civil charges if News Corp is found to have inaccurately prepared its accounts in an attempt to disguise bribery payments.

Eric Holder, the US attorney general, confirmed on Friday that federal investigations were under way into the 9/11 allegations. "There have been members of Congress in the United States who have asked us to investigate those same allegations. And we are progressing in that regard using the appropriate federal agencies in the United States."

Sidney Blumenthal, who reported on the North case for the Post and worked with the Kleins in the Clinton administration, said the message from Sullivan's appointment was clear. "He is a criminal attorney who works for high-profile public figures facing large federal prosecutions. That's why you hire Brendan Sullivan. It's not because you have a tax problem or a traffic ticket you hire him because you think you are going to trial."

In one of the first specific allegations that the News of the World may have violated US privacy laws, it was claimed over the weekend that the film actor Jude Law had his phone hacked into by reporters for the newspaper while he was arriving at New York's JFK airport. Were the allegations found to be true, that would involve a breach of US phone networks which could carry serious consequences.

Among his recent cases, Sullivan represented Ted Stevens, the late former senator for Alaska, who was found guilty of federal corruption charges. Sullivan had the conviction dismissed on the grounds that the prosecution had withheld evidence.

He also represented Henry Cisneros in 1995 when he was investigated for having lied to the FBI in a background check before his appointment as Bill Clinton's housing secretary, as well as Richard Grasso, the then chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, in a 2004 lawsuit about his allegedly excessive pay package of $140m (£75m at the time) which was eventually dropped.

Sullivan was brought up outside Providence in Rhode Island. He is a keen sailor and owns a yacht called, appropriately, the Mistrial.

[Peter Lemkin]

Rupert Murdoch donated $1m to a pro-business lobby in the US months before the group launched a high-profile campaign to alter the anti-bribery law the same law that could potentially be brought to bear against News Corporation over the phone-hacking scandal.

News Corporation contributed $1m to the US Chamber of Commerce last summer. In October the chamber put forward a six-point programme for amending the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, a law that punishes US-based companies for engaging in the bribery of foreign officials.

Progressive groups in the US have speculated that there is no coincidence in the contemporaneous timing of the Murdoch donation and the launch of the chamber's FCPA campaign, which they claim is designed to weaken the anti-bribery legislation. "The timing certainly raises questions about who is bankrolling this campaign if it's not News Corporation who is it?" said Joshua Dorner of the Centre for American Progress action fund.

Ilyse Hogue of the monitoring group Media Matters said the donation was in tune with Murdoch's track record. "Time and again we've seen News Corporation use their massive power and influence to change laws that don't suit them. The proximity of this contribution and the chamber's lobbying campaign at least should raise eyebrows."

The Chamber of Commerce dismissed the suggestions of a link between its campaign and the News of the World scandal as "preposterous" and "completely false". "Our efforts to modernise an outdated act have been ongoing for nearly a year," a spokesman said, adding that the aim of the proposals was to obtain clear rules of the road for American businesses.

The FCPA can imprison and fine individuals and companies. It was signed into law in 1977 as a means of clamping down on the bad behaviour of US companies abroad. In recent years it has been increasingly usesd. The 10 heaviest FCPA settlements have all occurred since 2007 and total $2.8bn.

News Corporation, which has its headquarters in the US, emphasises in its corporate literature that it has a global anti-bribery policy. "We don't offer, give, solicit or accept bribes or kickbacks, either in cash or in the form of any other thing or service of value," it says.

But evidence has come to light that News Corporation employees working for the News of the World bribed police officers in the UK. "What News of the World did would seem to fall squarely within the parameters of the FCPA," said Philip Raible, a media lawyer with Rayner Rowe LLP in New York.

The chorus of demands that News Corporation face an FCPA investigation has grown steadily louder in the US in the past two days. The former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, has called in Slate for an immediate investigation of the company for violation of the anti-bribery act.

Congressional representatives have added their voices to demands for an official investigation. Bruce Braley, a Democratic member of the powerful House oversight committee, told CNN that Congress itself should look into whether Murdoch's company broke anti-bribery laws.

A Republican representative in New York, Peter King, has called on the FBI to look into claims that News of the World was involved in phone-hacking activities in the US. And several members of Congress have written to the US attorney general, Eric Holder, asking him to see whether News Corporation has breached the FCPA.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has the authority to investigate companies under the FCPA, said any civil prosecution it undertook would only be made public if it asked the courts for an injunction prohibiting further violations of the law.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul...-lobbyists

[Jan Klimkowski]

Here's the text of the referral to the Independent Police Complaints Commission:

IPCC receives referrals from the Metropolitan Police Authority regarding the actions of current and former senior Met Officers

18 July 2011

IPCC Commissioner Deborah Glass has today announced a number of referrals received from the Metropolitan Police Authority. She said: "We have today received referrals from the Metropolitan Police Authority about the conduct of four current or former senior Metropolitan Police officers.

