Slashdot Mirror
News Corp. Subsidiary Under Fire For Hacking Dead Girl's Voicemail
Hugh Pickens writes "Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. came under pressure from UK Prime Minister David Cameron to respond to 'really appalling' allegations that its News of the World tabloid hacked into the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. The tabloid printed a story based on a voicemail left on Dowler's mobile phone on April 14, 2002, when she had been missing from her home in Surrey, southwest of London, for more than three weeks. According to a Guardian newspaper report, a private detective working for the tabloid gained access to Milly Dowler's phone messages after she was abducted in March 2002 and the detective, Glenn Mulcaire, is alleged to have deleted voicemail messages on Dowler's phone, giving her parents 'false hope' she might still be alive and thereby complicating the police investigation. According to one source, when her friends and family discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Dowler herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive."
In all the articles I've read on this, it's never explained why they did it. It's obvious that when they hack phones belonging to celebrities they're looking for scandal dirt. What did they expect to dig up on a little dead girl?
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
It's a long article, but is really worth a read. It talks about Ailes and his plans for what would be Fox News. It uses primary sources, and goes into some depth about an interesting bit of history. Murdoch may not have come up with the idea, but he sure has done well with the execution.
This is a particularly disgusting example of a very common practice within UK tabloid newspapers. I wish we could single out the News of the World but in fact the tabloids in general have all been up to it.
The interesting thing here is that Rebekah Brooks, who currently heads up News International in the UK, was editor of the News of the World when the phone was hacked and she is on record as saying she knew about phone hacking from back then. It is pretty likely (despite her protestations) that she knew what was going on - editors do - and it will be interesting to see how News Corp react to this with respect to her. She is one of Rupert Murdoch's favourites and all along they have been protecting her but we'll see what happens now.
Ruthless fucking cunts all the way down.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. . . .
Is that really necessary? I know there's a serious anti-Fox News crowd here, but it's quite a stretch to include the entire organization when even the tabloid itself probably frowned on what one individual did.
"I have to tell you that I am sickened that these events are alleged to have happened," Brooks said in a memo to staff. "If the allegations are proved to be true then I can promise the strongest possible action will be taken as this company will not tolerate such disgraceful behavior."
Translation: "Awesome! We're getting AWESOME publicity out of this!!!!! Our circulation is through the roof! Whoever did this is going to get a HUGE bonus!"
On another note: If an individual did this to a News Corp machine, does anyone think there would be a bit more than outrage? Like guys with badges and guns kicking down the door of the alleged perpetrator and having his name all over the news and the News?
Of course that doesn't happen to big, rich, and powerful corporations; especially one that has the capability of smearing a politician into resigning - if he happens to go after said corp.
Just pointing that out.
The way to deal effectively with this is to take out the advertisers. A boycott is in progress and is getting results.
* News Of The World advertisers list - includes handy Excel spreadsheet, suitable for mailmerging
* Addresses and phone numbers of advertisers
So far, Ford have withdrawn their advertising from NOTW, and Mumsnet have removed their advertising from Sky. The latter will hurt, as that's advertisers considering all of News International too toxic to deal with.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Well, the investigator says he was put under massive amounts of pressure from NOTW (but he would). There are also reports that then-editor Rebekah Brooks, now major exec in the company, contacted investigators personally. So it could still be the case that at least one major exec was entirely in on this. However, nothing has been proven at this point. I personally don't like the way the public (read: Twitterati) has launched a campaign to destroy the company's advertising revenue without any wrong-doing being proved.
The fact that they used the information retrieved from the voicemails for a story makes them just as culpable. They hired the guy and they used the info he provided.
Okay answer this. To access the voicemail the "hacker" would have needed to know her phone number. How on earth would a newspaper get such information unless volunteered?
It's likely they paid a bent cop or a friend for the information. That's not exactly good is it?
It doesn't matter how good the passcode is, the fact is they obtained the phone number with a view to trying to gain access to personal information. Even if the passcode was 0000 they still had no legal right to be accessing the voicemail, not to mention deleting messages which could have been vital information for the Police investigation.
One reporter and the private investigator have already gone to prison for this: I think wrong-doing has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt by convictions in a criminal court.
In addition News International have setup up a ~£20million fund to pay compensation to those who they have admitted they hacked. I think wrong-doing have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt by a confession and an apology.
What is up for debate here is exactly how evil and corrupt they are - it has been proved that they are evil and corrupt already.
You don't think a private investigator would be able to attain that kind of information independent of the tabloid? If not, what's the point of a private investigator? I'm not saying the tabloid didn't do anything wrong (especially if they published the information, knowing how it was attained), but your argument doesn't make sense. The main point of the GP, however, was the ridiculous line drawn all the way to News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch.
I never said what they did was okay, it's just that the actual definition of "hacking" is completely different from what the submitter thinks it is. And as an aside, ALL tabloids (grimy little nosy bastards, all of them) pay people for information. Let's not act like this is some special case, especially considering that in the UK, tabloids love "hacking" voicemails to get info for their largely made-up stories.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. came under pressure from UK Prime Minister David Cameron to respond to 'really appalling' allegations that its News of the World tabloid hacked into the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
How about just throwing some of those assclowns in jail? Let the pressure come from their new cellmate, Tyrone, who likes cuddling and moonlight walks around the exercise yard.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Are News International paying you for this?
The allegations are of full collusion between NotW and the PI - specifically that although the PI may have gained access to the voicemail, it was News International journalists who deleted messages from it (i.e. tampering with evidence in a murder investigation). Trying to blame some rogue investigator is utter bullshit.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Voicemails are set without passcode by default generally. All you need to do is spoof the inbound caller id, and call the network's voicemail number.
