posted July 18, 2011 04:53 PM            

'News Of The World' Whistle-Blower Found Dead
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/07/18/138476288/news-of-the-world-whistleblower-found-dead?ft=1&f=1001

Police told Britain's Press Association news agency that a former News of the World show biz reporter, who was the first named whistle-blower in the hacking scandal that has roiled Britain, was found dead today.

The Guardian, which first reported the story, writes Sean Hoare was found dead at his Waterford home and police do not think the death is suspicious. The paper quotes a police statement:

"At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the 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."

posted July 19, 2011 11:45 AM            

rupert is denying that he knew about £1 million payments to hacking victims..and acting as if he is such a fool/ bumbler that it's hard to imagine him heading an empire with 53,000 emmployees over the past 60 years...

posted July 19, 2011 05:25 PM            

i hope if i ever get called up for this sort of dirty doings i am allowed to conduct the investigation myself too!
http://www.borowitzreport.com/

posted July 19, 2011 07:23 PM            

OMG! (2nd use *ever* )

Kabuki theater at it's height!

realizing that this is just the first stage, I still was disappointed with most of the questions I heard, you know the ones that ask "did you feel any remorse"?

posted July 19, 2011 07:45 PM            

other people have had their phones hacked too. apparently a million-pound settlement was made, and rupert bear swears he knew nothing of it?

poor innocent lamb, same lamb who sat at the table while roger ailes suggested that obama being more forgiving toward FOX crew would make him less of a target for their smear campaign...

same lamb who owns several papers that have behaved like this for years, to COMMON KNOWLEDGE, all for the sake of the rewards of sensationalism in hard cash.

same lamb is suspected by many of carrying multiple politicians in his deep pockets,

the whistleblower told NYtimes years ago that NOWT got the dirt by paying the MET (police) for access info to people's mobiles

the list is very long of illegal immoral tactics in search of a good story, including the suspected hacking of former PM gordon brown's bank account...

he's so innocent, oh yes he ain't. but how do you prove it? by letting him investigate himself?

news/rumour has it that the FBI are looking into possible hacking of 9/11 victims phones as well. this is not an ENGLISH scandal but a blueprint for how the media has interfered with rather than printed fact, messed up people's lives and possibly swung elections, and not just british ones.

and yes, FOX have mentioned it...talking about how good a job rupert has done responding to the scandal, just think he FLEW all the way to london and printed an APOLOGY in his paper...the one he doesn't know who is running it? not sure which paper though i saw a pick of the apology online somewhere WE'RE SORRY (boohoo)

posted July 19, 2011 08:19 PM            

One reason for the stocks's gain is speculation that Rupert Murdoch may step aside.

posted July 19, 2011 09:49 PM            

From what I saw of the hearing, and later heard in the car, was Murdoch playing the age card with great skill. The well timed pauses, and dotters that caused not an eyelash flicker from his crew.

After hearing more tonight I have little doubt that he will face similar troubles in this country.

I have to read up on our hacking/privacy laws. We know Homeland Security to listen to any and all, but what about corporate hacking..and payoffs. Maybe Person hood will come to save the day.

posted July 20, 2011 12:48 PM            

perhaps murdoch IS senile NOW, but he has been staging hostile takeovers and operating like this for decades, and anyone who believes he "knew nothing" is a fool, because RUPERT is NOT a fool, whatever else he may be...

is he a fall guy/smokescreen to take attention off other insidious doings? even a willing one who thinks he will get off with some fines and a little discredit? perhaps we will see.

posted July 20, 2011 10:17 PM            

Ann Coulter, Author, "How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America"

In December 1996, a Florida couple, John and Alice Martin, who sounded suspiciously like union goons, claimed to have inadvertently tapped into a phone conversation between then House Speaker Newt Gingrich and House Republican leadership.

According to these Democratic and union activists, they were just driving around with a police scanner in their car, picked up a random phone conversation and said to themselves, "Wait a minute! I could swear that's Dick Armey's voice!"

