Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest, now joining us from the newsroom of The Guardian, is the reporter who has broken the media Murdochthe Murdoch media scandal wide open. He is Nick Davies, award-winning investigative journalist at The Guardian in London.

Nick Davies, welcome to Democracy Now! Well, did you ever think that thethough you've been covering this for quite some time, that your report on the hacking of the murder victim Milly Dowler's voicemail by the News of the World would shake the Murdoch empire to the extent that it has?

NICK DAVIES: No. So, I've been working on this thing for three years, very slowly parceling out the truth. I mean, I think I've done 75 stories on it. But the Milly Dowler story was fantastically powerful. I mean, I knew when I filed it that it was the most powerful story we had done so far. But I never foresaw this extraordinary chain reaction of emotion, which just pummeled the entire Murdoch camp. And really very rapidly, within three days, it reached a point where nobody could be seen to be Murdoch's ally anymore. And that's a really, really extraordinary thing in this country, because for years the opposite has been the case, that nobody could be seen to be Murdoch's enemy. It's kind of like having a bully in the school playground. And once the bully has beaten up a few people, everybody else in the playground recognizes that the bully is there. The bully doesn't even have to do anything particularly serious. All the other kids tiptoe around. And that means governments and police forces and other newspapers have all been tiptoeing around Murdoch, frightened to say anything against him. And this one story about this 13-year-old girl, at the end of this long sequence of stories, just broke through and changed the whole dynamic.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Nick Davies, many of us here in the United States who watched the hearings this week were really surprised at the extent to which the members of Parliament really were dogged in their questioning and fairly confrontational in their questioning. Could you explain to us the degree of change that's occurred among these MPs versus how they treated the Murdoch empire in the past?

NICK DAVIES: OK, you look at it this way. For the last two or three years, while we've been trying to get this story out, there's been a maximum of four members of Parliament who were willing to stand up and talk about it. That's out of a total of about 630.

Take as an example, there's a guy called Chris Bryant. He's been very good on this. Back in March 2003, he was a member of one of those parliamentary select committees. And he had in front of him, as witnesses, Rebekah Brooks, the then-editor of The Sun, previously editor of the News of the World, and her close friend and fellow editor, Andy Couslon, who's the guy who goes to work for David Cameron. Way back there in March 2003, Chris Bryant asked a brave question. He said to Rebekah, "Have you ever paid the police for information?" And she, not considering the impact of her reply, said, "Yes, we have paid the police in the past." Now this was dynamite. You're not supposed to admit to paying bribes to police officers. OK, that was March.

In December 2003, the Murdoch press exposed Chris Bryant. They accused him of what is in their ghastly moral framework a crime, which was that he was gay. And they published a photograph of him wearing a skimpy pair of underpants. They did that to humiliate that man, that politician, that elected politician, to punish him for daring to ask a difficult question and provoking a difficult answer. And that is a microcosm of why most of the rest of the 630 elected MPs stayed quiet and why the police go quiet and the news organizations go quiet. The Murdoch organization deals in power. And part of that power is about frightening people.

AMY GOODMAN: Nick Davies, on Monday, on the eve of the Murdochs testifying, Sean Hoare, a former reporter with News of the World, who helped blow the whistle on the Murdoch-owned paper, was found dead in his home. Hoare had been the source a New York Times story tying the phone hacking to former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who would later become the chief spokesperson for Prime Minister David CameronCoulson arrested as the scandal broke open. Hoare discussed his allegations against Andy Coulson in an interview last September.

SEAN HOARE: I have stood by Andy and been requested to tap phones, OK? Or hack into them and so on. He was well aware that the practice exists. To deny it is a lie, is simply a lie.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Sean Hoare, found dead in his home. The police immediately said it was not suspicious. Nick Davies, you knew Sean Hoare. Can you talk about what happened? Do you believe it was suspicious? And what is his significance?

NICK DAVIES: Well, first of all, there has always been a submerged network of former News of the World journalists who have assisted me and other people at The Guardian and the guys at the New York Times. Where Sean distinguished himself was that he was the first to come out on the record. And in doing that, he showed real bravery. And he did this in the New York Times, not The Guardian. Real bravery because of the intimidation which the Murdoch organization uses. And specifically if you're a journalist and you come out and speak out against this organization, you're losing any prospect of employment in the biggest media organization in the country. Sean did it. OK.

