Newspaper Reaches New Low...

[The Judge]

You don't sacrifice all your troops in one go, Moonbat. I should imagine Murdoch is keeping Brooks to act as a shield for his son, and ultimately himself -- if closing the paper appeases the critics all well and good. If not, she's someone else to be thrown off the troika to the ravening wolves following behind. (Sorry. Mixing metaphors here.)

And as appalling as the paper's conduct was (and, as I have no doubt, the conduct of many of its red top rivals) the thing which has hardly been touched on is the responsibility of the public. This was the best-read Sunday newspaper in Britain, for goodness sake. The journalists were doing what they did in order to keep those readers happy, because they wanted endless tittle-tattle about rich and famous persons, or persons who had some indirect connection with someone who might once have been rich or famous, or even just someone who was in any way connected with any public story. If hunting for gossip on eg the families of those who died in the London bombings, or on the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan, was immoral and distasteful** why did no one object to stories being run on these people? Why didn't the readers vote with their feet and buy papers which weren't obsessed with gossip? The only reason these activities were carried out, at such length and for so long, were because they were of value, because ultimately they sold papers.

To use another analogy, theft is wicked, but the person who buys stolen goods from the thief shares equal responsibility for the crime.


** yes, I know it's illegal, but who really cared about the illegality of it until now? And if they had targeted the families of the murdered girls in methods which stayed just this side of legal but were seen to be morally abhorrent we'd be having the same outcry.

[Vladd67]

Originally Posted by Tillane

I'd like to say I'm astonished, but I expect - as has already been suggested - that this is just an attempt to fend off criticism of the BSkyB takeover, and in short order we'll end up with The Scum on Sunday. But we'll see.

It appears that two days before the announcement of the closure of the Screws the domain thesunonsunday.co.uk was registered so it will be business as usual.

http://81.21.76.62/thesunonsunday.co.uk/index.html

[Moonbat]

I'm not sure if I fully agree with you there judge, the NOTW was full of gossip and celebrity tittle-tattle, but we knew that celebrity phones had been hacked ages ago, what has got us upset is the news that, as you say, 7/7 victims and Murder victims phones have been hacked. When the Soham murders happened we were all outraged and we wanted to know everything about it that we possibly could, so if the NOTW had some amazing scoop about the story that only they had then the effect would have been to sell more papers, I don't think that a scoop on the Soham case (for example, I know I'm using an unsubstatiated allegation here) would be classed at tittle-tattle, it might not have been some amazing revealing piece of evidence, or insightful journalism, but if they (for instance) had a headline that stated something about someone connected to the girls in a way that seemed like there was some unknown info, then people would have bought it.

I do think that the sort of people who read the sun and the NOTW aren't that bothered by serious news articles, or even that fussed about Mr Murdoch's empire. That said, the red tops are a much lighter read and do give you the basic facts of the story, you might complain that their facts are misleading, but when it comes to a main story that all the papers have the red tops have a way of sumerising it in a lot less words than the broadsheets, and for people who don't have an hour spare to sit down and read through the entire Sunday Times (1hr I must be mad, more like the entirety of Sunday 8hrs +) they proivde a useful service.

[TheEndIsNigh]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned by others earlier in the thread, But....


I suspect that the police hack into phone data in this manner after every suspicious event.

They will doubtless listen in to any close relatives phone, email, or web accesses just in case they can pin a crime on them. As I understand it they always suspect close relatives in a 'disappearance cases': with justification sometimes.

However they are at least trying to bring people to book and their actions can be justified. Although it would explain why when they see others doing the same thing they overlook it (or even supply the information so gleaned, to third parties).

In fact I seem to recall the government require phone companies to keep a recording of all telephone conversations, web browsing activities and e-mails for 12 months so they can have a good rummage through our private lives whenever they wish.

Who knows who has access to this data and who is able to distribute the info so gained.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...or-a-year.html

This is why you don't hear much about requiring court orders and the like to authorise a phone taps nowadays: they just record them all. -Equality under the law?

Never forget we live in a 'police' state.

As for the continuing career of some employees of certain companies: maybe they are waiting for the opportunity to reveal more of what they know!

[Tillane]

Hmm. And now there are rumours that the Daily Star's offices have been raided.

Should we just shut all the tabloids down now and have done with it?

[Ursa major]

"It's a fair cop," said the editor, with a straight face. " You've caught us red-topped."

[Vladd67]

Looks like some of the NoTW staff are going to sue News International for wrongful dismissal. Could cost them millions. Also Renault have pulled the plug on all their News International advertising not just the NoTW adverts.

[Tillane]

Originally Posted by Vladd67

Also Renault have pulled the plug on all their News International advertising not just the NoTW adverts.