Luckily, they also had a tape recorder and cassette in their car, so they proceeded to illegally record the intercepted conversation and then turned the tape over to Democratic Rep. James McDermott -- the top Democrat on the Ethics Committee that was at that very moment investigating Gingrich.

Although they swore they had no idea that what they were doing was a crime, in their cover letter to McDermott, they requested immunity -- just as you probably do whenever you write somebody a letter. (They later pleaded guilty to a crime under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.)

McDermott promptly turned the tape over to The New York Times and other newspapers. The Times' headline on the story, "Gingrich Is Heard Urging Tactics in Ethics Case," might as well have been titled: "Tape Shows Gingrich Conspiring to Act Within the Law."

John Boehner, one of the participants in the Gingrich call, sued McDermott for violating his First Amendment rights, which resulted in a court ordering McDermott to pay Boehner more than $1 million.

And yet, more than a dozen news organizations, many of the same ones demanding the death penalty for Rupert Murdoch right now, filed amicus briefs defending McDermott's distribution of the pirated tape.

Needless to say, the Times ferociously defended its own publication of the hacked phone call, arguing that it would be unconstitutional to punish the publication of information, no matter how obtained.

So it's strange to see these defenders of the press's right to publish absolutely anything get on their high horses about British tabloid reporters, operating under a different culture and legal system, hacking into cell phones.

Not only that, but they are demanding that the CEO of the vast, multinational corporation that owned the tabloids be severely punished.

This is because the CEO is Rupert Murdoch and Murdoch owns Fox News.

The entire mainstream media are fixated on Murdoch's imagined role in the Fleet Street phone-hacking story -- the only topic more boring than the debt ceiling -- solely in order to pursue their petty vendetta against Fox News, which liberals hate with the hot, hot heat of a thousand suns.

Every guest on MSNBC is asked the same question: Is it possible to believe that Murdoch was unaware of what some reporters at News of the World were doing? How can a network that employs Chris Matthews be unfamiliar with the concept of a "rogue employee"?

In fact, it's quite easy to believe Murdoch was unaware of what News of the World reporters were doing -- particularly considering the striking absence of any evidence to the contrary.

Murdoch is an American who owns television networks, satellite operations and newspapers all over the world. As he said in his testimony this week, News Corp. has 53,000 employees and, until its recent demise, News of the World amounted to a grand total of 1 percent of News Corp.'s operations.

Why wasn't Les Moonves responsible for CBS anchor Dan Rather trying to throw the 2004 presidential election with phony National Guard documents one month before the election? Moonves was president, CEO and director of CBS, a company with half as many employees as News Corp. And his rogue employee constituted a much bigger part of CBS' business than News of the World did of the Murdoch empire.

And yet no one asked if Moonves was aware that his network was about to accuse a sitting president of shirking his National Guard duty. Moonves wasn't dragged before multiple congressional panels. Nor was MSNBC tracking his every bowel movement on live TV. No one remembers the biggest media scandal of the last 30 years as "The Les Moonves Scandal."

What about all the illegally obtained information regularly printed in the Times? Was Pinch Sulzberger unaware his newspaper was publishing classified government documents illegally obtained by Julian Assange?

Did he know that in 2006 the Times published illegally leaked classified documents concerning a government program following terrorists' financial transactions; that in 2005 it revealed illegally obtained information about a top-secret government program tracking phone calls connected to numbers found in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's cell phone; and, that, in 1997, the paper published an illegally obtained phone call between Newt Gingrich and Republican leaders?

If only Murdoch's minions had hacked into the phones of George Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, liberals would be submitting his name to the pope for sainthood.

But now the rest of us have to watch while the mainstream media pursue their personal grudge against Rupert Murdoch for allowing Fox News to exist. They demand his head for owning a British tabloid where some reporters used illegally obtained information, something The New York Times does defiantly on a regular basis.

posted July 20, 2011 11:20 PM            

Rupert was asked "to which door do you go to enter 10 Downing?" he replied, "the back door."