Now, I got to know him reasonably well, and he was a really, reallyhe was a good guy, had wonderful stories to tell. He dies this week. I'm afraid that unless somebody comes up with some evidence to contradict me, the sad fact is that Sean, who was many years younger than me, died because his body was ruined by alcohol and cocaine and ketamine. And in the background, the reason why he consumed quite so much alcohol and cocaine and ketamine and all the rest of it is because there was a long period of time when Murdoch's newspapers paid him to do that. So, the way he put it to me was, "I was paid to go out and do drugs with rockstars." And he was a show business correspondent, so he went out with a lot of very famous rockstars and ingested massive quantities of alcohol and drugs. And Sean was a great guy. He had enormous bounce to him. So he made no bones about it. He had, you know, enormous fun doing it. He enjoyed doing it. But looking back, he could see that it had ruined his body. He had become very, very ill. His liver was in a terrible state. He said to me, "My liver is so bad, the doctors tell me I must be dead already." So, a kind of black joke. And so, I am afraid that his body caught up with him, and he died. And it's very tempting for outsiders to say, "Well, that can't be a fluke. That can't be a coincidence." But unless somebody comes up with something I haven't heard of, it was just a coincidence.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of

NICK DAVIES: And if you were going to kill him, you would have killed him a year ago, before he started talking.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of what he was saying, pointing the finger at Andy Coulson?

NICK DAVIES: Yes, when he went on the record with the New York Times, it was very important. He was the first journalist to come on the record and say, "Andy Coulson definitely knew about this, firsthand. I promise you that that's the case." And he kept on saying it, like the interview with you. He was really good. Because it was easy then for the Conservative Party, which was employing Andy Coulson, to deploy their members of Parliament to go out and smear Sean. They said, "Oh, well, he took drugs. You can't believe him." Your spotthere's absolutely no logic in that; that's just a smear. So they gave him a good, old smearing.

And then the police, Scotland Yard, who were still in the phase when they were absolutely not interested in seeing the truth, they went around and interviewed him. But as soon as they come into the room, instead of saying, "OK, you're an important witness," they said, "You're a suspect. And anything you say could be used against you." So Sean used foul language and invited them to go. But he was good. He stood by his guns. I really liked him.

You know, it's easy to look at an organization like the News of the World and see its ruthless invasion of privacy, its lust for destroying people's lives in order to make money, and assume that everybody within it is as bad as the organization. But in fact there were lots of individuals in there who worked there, smelled the smell, and walked out and left it. And there's a lot of good people who have helped us along the way.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Guardian reporter Nick Davies, who broke this Murdoch media scandal wide open. By the way, that interview of Sean Hoare was done by the BBC. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Nick Davies, I'd like to ask you about two other things that were kind of overshadowed in the hearings with the Murdochs and with Rebekah Brooks. One was the testimony of Sir Paul Stephenson, the now-resigned head of Scotland Yard, and the other was a press statement that was put out by the law firm that the Murdochsthat had supposedlyhad hired and which held many of the documents that are now raising many major questions. First of all, about Sir Paul Stephenson, one of the shocking things in his testimony was that 10 out of the 45 employees of the press office of Scotland Yard were former employees of News of the World. Could you talk about this incestuous relationship between Scotland Yard and the News Corporation properties in England?

NICK DAVIES: OK, so if you see this in context, the reality of life in this country for some decades has been: you can't run a government and you can't run a police force unless you are on close, friendly terms with the Murdoch organization. So, there are all sorts of connections between the Metropolitan Police, Scotland Yardthat's biggest police force in the countryand News International, which owns Murdoch's newspapers in this country. And so, the fact that ex-journalists were being employed by their press office is part of that picture. But there's a whole set of connections.

And to me, what's so revealing about this story is whatthe sequence is this, you see? You have News of the World journalists going out there breaking the law, routinely, and they're allowed to get away with it. But then they make a terrible mistake: they hack into the voicemail of the one group of people who are more prestigious or powerful than the Murdochs. That's the royal family. They get caught hacking Prince William's phone. So, finally, the police have to come in and do something, like their job. But at that point, when the police have the option of gathering evidence to show how much crime was being committed by Murdoch's people, they chose not to. They did a little job on the royal family as victims. They sent the royal correspondent of the paper to prison. They sent the investigator to prison. And the rest, of all the evidence that they collected during that inquiry, they didn't properly investigate, because they didn't want to get into a fight with that powerful organization. And then, you see the seriousness of that, that they were exempted from normal law enforcement just because they're so powerful. Really, really wrong.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the issue of the law firm? Because the same day that the Murdochs testified, the law firm put out a statement that they would like to be released from their lawyer-client privilege to be able to set the record straight about things that were being said about them. And the importance of this law firm and the records that they kept, supposedly not even letting the Murdochs know of what was in it?

AMY GOODMAN: And now, apparently, the gag has been lifted.