"The matters referred involve:

The conduct of the Met Commissioner in carrying overall responsibility for the investigation into phone hacking;

The conduct of Assistant Commissioner John Yates:

- in his review in July 2009 and overall role in relation to the phone hacking investigation; and

- in his alleged involvement in inappropriately securing employment for the daughter of a friend;

"The conduct of two former senior officers in their role in the phone hacking investigation.

"The role of the Met Police in its original investigation into phone hacking has rightly come under huge public scrutiny. These matters are already the subject of a judge-led public inquiry announced on 13 July which is looking into the way in which police investigated allegations of conduct by persons connected to News International.

"I now need to assess these referrals carefully to determine what should be investigated at this stage, bearing in mind the judicial inquiry, and I will seek to liaise with Lord Justice Leveson as soon as possible. I will publish our terms of reference once I have carefully reviewed the material referred to us.

"To the extent that these referrals raise serious allegations about senior Met officers it is right that they be independently investigated and I will ensure that our investigation follows the evidence without fear or favour.

"It must also be right that people do not rush to judgement until that work is done."

The Daily Mail states that the four senior officers referred are:

Sir Paul Stephenson

John Yates

Peter Clarke

Andy Hayman

John Yates 'secured employment for Neil Wallis's daughter' as IPCC instigates investigation into four senior officers

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 6:59 PM on 18th July 2011

John Yates allegedly secured work at Scotland Yard for the daughter of former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis a source claimed this evening.

On the day Yates resigned as assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, he was also referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission over his alleged involved in helping a friend's daughter get a job.

It understood that this woman is Wallis's daughter but neither the Met or IPCC would confirm this.

The revelations come hours after the IPCC said it was launching an investigation into four former and serving senior Metropolitan Police officers over their handling of the phone hacking scandal.

Five issues have been referred to the IPCC, including questions about the conduct of both Yates and Sir Paul Stephenson, who resigned last night

The IPCC has been asked to look into Sir Paul's actions as the officer with overall responsibility for Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World.

As well as the revelation he employed Wallis's daughter, the inquiry will also considering Yates's decision in 2009 that there was no need to re-open the hacking inquiry.

The IPCC refused to give any more details about the details of the referral.
The Metropolitan Police Authority has also asked the watchdog to examine the conduct of two former senior Met officers involved in the original phone-hacking investigation.

It is understood they are ex-assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, who was in ultimate charge of the 2006 inquiry and later become a columnist with News International title The Times, and ex-deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, who oversaw the investigation.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Nick Davies, the key Guardian reporter in this story, has just written the following about dead whistleblower Sean Hoare.

From my own journalistic experience, Hoare is precisely right about the culture of the NOTW newsroom:

Explaining why he had spoken out, he told me: "I want to right a wrong, lift the lid on it, the whole culture. I know, we all know, that the hacking and other stuff is endemic. Because there is so much intimidation. In the newsroom, you have people being fired, breaking down in tears, hitting the bottle."

However, as a reporter specializing in stories aobut celebrities and sports stars, Hoare has clearly missed any deeper political significance in the value of the information gained by the Murdoch empire through the means that he and his bosses employed.


Full article below.

Sean Hoare knew how destructive the News of the World could be

The courageous whistleblower who claimed Andy Coulson knew about phone hacking had a powerful motive for speaking out

Nick Davies guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 July 2011 18.46 BST

At a time when the reputation of News of the World journalists is at rock bottom, it needs to be said that the paper's former showbusiness correspondent Sean Hoare, who died on Monday, was a lovely man.

In the saga of the phone-hacking scandal, he distinguished himself by being the first former NoW journalist to come out on the record, telling the New York Times last year that his former friend and editor, Andy Coulson, had actively encouraged him to hack into voicemail.

That took courage. But he had a particularly powerful motive for speaking. He knew how destructive the News of the World could be, not just for the targets of its exposés, but also for the ordinary journalists who worked there, who got caught up in its remorseless drive for headlines.

Explaining why he had spoken out, he told me: "I want to right a wrong, lift the lid on it, the whole culture. I know, we all know, that the hacking and other stuff is endemic. Because there is so much intimidation. In the newsroom, you have people being fired, breaking down in tears, hitting the bottle."

He knew this very well, because he was himself a victim of the News of the World. As a showbusiness reporter, he had lived what he was happy to call a privileged life. But the reality had ruined his physical health: "I was paid to go out and take drugs with rock stars get drunk with them, take pills with them, take cocaine with them. It was so competitive. You are going to go beyond the call of duty. You are going to do things that no sane man would do. You're in a machine."

