News International 'tried to blackmail select committee' (of UK Parliament)

[Newsjock]

Source: The Independent (UK)

Detectives carrying out the multimillion-pound investigation into illegal newsgathering techniques at Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group have been asked to investigate whether it attempted to blackmail politicians.

The alleged plot centres on News International's apparent efforts to warn off MPs on a parliamentary committee from disproving its discredited defence that phone hacking was the work of a single "rogue reporter".

According to the former senior News of the World journalist Neville Thurlbeck, News International ordered the Sunday paper's reporters to scour the private lives of MPs on the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee in 2009. At the time, Mr Murdoch's company was mounting what it now admits was a mistakenly "aggressive" response to allegations that the interception of voicemail messages was rife at its headquarters in Wapping, east London. On the advice of the parliamentary authorities, the Labour MP Tom Watson has now asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate the allegation.

According to Mr Thurlbeck, reporters were told by those in "deepcarpetland" to obtain evidence of affairs or gay relationships. The aim, he claimed, was to "to find as much embarrassing sleaze on as many members as possible in order to blackmail them into backing off from its highly forensic inquiry into phone hacking". In a letter – a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent – to the Deputy Assistant Commissioner leading the Met's inquiries into News International, Sue Akers, Mr Watson wrote: "If these allegations are found to be true, it suggests there was a conspiracy to blackmail."

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/news-international-tried-to-blackmail-select-committee-7792687.html

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Newsjock.

[salin]

2. still dripping... periodic torrents... then back to dripping...

hard to think that there won't be an eventual deluge.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Is blackmail illegal in Britain?

If so, hit them all hard with it. Reduce the number of sleaze "reporters" and "editors" in the newspaper business. Make sure Murdoch and co are all convicted.

[UpInArms]

4. k and r

and many thanks for this posting

Murderdock is despicable and anyone/thing that he touches is poison

:kick:

[beac]

5. K&R. Bad news for Murdoch is good news for the rest of the world.

I dream of the day we will be rid of him and his filthy media empire.

[lookingfortruth]

6. considering what they did with poor Charlotte Church I'm not surprised by this news. What I'm

surprised at is how Murdoch isn't behind bars OR that the Media in our country isn't investigating how much Murdoch holdings i.e. Wall Street Journal Fox News did the same in this country

[cstanleytech]

7. I wonder if this (blackmail) could also be why congress and the senate here have

largely turned a blind eye to the story.

[Blue State Bandit]

15. Well, they wouldn't have to "Hack" their way into congressional e-mail...

because back doors were built in by Mike Connell (RIP) into the congressional websites. His handlers would have simply handed access over to Roger Ailes. Those back doors would have been closed a few years ago in the wake of Connell's attempted grand jury testimony and untimely death, but by then, the damage had already been done.

[Hissyspit]

8. When does Rupert go to jail?

'bout the same time as Bush and Cheney, I guess.

[idwiyo]

9. K&R It's just keeps on giving...

[pfitz59]

10. same thing probably happening in the US

FAUX and Fiends...

[oldhippydude]

11. in the U.S. also in addition to blackmail..

we have to deal with regulatory capture, and the revolving door between regulators and the companies they regulate..

[Ford_Prefect]

12. If they hacked the voicemail, who helped them do it?

Scemes like this don't tend to exist in a vacuum. Among other things they depend on knowlege and access derived from other areas of expertise than what is offered at the School of Journalism. Perhaps this has already been asked?

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. No, it was mostly absurdly easy to hack voicemail

The phones were sold with default passcodes on the voicemail of '0000' or '1234'. Many people didn't bother to change the passcode, so all someone had to do was get their voicemail (which, if necessary, you do by having a colleague phone up with a trivial question to keep the phone busy, so subsequent calls drop through to voicemail), and then go through the menus for 'pick up your mail'. All they really needed was the mobile phone number of the target (and once you've hacked into one person's voicemail, you'll often find numbers of other celebrities, or people who work with them like agents, PR reps and so on - and the latter would always give their numbers to journalists freely anyway).

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. We were calling it blackmail on DU back in 2010

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x448146

I was pretty pessimistic about Murdoch ever being held to account for all this, back then, while TheBigotBasher correctly thought MPs might start standing up for themselves. But I will say I got it more or less right when I said "As long as Murdoch doesn't defame a 'national treasure' like Cheryl Cole or something, he's safe"; it took hacking a murdered girl's phone to break the dam.