Let's face it, just pulling their ads from the NoTW would be a fairly futile gesture now...

[blacknorth]

Even now people seem to be afraid to ask the big questions about the NOTW phone-hacking scandal. It wasn't just celebrities, and it goes beyond murder victims, as repulsive as that is. Senior Labour politicians had their voice-mail messages intercepted, among them Gordon Brown, Prime Minister, and John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister.

Given Cameron's close relationship with Coulson, Brooks and Murdock, and his eagerness to hand BskyB to NI, did the Tories have access to any of the hacked information?

[thaddeus6th]

George Osborne's phone may have been hacked. If you check the Thursday (I think) edition of The Daily Politics Ben Bradshaw reveals that the Labour Cabinet knew about this and decided not to hold an inquiry in 2009 for political reasons.

Don't forget that these hacking events occurred during a period of Labour government, and they were very close to those involved until 2009.

The real question is not one of party politics, but of the police.

[blacknorth]

Brown knew his own phone had been hacked and that Osborne's phone had been hacked but decided not to hold an inquiry... 'for political reasons.' I would say the hacking of a sitting Prime Minister with access to all the secrets and organs of state is a lot more serious than the hacking of an opposition politician.

Besides you are missing one piece of information - the inquiry was not shelved by Brown: it was blocked by the UK's most senior civil servant, Gus O'Donnell, on the grounds that it was too close to an election for any inquiry. Now why would a civil servant care about that? And is this the same Gus O'Donnell who went on to broker the coalition deal between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats? Yes it is.

Stinks.

[thaddeus6th]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...cs_07_07_2011/

Not my view, the recollection of a then Labour Cabinet minister. It's about 12 minutes in. [Video will only be up for the next day or two].

O'Donnell also co-wrote a book with Ed Balls, Brown's right hand man. Given the electoral result the only possible results were a minority Con Government, a Con-Lib Coalition, or a re-run of the election. It was Cameron who made Clegg the offer, the two parties that negotiated the deal and the British people who didn't give any one party a majority.

There's enough unpleasantness in this story without resorting to smear.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by TheEndIsNigh

I suspect that the police hack into phone data in this manner after every suspicious event.

Yes they do, TEIN. But 'hack' isn't the right word - because they are allowed to do so, by law.

To paraphrase the legislation "it is illegal to retrieve voice and text mail from the server where it is stored for transmission to the intended recipient." It isn't illegal to retrieve it from any other server of course.

All telecoms companies are required to route copies of text and voice mail to a source only identified by I.P. address. It's never openly admitted who owns the I.P. address but everyone suspects it's probably located at Cheltenham...

[blacknorth]

Originally Posted by thaddeus6th

There's enough unpleasantness in this story without resorting to smear.

Er, who exactly is being smeared? O'Donnell's role in putting together the coalition is a matter of public record. As is his recommendation to Brown that there be no inquiry because an election was due.

If you don't like where this is headed, tough, but don't accuse me of smearing anyone, because I haven't referred to anything that isn't public knowledge.

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by blacknorth

I would say the hacking of a sitting Prime Minister with access to all the secrets and organs of state is a lot more serious than the hacking of an opposition politician.

I agree, but you said earlier:

Originally Posted by blacknorth

Given Cameron's close relationship with Coulson, Brooks and Murdock, and his eagerness to hand BskyB to NI, did the Tories have access to any of the hacked information?

Given that Cameron was not the leader of a foreign country, any interest he would have had in the information - if he had access to it** - would have been party political (unless the government had been involved in something dubious that they didn't want the people to know of***). In this context, the hacking of cabinet ministers and shadow cabinet ministers would be of the same order.

Originally Posted by blacknorth

Besides you are missing one piece of information - the inquiry was not shelved by Brown: it was blocked by the UK's most senior civil servant, Gus O'Donnell, on the grounds that it was too close to an election for any inquiry. Now why would a civil servant care about that?

Good question, though I expect that there is an entirely logical and non-partisan reason for it.

Originally Posted by blacknorth

And is this the same Gus O'Donnell who went on to broker the coalition deal between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats? Yes it is.

Stinks.

No it doesn't. That's his job: ensuring that there's a government for him and the rest of the Civil Service to work for. And he couldn't guarantee, or force, an outcome of the talks, so I can't see what you are so concerned about.


** - I haven't seen anything that suggests they had access to the information. (And frankly, the thought that Rupert - a citizen of another country whose allegiances seem to be determined**** by the desire for money and/or power - might have had access to sensitive information is far more worrying than it might be seen by the likely next British PM, as Cameron was at the time.

*** - In which case, there might have been a public interest defence in court.

**** - He became a US citizen to be allowed to own a US TV station/network. And even before then, he was Australian, not British.