NICK DAVIES: OK, so, just to understand the narrative, the chronology, back in 2007, there's a trial. The royal correspondent and the inspector go to prison. Those two guys come out, and the royal correspondent, in particular, says, "You sacked me, and I want some compensation." And he then says, "Look, I know everything that was going on in your newspaper. And if you don't give me decent compensation, I'm going to blow the whistle on you." So News International then take this collection of emails and send it to a firm of lawyers. The firm of lawyers look at them and then write a letter, which says, "There's no evidence in these emails that anybody knew that the royal correspondent was breaking the law." And you'll see that's a very, very narrow statement of denial.

What has now emerged is that those same emails included all sorts of evidence of criminal activity, including the bribing of police officers. So when the Murdochs, James and Rupert, gave their evidence to the select committee, they said, "Well, we didn't know that was in there. This law firm should have told us that there was evidence of crime in all these emails. Don't blame us. Blame the law firm." The law firm is saying, "We want permission," which I think they've now got, "to publish the instructions which we were given by Murdoch's organization."

Now, I don't know what those instructions are, but the implication is that they were told to look through the emails and report only on the very narrow question, "Do these emails contain evidence that the royal correspondent was instructed to hack royal voicemail?" And because they weren't asked whether also there was an orgy of other criminal activity revealed, they didn't. So, they're going to throw the ball back at the Murdochs, you see? We're in that cover-up phase, who was responsible.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get to actor Hugh Grant, who secretly recorded a reporter of News of the World admitting to phone hacking. He's now suing the Metropolitan Police over their potential involvement in the hacking cases. Speaking on the BBC, Hugh Grant recounted his conversation with the tabloid reporter.

HUGH GRANT: By sheer coincidence, I broke down in the middle of Kent in my car. It's a long story, but basically a guy got out of a car the other side of the road, started taking pictures of me. He was Paul McMullan, this ex-News of the World features editor. And I was swearing at him, etc. And anyway, I finally got talking to him. He started boasting about how my phone had been hacked and all the dirtiest tactics of the News of the World and about their relationship with the police and about their relationship with five successive prime ministers. And I was revolted and astonished.

And then I went back a few months later to the pub he now runs in Dover and pretended to be dropping in for a pint. And I bugged him. It just seemed like symmetry. And I got him talking again about all these things, and I published them all in the New Statesman. And one of the things he told me

BBC REPORTER: And what did hewhat did he admit?

HUGH GRANT: Well, all the things I've just said, thatyou know, how extensive and what an industrial-scale phone hacking went on at the News of the World, particularly under Andy Coulson; how that it wasn't just the News of the World, it was all the tabloids; and how money regularly passed hands between News International and officers at the Metropolitan Police; how Margaret Thatcher was the first prime minister to realize that it's very hard to get elected in this country without the backing of the Murdoch press, so she was the first one to become an undignified sycophant to that organization, to that media tycoon, where a pattern has been followed by every single prime minister since, including this one. And he didwhen I asked him, because I had heard a rumorI said, "And do you think the News of the World hacked the phones of the family and friends of the little girl's murdered at Soham?" He said, "Yes, I think that almost certainly happened."

AMY GOODMAN: That was actor Hugh Grant. He said that McMullan admitted to the hacking going on, the phone hacking, not only at News of the World, but other newspapers. So let's take it from there, Nick Davies. You've been on this story now for years. What is left to expose? What do you think was most important that came out of the parliamentary hearings? What wasn't asked? And where are you headed now?

NICK DAVIES: That was a lot of questions. OK, so, what remains to be exposed? So, what Hugh Grant says there is correct, first of all, that the criminal activity was going on in lots of other newspapers in Fleet Street. Whether or not we get to expose that depends on whether or not we can actually find evidence to prove it, because if all you do is to state it without being able to produce evidence, they will deny it. So, that's one whole chunk of stuff.

There's another whole thing about whether or not this story has a U.S. end to it. And I would say it wouldn't be surprising if it turned out that Murdoch journalists visiting the United States had done this kind of thing. It wouldn't be surprising if Murdoch journalists permanently based for his news organizations in the States had done these kind of things. But we need to be careful, because it is all about evidence. And I have a bit of a worry at the moment that one of the tabloids over here a few days ago, the Daily Mirror, ran a big front-page story which implied that victims of 9/11 had had their phones hacked by Murdoch journalists. Now, at the moment, I am not aware that there is any evidence anywhere to support that. And if at the end of the current FBI inquiry they come up empty and say, "Well, we can't find the evidence," then you can bet that the Murdoch crew will use that to try to discredit the entire story. And it does worry me that the Daily Mirror shot off too early. And so, that's a worry as to whether or notbut in general terms, I would say it's highly likely that evidence could be produced.