So dignitaries, heads of state etc enter the front, but the real power, or I might call them *friendlies* go in the back.

There are people talking about turning this into a 9/11 truth commission, because common-- Rupert has to know. He is an American now, and if the fan really gets hit, with the e-mails from 9/11 in this country --we should demand the truth.

posted July 21, 2011 12:20 AM            

i never said murdoch was the only crim here. he is just the "leader of the pack". and he is pretending that astute and ruthless as he has been all these years he knew nothing about what was going on even though it was pretty common knowledge? and offering to investigate himself? please.

posted July 21, 2011 09:43 AM            

But, that's the leftist way.

Don't need no proof
Don't need no juries
Don't need no judges
Don't need no courts

All leftists need to see is the name..Murdock, Koch, Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld..and they know deep down in their little leftist souls...that they're guilty.

Well Node, I suppose it would have been embarrassing for a committed Socialist like Brown to have the Capitalist Murdock enter Number 10 Downing Street...through the front door.

How ever would Brown explain that to his Socialist buddies?

posted July 21, 2011 12:50 PM            

Leaks which damage the United States...WikiLeaks, Julian Assange AND...NY Times terrorist tracking leaks, Bill Keller...GOOD LEAKS!

Naturally, the blatant hypocrisy here is on display for all to see...at least those who know the rest of the "leaks" story.

'News of the World' vs. WikiLeaks: Murdoch's the Only Variable
by Jimmie Bise
07/21/2011

What is the real difference between the WikiLeaks and News of the World stories aside from the presence of The Evil Rupert Murdoch?

Here’s what we know thus far:

News of the World was an immensely popular tabloid newspaper in England. Several of its editors allegedly hired private investigators to dig up salacious information about famous figures, politicians, and even a teenage murder victim. The investigators most often used various common exploits to get into the voice-mail systems of their targets’ cell phones, and brought that information back to their employers, who then worked it into stories to sell more papers. The scandal has enveloped the British government and law enforcement as information continues to emerge on those who ordered the hacking and their relationships with police and public officials. So far, Murdoch has not been accused of a crime, but it could happen as the investigation progresses.

What we have in each case is a group of people who stole (or arranged to steal) private information so they could make it public and thereby enrich themselves. However, the presence of Murdoch, who has become a looming bogeyman to the Left because of his ownership of Fox News, has caused progressives to twist themselves into knots to condemn Murdoch so soon after they praised Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The liberal watchdog Media Matters for America has led the charge to tie News of the World to Fox News, but they are far from the only ones.

The progressive double-standard was best illustrated by Larry Flynt. In December, he took to The Huffington Post as a champion of free speech to explain why he was going to donate $50,000 to the WikiLeaks defense fund.

“Here's what I know about censorship: The free flow of information is ultimately less harmful than the impeded flow of information. A democracy cannot exist without total access to the facts.”

Just last week, though, Flynt changed his tune. Now he’s the voice of moderation and responsibility.

“One cannot live off the liberty and benefits of a free press while ignoring the privacy of the people. People such as Murdoch and I, as heads of publishing conglomerates, have a responsibility to maintain and respect this boundary.”

And it’s not just Flynt whose opinion on privacy and the law has turned completely inside-out. The New York Times is quite divided on the issue as well. In an editorial printed earlier this month, the newspaper said, “Investigations into criminal behavior must be taken to their conclusions, wherever they lead. Honest journalists—and they abound in England, as elsewhere—should not fear those inquiries.” However, just months ago, Bill Keller, the newspaper’s executive editor, said that “American journalists, and other journalists, should feel a sense of alarm at any legal action that tends to punish Assange for doing essentially what journalists do. That is to say, any use of the law to criminalize the publication of secrets.”

