Murdoch's krant kijkt in telefoon UK-bewindslieden

[Cees Binkhorst]

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Groet / Cees

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/world/europe/10britain.htm
July 10, 2009
Inquiry Begun on Hacking Cases at Murdoch Papers
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL

LONDON — Britain’s most senior police officer said Thursday he had ordered
a preliminary inquiry into reports by The Guardian newspaper that Rupert
Murdoch’s British newspaper subsidiary paid about $1.6 million to settle
court cases involving allegations that its reporters worked with private
investigators to hack into the cellphone messages of numerous public
figures.

Among those whose cellphones were tapped or hacked into were the former
deputy prime minister and at least one other cabinet minister, The
Guardian reported.

The Guardian’s report was denied by Mr. Murdoch, whose News Corporation
owns the Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States as well as The Wall
Street Journal and The New York Post. Bloomberg News quoted Mr. Murdoch as
saying on Wednesday that he was not aware of any payments made to settle
legal cases in which the company’s reporters in Britain might have been
involved in criminal activity.

“If that had happened, I would know about it,” he said.

In response to The Guardian’s disclosures, an official British information
regulator said Thursday it had identified 31 reporters from two newspapers
in Mr. Murdoch’s business empire — along with many other journalists from
other news organizations owned by other companies — who had been found in
an inquiry to have obtained personal data acquired unlawfully. The results
of that inquiry were published in 2006 and the specific information
concerning the two Murdoch newspapers was made known in 2008, Britain’s
Information Commissioner’s Office said in a statement on its Web site.

On Thursday, Sir Paul Stephenson, the head of Scotland Yard, said he had
assigned an assistant commissioner, John Yates, to “establish the facts”
about the case “and look into the detail,” according to the Press
Association news agency, quoting Sky News, which is also part of Mr.
Murdoch’s media empire.

“I think we have got a track record of doing exactly what we are supposed
to do,” Mr. Stephenson was quoted as saying. “If we need to investigate,
we will investigate. We will do the right thing and do what we have to do
to investigate crime wherever it exists.”

Mr. Yates is a senior officer named in April as the head of
counterterrorism at Scotland Yard. He achieved prominence earlier when he
conducted a lengthy, but inconclusive, inquiry into allegations that the
ruling Labor party traded honors for political donations. The Guardian
cited an unnamed “senior source” at Scotland Yard as saying that staff
members at News International, the Murdoch subsidiary that owns four major
newspapers in Britain, including The Times of London, The Sunday Times and
two tabloids, The News of the World and The Sun, had used private
investigators to hack into “thousands” of cellphones to obtain
confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files,
bank statements and itemized telephone bills. It cited another source
“with knowledge of the police findings” as saying that the investigators
had tapped “two or three thousand” cellphones.

The Guardian article, citing those sources, said that the targets of the
hacking included John Prescott, who was deputy to former Prime Minister
Tony Blair, and a cabinet member, Tessa Jowell, as well as lawmakers from
all three of Britain’s major political parties. Accessing stored phone
messages covertly is illegal in Britain, except for the police or
intelligence agencies acting with a warrant.

“I find it staggering that there could be a list known to the police of
people who had their phone tapped,” said Mr. Prescott on Thursday. “I’m
named as one of them. For such a criminal act not to be reported to me,
and for action not to be taken against the people who have done it,
reflects very badly on the police and I want to know their answer.”

The Guardian said Scotland Yard files also showed that the newspapers had
used private investigators to approach government agencies, banks, phone
companies and other agencies that, the paper said, were conned into
handing over confidential information on politicians, actors, athletes,
musicians and television presenters, all of whom are named in the files.
The Guardian said the files named 31 reporters working for The News of the
World and The Sun in connection with the operation.

In the past few months, Britain has been rocked by scandals related to the
use of expense accounts by members of Parliament, but The Guardian did not
explain how or if the information it obtained was used, or if it had any
relation to the scandals.

The Guardian article caused an immediate uproar, with demands from
politicians and others for the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown
to order a police investigation and to explain why earlier police
inquiries had not resulted in any action against the Murdoch-owned papers.

Simon Hughes, a prominent lawmaker for the Liberal Democrats, an
opposition party, who was among those named by the paper as having had
their cellphone messages tapped, said that if The Guardian’s story was
accurate, those responsible should be “severely punished.” He told the BBC
that The Guardian’s revelations amounted to “a very big warning bell” of
the damage that could be done by exploiting the possibilities of “the new
data-centered age.”

The Guardian cited no sources for its claim that News International, the
Murdoch subsidiary, had paid £1 million, about $1.6 million, in damages
and legal costs to three people involved in professional soccer in
Britain, including about $1.1 million to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of
the Professional Footballers’ Association.

The Guardian said the financial settlements in Britain were accompanied by
clauses that prevented the people receiving the money from speaking about
the cases. Such confidentiality clauses are common in many settlements. It
said the settlements arose from disclosures that emerged from a trial of
two private investigators working for the Murdoch-owned News of the World
who served brief prison terms after being convicted in 2007 for hacking
into cellphone messages.

One of the men convicted, Clive Goodman, was found to have accessed more
than 600 messages on cellphones used by members of the royal family. The
other man, Glenn Mulcaire, a former professional soccer player, admitted
that he had hacked into the cellphone of Mr. Taylor, head of the soccer
association, as well as those of the model Elle Macpherson and Max
Clifford, a public relations agent.

In documents submitted to the High Court in London during the trial of Mr.
Goodman and Mr. Mulcaire, executives of News International said The News
of the World’s editors and reporters had not been involved in any way in
the phone tapping.

But the controversy stirred by The Guardian could reach into the highest
ranks of Mr. Murdoch’s empire. Several senior executives at News
International or The News of the World were named by The Guardian as
having denied knowledge of the tapping during the Goodman-Mulcaire trials.

The Information Commissioner’s Office, an independent body responsible for
regulating data protection and freedom of information issues, recalled in
its statement issued Thursday that in 2008 it had been obliged by a court
order to provide Mr. Taylor’s lawyers with information that 31 journalists
from The News of the World and The Sun “acquired people’s personal
information” through a practice called “blagging”.

A spokesman for the office, who declined to be identified by name under
its rules, said blagging was “the illegal trade in personal information
obtained by conning people” and was thus separate from the newest
allegations in The Guardian about hacking into cellphone messages.

In a series of reports issued in 2006, the Information Commissioner’s
Office gave examples of a “blagger training manual” to help tricksters
obtain information by posing as officials from telephone or rail
companies.

The reports said an investigation codenamed Operation Motorman had shown
that a total of 305 journalists from 32 newspapers and magazines had
bought confidential personal information acquired illegally. The list of
news organizations included many non-Murdoch publications such as The
Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror and others.

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