Looks as if the Murdoch clan has been playing a little bit of illegal spying on the other side of the ocean.
by ericlewis0 Fri Apr 08, 2011 DKos
For the past five years, Rupert Murdoch's British Tabloid newspaper, News of the World, had been denying any widespread or executive involvement in a phonetapping scandal. Members of the Royal Family, Movie Stars and Government Officials -- possibly thousands of people in all -- were alleged to have been tapped.
But earlier today, Newscorp. 'accepted liability' in the case and agreed to set up a sort of disaster-relief-style fund to compensate proven victims of the operation. The gesture amounts in essence to a guilty plea. Murdoch hopes this desperate offer will keep at least two-dozen lawsuits against Newscorp. from proceeding to trial.
One can assume Murdoch has been nervous since Tuesday, when Scotland Yard arrested two News of the World reporters “on suspicion of unlawfully intercepting mobile phone voice-mail messages." The two reporters who were detained have been unofficially identified as Ian Edmondson, who was fired as the tabloid’s news editor this year; and Neville Thurlbeck, the paper’s chief reporter.
Scotland Yard investigators searched the paper’s newsroom while the two were being questioned, he said.
article about the Tuesday arrests
http://www.nytimes.com/...
from The Independent:
In the first acknowledgement from the company that its employees' phone hacking was far more widespread at the NOTW than it has ever admitted during five years of investigations, the company confirmed it was settling the cases of eight public figures, including the actress Sienna Miller and the former cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, and setting up a compensation scheme to deal with potential claims from dozens more victims of the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. ...
But there was little immediate sign that News International's offers had been accepted. Ms Jowell said: "It's now for the lawyers to do their work." The more claimants accept the offer, the less evidence will be aired in public.
The apology also raises the prospect of News International possibly facing criminal prosecution as a corporation at a future date, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
Who knows what else the Murdoch Empire that is Newscorp may have been doing with this illegally obtained information. For example, what if Rupert bought or sold stock as a result of tapped business calls?
Also, was Murdoch ever under oath about this scandal? Because I found this in an article from 2009:
News International has always maintained it had no knowledge of phone hacking by anybody acting on its behalf. Murdoch told Bloomberg news last night that he knew nothing about the payments. "If that had happened I would know about it," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
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