While it was happening, he loved it. He came from a working-class background of solid Arsenal supporters, always voted Labour, defined himself specifically as a "clause IV" socialist who still believed in public ownership of the means of production. But, working as a reporter, he suddenly found himself up to his elbows in drugs and delirium.

He rapidly arrived at the Sun's Bizarre column, then run by Coulson. He recalled: "There was a system on the Sun. We broke good stories. I had a good relationship with Andy. He would let me do what I wanted as long as I brought in a story. The brief was, 'I don't give a fuck'."

He was a born reporter. He could always find stories. And, unlike some of his nastier tabloid colleagues, he did not play the bully with his sources. He was naturally a warm, kind man, who could light up a lamp-post with his talk. From Bizarre, he moved to the Sunday People, under Neil Wallis, and then to the News of the World, where Andy Coulson had become deputy editor. And, persistently, he did as he was told and went out on the road with rock stars, befriending them, bingeing with them, pausing only to file his copy.

He made no secret of his massive ingestion of drugs. He told me how he used to start the day with "a rock star's breakfast" a line of cocaine and a Jack Daniels usually in the company of a journalist who now occupies a senior position at the Sun. He reckoned he was using three grammes of cocaine a day, spending about £1,000 a week. Plus endless alcohol. Looking back, he could see it had done him enormous damage. But at the time, as he recalled, most of his colleagues were doing it, too.

"Everyone got overconfident. We thought we could do coke, go to Brown's, sit in the Red Room with Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence. Everyone got a bit carried away."

It must have scared the rest of Fleet Street when he started talking he had bought, sold and snorted cocaine with some of the most powerful names in tabloid journalism. One retains a senior position on the Daily Mirror. "I last saw him in Little Havana," he recalled, "at three in the morning, on his hands and knees. He had lost his cocaine wrap. I said to him, 'This is not really the behaviour we expect of a senior journalist from a great Labour paper.' He said, 'Have you got any fucking drugs?'"

And the voicemail hacking was all part of the great game. The idea that it was a secret, or the work of some "rogue reporter", had him rocking in his chair: "Everyone was doing it. Everybody got a bit carried away with this power that they had. No one came close to catching us." He would hack messages and delete them so the competition could not hear them, or hack messages and swap them with mates on other papers.

In the end, his body would not take it any more. He said he started to have fits, that his liver was in such a terrible state that a doctor told him he must be dead. And, as his health collapsed, he was sacked by the News of the World by his old friend Coulson.

When he spoke out about the voicemail hacking, some Conservative MPs were quick to smear him, spreading tales of his drug use as though that meant he was dishonest. He was genuinely offended by the lies being told by News International and always willing to help me and other reporters who were trying to expose the truth. He was equally offended when Scotland Yard's former assistant commissioner, John Yates, assigned officers to interview him, not as a witness but as a suspect. They told him anything he said could be used against him, and, to his credit, he refused to have anything to do with them.

His health never recovered. He liked to say that he had stopped drinking, but he would treat himself to some red wine. He liked to say he didn't smoke any more, but he would stop for a cigarette on his way home. For better and worse, he was a Fleet Street man.

[Jan Klimkowski]

And now a story of News Corp and its high standard of ethics in the US of A.

The unspoken motto seems to be: If you can't beat 'em into silence, buy 'em.




Rupert will be needing his "nuclear war" lawyer:

Troubles That Money Can't Dispel

The New York Times
July 18, 2011
By DAVID CARR

"Bury your mistakes," Rupert Murdoch is fond of saying. But some mistakes don't stay buried, no matter how much money you throw at them.

Time and again in the United States and elsewhere, Mr. Murdoch's News Corporation has used blunt force spending to skate past judgment, agreeing to payments to settle legal cases and, undoubtedly more important, silence its critics. In the case of News America Marketing, its obscure but profitable in-store and newspaper insert marketing business, the News Corporation has paid out about $655 million to make embarrassing charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior go away.

That kind of strategy provides a useful window into the larger corporate culture at a company that is now engulfed by a wildfire burning out of control in London, sparked by the hacking of a murdered young girl's phone and fed by a steady stream of revelations about seedy, unethical and sometimes criminal behavior at the company's newspapers.

So far, 10 people have been arrested, including, on Sunday, Rebekah Brooks, the head of News International. Les Hinton, who ran News International before her and most recently was the head of Dow Jones, resigned on Friday. Now we are left to wonder whether Mr. Murdoch will be forced to make an Abraham-like sacrifice and abandon his son James, the former heir apparent.

The News Corporation may be hoping that it can get back to business now that some of the responsible parties have been held to account and that people will see the incident as an aberrant byproduct of the world of British tabloids. But that seems like a stretch. The damage is likely to continue to mount, perhaps because the underlying pathology is hardly restricted to those who have taken the fall.

As Mark Lewis, the lawyer for the family of the murdered girl, Milly Dowler, said after Ms. Brooks resigned, "This is not just about one individual but about the culture of an organization."