And the other interesting thing is this story breaking overnight, which is whether or not the Murdoch people were using private investigators to do illegal things on the commercial, not on the journalistic, side of their operation. Were they engaged in industrial espionage, for want of a better word? So there's at least three different ways for this story to keep breaking.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And in terms of the impact politically on the Prime Minister, Cameron, and the impact on Scotland Yard?

NICK DAVIES: Well, so, the impact on Scotland Yard has been absolutely huge. You know, the commissioner has resigned. The assistant commissioner, who was responsible for the job, has resigned. They face an internal police inquiry, which is likely to throw up more dirt than a judicial inquiry, which is going to focus in on the implications of their far-too-cozy relationship with Rupert Murdoch and their failure to enforce the law. I mean, there's a lot of damage being done.

Insofar as Cameron is concerned, it's a slightly grayer picture. Clearly it's doing him political damage. Will the story reach the point where he's actually forced to leave office? I have never thought it would. But the temperature is rising. There's an interesting story breaking about how, when David Cameron, as prime minister, hired Andy Coulson, formerly of the News of the World, to be his media adviser, he failed to put him through the normal level of vetting. Now that's a strange thing to do. You would think that that was part of the routine. You're going to be allowed into the Prime Minister's office. You're going to see the most secret paperwork, take part in the most secret meetings. You have to be fully vetted. But he was vetted up to only a sort of medium level. What was that about? That begins to look like somebody took a decision not to look too deep, in case they came up with a reason which wouldn't allow them to hire him. And you understand, in the background, the reason they feel they have to hire him is they have to have the Murdoch organization on side. Otherwise, they can't run the country. And therefore, if you can have a Murdoch man in your office, that establishes the connection. So that's what tempts Cameron to make a terrible mistake. But we haven't got there yet. We do not have, at the moment, evidence which would force the Prime Minister out of office.

AMY GOODMAN: Nick Davies, I want to thank you for being with us, award-winning investigative journalist for The Guardian, speaking to us from The Guardian's offices in London. We will link to all of your articles. Thanks so much.

[Lauren Johnson]

I'm still amazed that they were [apparently] able to get phone numbers and hacks for only L300!...cheap! I'll bet some of those now potentially facing loosing jobs and prison sentences had only charged a bit more [like 100X more +]. :mexican: However, it does seem many have been caught with their pants down. I only hope the USA side of the pond 'things' do get come traction - as I think they have more possibility of bringing Murdoch's house of cards down completely. Sadly, they'd be replaced by TPTB with something just like it, under new name and guidance. The Sheeple need a flockmaster and at all cost must not be able to perceive the truth of the news or events. All is spin, bread and circus, smoke and mirrors....brought to you by......:gossip:

Peter, I live on the other side of the pond. Of all the opportunities that Obama had had to stick it to the right wing, he consistently takes the "high road." Even if Murdoch admitted that he personally lit the fuses that blew up the WTCs, he would go on FOX news for an interview to reach out to Murdoch, while acknowledging that he has had to take some flack to do it.

[Peter Lemkin]

Obama is the biggest Trojan Horse since Troy......fooled a whole new generation of hopeful Americans - soon to be cynically disempowered. I'm an American, living in Europe as I can't stomach the Heimat. Europe starts to go the same way, only lagging behind a tad. We're all in the same [sinking] boat. Faux News is only one of the more obvious hydra heads of a gigantic control and propaganda network run by the intelligence community on behalf of the Oligarchy [private rich, powerful and corporate interests]. Very sad it fools all too many. Now, those who are not fooled are threatened by subtle and not so subtle means, if they dare act or speak out publicly. We've all seen this movie before......and by a hair the better of the bad 'won'. This time, there are only bad big players v. the People. Time is short. Traditional forms of power is all on the side of the bad. May we persevere. The alternative is slavery and fascism. Forever and very soon. :thumbsdown: The only power we have are truth, numbers and the will to live free. These are not small things, if the Sheeple will only become People and fight back - take our Planet back for ourselves and all living things...and away from the Corporations and Oligarchy trying to reinstate Medieval Serfdom and worse.