The hypocrisy is dizzying, but not out of the ordinary for the brighter lights of the progressive movement. What makes their flip-floppery so egregious this time is that while the methods used in these stories are virtually identical, the results are as far apart as east is from the west.

The secrets uncovered by the investigators hired by News of the World, though certainly embarrassing and personally sensitive, were fairly mundane. Perhaps the most shocking revelation is that the snoops listened in as concerned family members left messages on the answering machine of a missing 13-year-old girl and erased some of them so that they could get more. While we all recoil from the petty evil that would drive someone to do such a thing, the information they got didn’t put lives at risk.

The WikiLeaks documents, according to the New York Times, gave out identifying information about “dozens” of informants and others who were cooperating with our soldiers against the Taliban. Indeed, once the Taliban heard of the leaks, it pored over them in the hope of finding enough information to kill those named in them, or any members of their families they could find. As the Taliban spokesman said, “We know how to punish them.” We do not know how many people are dead right now because Bill Keller and his newspaper broadcast the material stolen by Julian Assange’s supplier, Bradley Manning, but we can reasonably estimate the number was more than zero.

This type of document dump, then, is what the Left defended months ago, though today they excoriate a man who could be accused, at most, of sifting through the electronic version of some people's mail. Again, let me say without equivocation that what happened at News of the World, if true, was criminal and those guilty of breaking the law should be punished without hesitation. However, those on the Left can spare me their self-righteous pontifications.

The only thing Rupert Murdoch ever killed was the Left’s stranglehold on the mainstream media.

posted July 21, 2011 05:52 PM            

i am not jumping on this because it's a bandwagon. i have been watching the murdoch for years. he is no bumbling fool but a ruthless businessman who PREFERS the tabloid approach to information. sorry, but the national enquirer is not my idea of NEWS. this is the basic level of NOWT, which was a good deal more than 1% of the murdoch empire. if he employs 53000 people then over 2000 is more than 1%, and it has been one of his most lucrative branches.

when "News" is big business, and profit the main consideration, and News Moguls, to quote your post, pretend they don't know what goes on in their own companies;

when not one story or a dozen but DECADES worth of stories, blackmail, bribery and tampering with evidence are beginning to be uncovered;

it has nothing to do with left or right.

except to the ann coulters of the world.

i will be the first to say the NOWT has actually done some good exposes on people who deserved it. they have also - with their sister papers/shows - cheapened the NEWS medium to the point where it is little more than a gossip and spite market serving its MASTERS and lining their pockets.

What is the real difference between the WikiLeaks and News of the World stories aside from the presence of The Evil Rupert Murdoch?

julian assange is in custody, is he not? so let's DO talk about hypocrisy and how swiftly the independent hacker/publisher is put in chains, while the rupert murdochs of the world are chastened and allowed to investigate themselves. let's talk about how following an acting career turns one into a target for relentless snoops who examine your trash and print stories about your mental illness for a Few Dollars More.

let's Please talk about how whistleblowers turn up dead with alarming predictability and it is "not suspicious" and how tampering with evidence and communications in a murder investigation is JUST FINE if you do it ALL the time...or if you are not a "LEFTIST". and how a man can run his organizations with an "iron grip" and not know about huge settlements and their reasons?

posted July 21, 2011 06:48 PM            

If Rupert had never been born.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1aZcsY-O8Q&feature=player_embedded

posted July 21, 2011 08:39 PM            

I always have to laugh when leftists suggest anyone is brainwashed.

posted July 22, 2011 11:51 AM            

Or, we could go straight to espionage against the United States.

Or, theft of US government property.

It can't be Treason because little Julian is not a US citizen

But, I thank you for proving my point.

Leaks which damage the United States are applauded by the America hating Socialist left but leaks...which haven't been proved against Murdock..or anything else for that matter...must be investigated and punished.

**edit**

Oh damn, I forgot!

posted July 22, 2011 12:26 PM            

wait for it nothing

posted July 22, 2011 12:32 PM            

Are you suggesting Manning didn't break US and Military Law?