Well put. That organization has used strategic acumen to assemble a vast and lucrative string of media properties, but there is also a long history of rounded-off corners. It has skated on regulatory issues, treated an editorial oversight committee as if it were a potted plant (at The Wall Street Journal), and made common cause with restrictive governments (China) and suspect businesses all in the relentless pursuit of More. In the process, Mr. Murdoch has always been frank in his impatience with the rules of others.

According to The Guardian, whose bulldog reporting pulled back the curtain on the phone-hacking scandal, the News Corporation paid out $1.6 million in 2009 to settle claims related to the scandal. While expedient, and inexpensive the company still has gobs of money on hand it was probably not a good strategy in the long run. If some of those cases had gone to trial, it would have had the effect of lancing the wound.

Litigation can have an annealing effect on companies, forcing them to re-examine the way they do business. But as it was, the full extent and villainy of the hacking was never known because the News Corporation paid serious money to make sure it stayed that way.

And the money the company reportedly paid out to hacking victims is chicken feed compared with what it has spent trying to paper over the tactics of News America in a series of lawsuits filed by smaller competitors in the United States.

In 2006 the state of Minnesota accused News America of engaging in unfair trade practices, and the company settled by agreeing to pay costs and not to falsely disparage its competitors.

In 2009, a federal case in New Jersey brought by a company called Floorgraphics went to trial, accusing News America of, wait for it, hacking its way into Floorgraphics's password protected computer system.

The complaint summed up the ethos of News America nicely, saying it had "illegally accessed plaintiff's computer system and obtained proprietary information" and "disseminated false, misleading and malicious information about the plaintiff."

The complaint stated that the breach was traced to an I.P. address registered to News America and that after the break-in, Floorgraphics lost contracts from Safeway, Winn-Dixie and Piggly Wiggly.

Much of the lawsuit was based on the testimony of Robert Emmel, a former News America executive who had become a whistle-blower. After a few days of testimony, the News Corporation had heard enough. It settled with Floorgraphics for $29.5 million and then, days later, bought it, even though it reportedly had sales of less than $1 million.

But the problems continued, and keeping a lid on News America turned out to be a busy and expensive exercise. At the beginning of this year, it paid out $125 million to Insignia Systems to settle allegations of anticompetitive behavior and violations of antitrust laws. And in the most costly payout, it spent half a billion dollars in 2010 on another settlement, just days before the case was scheduled to go to trial. The plaintiff, Valassis Communications, had already won a $300 million verdict in Michigan, but dropped the lawsuit in exchange for $500 million and an agreement to cooperate on certain ventures going forward.

The News Corporation is a very large, well-capitalized company, but that single payout to Valassis represented one-fifth of the company's net income in 2010 and matched the earnings of the entire newspaper and information division that News America was a part of.

Because consumers (and journalists) don't much care who owns the coupon machine in the snack aisle, the cases have not received much attention. But that doesn't mean that they aren't a useful window into the broader culture at the News Corporation.

News America was led by Paul V. Carlucci, who, according to Forbes, used to show the sales staff the scene in "The Untouchables" in which Al Capone beats a man to death with a baseball bat. Mr. Emmel testified that Mr. Carlucci was clear about the guiding corporate philosophy.

According to Mr. Emmel's testimony, Mr. Carlucci said that if there were employees uncomfortable with the company's philosophy "bed-wetting liberals in particular was the description he used" Mr. Emmel testified then he could arrange to have those employees "outplaced from the company."

Clearly, given the size of the payouts, along with the evidence and testimony in the lawsuits, the News Corporation must have known it had another rogue on its hands, one who needed to be dealt with. After all, Mr. Carlucci, who became chairman and chief executive of News America in 1997, had overseen a division that had drawn the scrutiny of government investigators and set off lawsuits that chipped away at the bottom line.

And while Mr. Murdoch might reasonably maintain that he did not have knowledge of the culture of permission created by Mr. Hinton and Ms. Brooks, by now he has 655 million reasons to know that Mr. Carlucci colored outside the lines.

So what became of him? Mr. Carlucci, as it happens, became the publisher of The New York Post in 2005 and continues to serve as head of News America, which doesn't exactly square with Mr. Murdoch's recently stated desire to "absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public."

A representative for the News Corporation did not respond to a request for comment.

Even as the flames of the scandal begin to edge closer to Mr. Murdoch's door, anybody betting against his business survival will most likely come away disappointed. He has been in deep trouble before and not only survived, but prospered. The News Corporation's reputation may be under water, but the company itself is very liquid, with $11.8 billion in cash on hand and more than $2.5 billion of annual free cash flow.

Still, money will fix a lot of things, but not everything. When you throw money onto a burning fire, it becomes fuel and nothing more.