[Magda Hassan]

Assange lawyer''s phone also hacked

PTI | 12:07 AM,Jul 23,2011 From Prasun Sonwalkar London, Jul 22 (PTI) High-profile media lawyer Mark Stephens, who represents WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, is among the thousands of people whose phones have been allegedly hacked for information at the behest of the News of the World, according to the police.Stephens today said that the police had confirmed he is among the 4,000 potential victims.His name appears in private investigator Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks, which police are currently investigating closely.The police are contacting people whose mobile phone numbers were listed in Mulcaire's records.Stephens told Channel 4 News he contacted Scotland Yard to ask if his phone had been targeted.He said: "I asked them if I'd been hacked - they came back to me in 90 mins and said yes. It confirmed my worst suspicions, that I was in Mulcaire's notebook".He added: "There is nothing I can do about it but the important thing is to ascertain which client [was the target] so I can advise them. My concern is for them, not myself.Until they [police] come and see me - I don't know which client it's in connection with." Stephens's former clients include James Hewitt, who had an affair with Princess Diana, and most recently the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.Other reports say that three solicitors, including Mark Lewis, who is representing 70 alleged hacking victims including the family of murdered teenager Milly Dowler, may also have had their voicemails illegally accessed.The Law Society has expressed serious concerns following the development, pointing out that interfering with the voicemail of a solicitor is potentially a serious offence if it has been done with the intention of undermining court action.
Source

[Magda Hassan]

Murdoch US Scandal Brewing?

By Russ Baker on Jul 21, 2011
What's missing from the daily rat-a-tat of charges on what Rupert Murdoch's minions did and did not do is the larger picture of his business practices, into which the UK hacking fits rather neatly.
A new example that sheds lightand brings the United States into the pictureinvolves a Murdoch unit's mafia-style tactics with another company. And it also involves hacking. But not just hacking.
This particular story, reported by Bloomberg, dates back to 1999, when a Murdoch company, News America Marketing, sought to buy Floorgraphics, a New Jersey firm that sold floor advertising in grocery stores. Floorgraphics did not want to sell. And that's when News America began what Floorgraphics executives characterize as a campaign of spreading lies about the company to clients and otherwise seeking to damage its business.
In 2004, right at the moment that Floorgraphics was competing with News America for a "critically important" contract with the giant grocery outfit Safeway, its computers were hacked. News America won. A Floorgraphics executive contends that the Murdoch firm was able to prevail by using "comprehensive" financial data stored on Floorgraphics' website.
When Floorgraphics discovered the breach, it contacted News America's chief financial officer. The Murdoch company did not respond. However, years later, at a 2009 civil trial over the hacking, News America admitted that its computers had been used for the hacking. It said it did not know who was responsible, and, in a later statement, the company said that "News America Marketing condemns such conduct, which is in violation of the standards of our company."
There's an eerie similarity to the situation in Britain, where, once again, people working for Murdoch were taking illegal actions advantageous to his interests, and where his company disclaimed all knowledge.
With the FBI already in the picture looking at the possibility that the voicemail of 9/11 victims was hacked, this story adds yet another substantial wrinkle. It also raises the possibility that US law enforcement could find the makings of a larger RICO case i.e. a broader conspiracy to commit criminal acts.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/07/21/murdoch...l-brewing/

[Lauren Johnson]

Obama is the biggest Trojan Horse since Troy......fooled a whole new generation of hopeful Americans - soon to be cynically disempowered. I'm an American, living in Europe as I can't stomach the Heimat. Europe starts to go the same way, only lagging behind a tad. We're all in the same [sinking] boat. Faux News is only one of the more obvious hydra heads of a gigantic control and propaganda network run by the intelligence community on behalf of the Oligarchy [private rich, powerful and corporate interests]. Very sad it fools all too many. Now, those who are not fooled are threatened by subtle and not so subtle means, if they dare act or speak out publicly. We've all seen this movie before......and by a hair the better of the bad 'won'. This time, there are only bad big players v. the People. Time is short. Traditional forms of power is all on the side of the bad. May we persevere. The alternative is slavery and fascism. Forever and very soon. :thumbsdown: The only power we have are truth, numbers and the will to live free. These are not small things, if the Sheeple will only become People and fight back - take our Planet back for ourselves and all living things...and away from the Corporations and Oligarchy trying to reinstate Medieval Serfdom and worse.

An incredible performance of disinformation. Note how Obama portrays himself as one who is fighting the good fight. Some his enemies are the idealistic, unworthy fools who nip at his heels. Oh, what he must endure to serve so faithfully.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CemfB_Z6e...r_embedded

[Jan Klimkowski]

So, the LibDems claim one of their ministers was told the Murdoch empire would "do them over" if they continued to oppose the takeover BSkyB.

C'mon LibDems - it's time to put up or shut up. The Murdoch empire is on the ropes. Start naming names.

:nono:

News International 'bullied Liberal Democrats over BSkyB bid

'Party claims it was told it would be 'done over' by Murdoch papers if deal did not go through as company wanted

Henry Porter and Toby Helm guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 July 2011 20.14 BST

Rupert Murdoch's News International launched a campaign of bullying against senior Liberal Democrats in an attempt to force through the company's bid for BSkyB, high-level sources have told the Observer.

Lib Dem insiders say NI officials took their lobbying campaign well beyond acceptable limits and even threatened, last autumn, to persecute the party if Vince Cable, the business secretary, did not advance its case.

According to one account from a senior party figure, a cabinet minister was told that, if the government did not do as NI wanted, the Lib Dems would be "done over" by the Murdoch papers, which included the now defunct News of the World as well as the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times.

The accounts are only now coming to light, say sources, because the minister involved feared the potential for damage to the party, which was already suffering a dramatic slide in popularity after going into coalition with the Tories. They chime with reports from senior figures in the Labour party who say that Murdoch executives issued threats to Ed Miliband's office after the Labour leader turned on NI when the news broke that murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked into by the News of the World.

Labour insiders say NI executives made clear to Miliband's office that because he had chosen to "make it personal" they would do the same, implying they would attack him through their media outlets.

The pressure on the Lib Dems was at its most intense around the time that Cable decided to refer the BSkyB bid to Ofcom. However, it relented after Cable was removed by David Cameron from responsibility for the bid when he was taped by undercover reporters from the Daily Telegraph attacking Murdoch.

Cable was recorded saying to the reporters, who pretended to be constituents, saying that he had "declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we're going to win". Insiders believe NI's interest then focused on the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who took over responsibility for the bid from Cable. News International declined to comment on the bullying allegations.

The revelations will fuel the debate over Cameron's friendship with Rebekah Brooks, the former NI chief executive who was arrested a week ago. Labour MPs placed Cameron under intense pressure to reveal whether he had discussed BSkyB in any of his many meetings with Brooks or other NI executives since becoming prime minister.

It was revealed that Cameron had had 26 meetings with NI officials since becoming prime minister in May last year. Under sustained questioning in the Commons, he said only that he had had no "inappropriate" discussions with Brooks or other NI executives about the bid. Many MPs believe it unlikely, given the determined approach mounted to influence the Lib Dems.

Formal contacts between NI and Hunt continued right up to last month, during which the question of media plurality was discussed.

More details of the links between No 10 and News International were revealed as it emerged that NI entertained Downing Street special advisers more than any other organisation during the first seven months of this government. Figures from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism showed that almost a quarter of all lunches, dinners and hospitality enjoyed by Downing Street's inner circle came from Murdoch's company. Gabby Bertin, Cameron's official spokeswoman, was wined and dined nine times, including a trip to last year's Wimbledon championships.

[Magda Hassan]

How Labour's 'favourite lobbyist' is pushing hacking campaign
A key part of the campaign to "reform" the press is being financed by senior Labour figures with direct personal and professional interests in muzzling the media.

By Andrew Gilligan9:00AM BST 24 Jul 2011
The Sunday Telegraph has established that "Hacked Off," a high-profile campaign against press invasions of privacy, is partly funded and staffed by Sovereign Strategy, a controversial company described by the Guardian newspaper as "Labour's favourite lobbyist."
Hacked Off's best-known supporter is the actor Hugh Grant, who has repeatedly appeared on television as the face of its campaign.
An employee of Sovereign Strategy, Horatio Mortimer, described on its website as its "strategic consultant," has been seconded to work for Hacked Off.
Sovereign Strategy is also paying some of Hacked Off's administrative, accommodation and travel costs.
Sovereign Strategy is owned by Alan Donnelly, the former Labour leader in the European Parliament and current chairman of David Miliband's constituency Labour party.
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Almost a quarter of entertainment enjoyed by Downing Street advisers was hosted by News International 24 Jul 2011
Mr Donnelly, who is openly gay, lives with Peter Power, an ex-spokesman for and close associate of the former Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson.
Sovereign Strategy has been repeatedly investigated by the press, including The Times and The Sunday Times, owned by News International.
In February last year Sovereign Strategy was accused by The Times of involvement in a "cash-for-access" operation to serving Labour ministers.
The North East Economic Forum, run by Sovereign Strategy, organised a networking event with three ministers on the margins of a regional Cabinet meeting. Businessmen were charged £5,000 to attend.
In 2006, The Sunday Times revealed that Sovereign Strategy, which represents major nuclear industry clients, paid £2,000 to help refurbish Mr Miliband's constituency office shortly before he became the minister responsible for the nuclear industry.
Sovereign Strategy has also received highly critical coverage for paying tens of thousands of pounds to serving MPs and peers, defying a ban on the practice by the lobbying trade body, the Association of Professional Political Consultants.
It employed at least three ex-ministers, the former environment secretary Jack Cunningham, the former health secretary Alan Milburn and the former defence minister Lewis Moonie, while they were backbench MPs or peers.
Lord Cunningham, then a board member of Sovereign Strategy, helped arrange meetings with his former Labour ministerial colleagues on behalf of the lobbyist's clients.
Sovereign Strategy says it stopped paying parliamentarians in 2007.
Two years later, The Sunday Times reported that Lord Moonie had offered to help with amending laws for £30,000, saying "the thing about the Lords is there's virtually nothing they can do" about breaches of the rules.
The peer was caught by a sting involving subterfuge, one of the practices the Hacked Off campaign has questioned. The paper said its use of undercover reporters was in the public interest.
The Lords privileges committee said there was "insufficient evidence to establish to the standards of proof we have adopted" that Lord Moonie had broken its code of conduct but ordered the peer to apologise to the House for his "wholly inappropriate attitude to the rules."
Mr Donnelly's business partner and chief executive of Sovereign Strategy, Iain Malcolm, is Labour leader of South Tyneside council, where the press exposed his involvement in a local scandal known as "Airportgate."
In the affair, described by the Tyneside MP and former Labour chief whip Nick Brown as "indefensible" and "one of the great contemporary scandals," Newcastle airport, jointly owned by South Tyneside and six other North East councils, was refinanced in a controversial £377 million deal with Sir Fred Goodwin's Royal Bank of Scotland, incurring huge potential liabilities to council taxpayers.
The airport's two executive directors were paid a percentage of the loan as a personal bonus pocketing a total of £8.5 million between them.
The deal was approved by Mr Malcolm, as a member of the airport's five-strong remuneration committee, ignoring warnings from a senior colleague that the deal was "very difficult to justify" and might not achieve "best value" for the taxpayer.
As revealed by The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Malcolm then spent at least £75,000 of council taxpayers' money on taking the social networking site Twitter to court in California, accusing one of his own councillors of being the source of the "Airportgate" story and the author of anonymous tweets and blogs attacking him.
Mr Malcolm obtained a subpoena, described by media lawyers as "inappropriate" and "worrying," requiring Twitter to hand over its account details.
Sovereign Strategy was and remains a major donor to the Labour Party, giving it at least £160,000 over the last nine years. Mr Donnelly has personally given a further £41,000.
Mr Donnelly is also closely linked to Max Mosley, who successfully sued the News of the World for breach of privacy after it revealed that he had indulged in sado-mascochistic orgies with prostitutes.
Mr Donnelly is chief steward of Formula One and Sovereign Strategy is based at the same Trafalgar Square address as Mr Mosley's charitable arm, the FIA Foundation.
The FIA Foundation's director general, David Ward, was chief policy adviser to the former Labour leader, John Smith.
Mr Mosley, who has financed civil actions taken by alleged victims of phone-hacking against the News of the World, has been a client of Sovereign Strategy.
Hacked Off makes no mention of Sovereign Strategy on the "funding" section of its own website, but one of its leaders, Brian Cathcart, a journalism professor at Kingston University, confirmed Mr Mortimer's role and Sovereign's help with administrative, hotel and taxi expenses.
Separately, The Sunday Telegraph has also learned that one of the key members of Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into privacy and the press is chairman of a charity which was itself censured for multiple breaches of privacy laws.
Sir David Bell is one of a six-strong panel appointed by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to assist Lord Leveson in his work.
However Sir David chairs a charity, Common Purpose, which was reprimanded by the Information Commissioner in 2009 for six probable breaches of the Data Protection Act.
Common Purpose is an organisation for training "future leaders" in government and the community. It has been accused by some anti-EU campaigners of being a political front to promote pro-Brussels values, which it denies.
Common Purpose fell foul of data protection laws after trying to block these campaigners from investigating its finances.
The organisation compiled a "blacklist" of individuals who had made Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests about it to councils and other public bodies.
It is heavily funded by such bodies. In some cases Common Purpose the names were released to Common Purpose unlawfully through informal approaches to its contacts at councils.
It then circulated the "blacklist," including the names, private home and email addresses and telephone numbers of the people concerned, to its other public sector clients, telling them that the individuals were "vexatious" people causing it "harassment and disruption" whose requests should be ignored.
The circulation of such private details is also illegal under the Data Protection Act. The act says that personal data must not be shared with third parties without the person's consent.
In 2009 the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, upheld six complaints against Common Purpose over the practice.
In decision notices seen by The Sunday Telegraph, the Commissioner stated that it was "unlikely" that Common Purpose's behaviour had complied with the Data Protection Act.
The Commissioner's office said it had "advised [Common Purpose] to take steps to comply with the law in future." Common Purpose had to take "remedial action" in five of the cases.
Sir David was appointed to the Leveson inquiry because of his role as chairman and co-founder of the Media Standards Trust, which campaigns for for "transparency and accountability in news" and against "all forms of illegal intrusion by the press."
The Media Standards Trust is another supporter, with Sovereign Strategy, of the Hacked Off campaign, paying for the campaign's website.
There are close links between the Media Standards Trust and Common Purpose. The trust's deputy chairman and other co-founder, Julia Middleton, is chief executive of Common Purpose.
The two organisations shared offices until recently. Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who has led the parliamentary campaign on the phone-hacking issue, is a former manager at Common Purpose.
One of those who complained to the Information Commissioner, Michael White, from Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, said: "My private address was in their blacklist and I was described as a vexatious and harassing individual. I felt sick to think that Common Purpose had passed this around half the public authorities in the country.
"They got this data from their contacts in councils. The hypocrisy is stunning. These people quite rightly condemn invasions of privacy by the press while invading people's privacy themselves. They demand transparency for other people and fight it for themselves."
Ms Middleton said last night: "As an organisation we made a genuine mistake in this instance. We did so following what we believed to be sound advice from the Information Commissioner's Office, but it was in a very rapidly changing legal context. We have since changed our practices accordingly."
A Common Purpose spokeswoman said the charity no longer held the offending list and no further action had been taken against it.
And in previously unreported remarks, Lord Leveson has repeatedly criticised the media.
Last November, giving the Roscoe Lecture, he said: "My 40 year experience [in the law]… means that I know not to believe the headlines in the press consistently suggesting that judges sentence too leniently or that the guilty 'get away with it."
As chairman of the Sentencing Council, he complained: "A consultation on the draft assault [sentencing] guideline started last week, accompanied by the usual flurry of media reporting.
"From the headlines, you might think that different documents were being discussed."
Last May he attacked the influence of "media anecdote" in the debate on sentencing and said: "Addressing media coverage is one of the areas the [Sentencing] Council will be seeking to tackle."
Martin Moore, a spokesman for the Hacked Off campaign, said: "We met with Lord Cunningham and others including Alan Donnelly who said they could help us however we liked.
"The extent of their help was minimal and had no bearing on the substantive stuff."
Sovereign Strategy declined to comment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/p...paign.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

Magda - that is indeed an important piece by dear old Andrew Gilligan (of David Kelly notoriety).

The only proper justification for the Fourth Estate (journalism) is to speak truth to Power.

Obviously, Power hates the truth being revealed, and the Murdoch outrages have provided Power with the opportunity to constrain investigative journalism (already neutered through a combination of profit/ratings obsession and mockingbird manoeuvres) still further.

Hacked Off appears to be backed by machine politics and a sinister gaggle of rich and talentless degenerates.

There are real dangers here.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Oh my.

What a fine mess Volkland Security is in.

All because of the Special Relationship with the Murdoch crime family.

Fears over Andy Coulson's clearance as officials admit: We thought he had been vetted

Officials' mistaken belief that aide had top-level clearance may have given him access to restricted material

Daniel Boffey, policy editor The Observer, Sunday 24 July 2011

Senior government officials working with Andy Coulson believed that he did have the highest security clearance, it is claimed, raising questions over whether the prime minister's former aide was improperly granted access to the most sensitive information.

Last week it emerged that the former editor of the News of the World had not undergone the most intensive vetting on becoming the prime minister's director of communications and so was working without the highest level of clearance. This should have restricted his access to some documents.

But Labour MP Chris Bryant told the Observer that he had been informed by senior officials that they had believed Coulson was working with the same security clearance as had been held by Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's press security, who underwent the toughest vetting procedures, which are known as DV (developed vetting).

The development raises the question of whether Coulson, who was given the lesser clearance known as SC (security check), was allowed access that his security status did not warrant.

David Cameron has already admitted he did not know that Coulson, who was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption, had only received the mid-range vetting until six months ago. Bryant, who along with Tom Watson has been pursuing the phone-hacking case in parliament, said: "Officials have told me Coulson had the same security clearance as any other director of communications would need, which would allow him to see security sensitive material. Yet we now know Coulson was never properly vetted and if he had been he probably wouldn't have passed. It's one thing for Cameron to be cavalier with the Tory party's plans, quite another when it comes to national security."

The Labour party has asked if the reason for giving Coulson only the lower-level clearance was to prevent information about his past coming to light. Coulson was subject only to the standard level of scrutiny, including a check of whether he had a criminal record, and of his financial history and family background. The high level of clearance involves more detailed probing of an individual's circumstances, including interviews with the subject and with friends and family members.Coulson did begin high-security vetting in November, about three months before he resigned as David Cameron's director of communications. It was decided that Coulson needed it following communication problems surrounding the discovery of an explosive device on an aircraft at East Midlands airport in October 2010.