"I'm all for charging the PI with obstruction of justice, but unless News Corp explicitly told him what to do, their involvement in this is tangential at best."
Bullshit. As in, you clearly haven't been paying attention to the story but have nonetheless decided to have your tuppence' worth.
Glenn Mulcaire, the investigator at the heart of all this, has been saying through intermediaries for months that he was explicitly requested to unlwafully access voicemails by staff at the News of the World. Indeed, just this very evening he's released a statement to the Guardian detailing the pressure he was placed under by NotW staff to "obtain results." See, for example, just about any issue of Private Eye published in the past twelve months.
As it happens, we've now had news this evening that NotW execs, not content with accessing Milly Dowler's voicemails, were also involved in illegally accessing those of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, two girls from Cambridgeshire who were murdered in the summer of 2002.
And there's more: Channel 4 news here in the UK tonight detailed how the NotW had placed a senior detective under surveillance during the reopening of a particularly nasty murder inquiry. This includes the allegation that Rebekkah Brooks, who's the current CEO of News International, was interviewed by police about this back in 2002, thus making rather a fucking mockery of the claim that NotW execs aren't in this up to their arse cheeks.
And there's even more: if rumours flying around London this evening are to be believed, we're going to be hearing similar allegations over the coming week including, but not limited to, how the NotW accessed voicemails of Gerry and Kate McCann, the parents of a young girl abducted a few years ago in what became a media shitstorm.
Unlike the rest of News Corp, which totally does.
I don't know where to begin.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
The summary says the investigator deleted the voicemail messages. In the news report I saw, the allegation is that the NotW journalists deleted the messages.
(alleged) chain of events is:
1. NotW hires investigator to gain access to voicemail
2. NotW listens to voicemail to get soundbites from loved ones for their shitty, amoral rag.
3. Once voicemail is full, they delete stored messages so they can get more juicy copy from distraught friends and relatives of a murdered 13-year old girl
4. They then interview parents of said girl, the mother speaking about the hope that her daughter is still alive based on the deleted voicemails.
Do not try to excuse this. The people doing this are pitiless psychopaths.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Maybe "illegally accessing" would have been more descriptive however when hackers obtain usernames and passwords through social engineering rather than guessing, many here would consider it hacking.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
ALL tabloids (grimy little nosy bastards, all of them) pay people for information.
Paying people for information is not morally wrong, in general. For example you could offer a reward for information about the girl's whereabouts, which would be fine. Paying people to get personal information about the girl in a way which interferes with a police investigation - that's obviously wrong.
Okay answer this. To access the voicemail the "hacker" would have needed to know her phone number. How on earth would a newspaper get such information unless volunteered?
I don't know where you live, but here we have these things called phone books. They're great for stuff like door stops, hitting annoying little sisters and looking up peoples phone numbers.
"Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those involved in the original inquiry, who were concerned about how News of the World journalists intercepted â" and deleted â" the voicemail messages of Milly Dowler."
That doesn't sound like a PI gone rogue. Regarding News Corp's role, you speak as if the News of The World is regional branch in the boonies. It's one of the latest tabloids in the UK, with a ling and sordid track record. It's sister newspaper, The Sun, is fucking idiotic, but normally less brutal; well, aside from the Belgrano and the Liverpool business.
It would be no loss to see that newspaper driven out of business, and Murdoch's influence rolled-back. Seriously, do you think that Murdoch didn't know what kind if newspaper he owned?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/30/news-corporation-powerful-media
This cancerous organisation has just made a deal with the government it is deep in the pockets of, to extend its media monopoly in the UK - this scandal is unlikely to reverse that decision, given how personally close News International is to the Conservative Party:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk_general_election_2010#Endorsements
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Aww, come on! Do you really believe that? NOTW are also accused of a whole string of similar hacks on royalty and celebrity phones. One such incident they can explain away, but all of them? Especially because they have a well-deserved reputation for other dirty tricks.
And no, Rupert Murdoch didn't personally hack those phones. Osama Bin Laden also didn't personally fly one of those airplanes. Still, OBL was considered a mass murderer. Rupert Murdoch is no mass murderer, but he IS a ruthless psychopath.
For the most part I agree with you on the jumping to conclusions part, for example the idea that the editors deliberately deleted voicemails to keep the story alive. We can't know that for sure.
But having printed stories based on the contents of the girl's voicemail, the editors had to have at least been aware that the PI was accessing the voicemail account. This makes them responsible for tampering with potential evidence. Their subsequent use of PIs to illegally access celebrity voicemail accounts shows that this was editorial policy. And since News Corp. hired the editors, it is ultimately responsible.
There's plenty damning here without making things up.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
David Cameron wilfully employed the person who had to know and was involved in phone hacking. And new allegations released tonight suggest that person who Cameron employed (Andy Coulson) was involved in paying police officers for information (that is illegal).
So please don't paint this at St David saves the day - David Cameron is involved in this scandal whether he likes it or not - and he cannot take the regal "above it all" line.
I think you'll find your definition of hacking is not what you think it is
The Free Dictionary states: To gain access to (a computer file or network) illegally or without authorization A message stored in a voicemail system is a file stored on a computer somewhere and they gained access without permission.
So what's your definition? Is it because they used such an easy to use password it's not hacking? Does that then mean brute force or the use of a dictionary or simply trying the most common passwords is not hacking? Or is it because it was a phone connecting to the network that makes it no longer hacking? Or maybe it's that they managed to gain access to her phone records without actually having possession of her phone that stops it from being hacking?
If I was witty I'd put something funny here but, as it stands, I am not and have just wasted seconds of your life
This is not the only criminal offence, just the worst (so far)
Is it hacking when you guess the passcode? 1-2-3-4?
Yes. If someone steals your care because you left the keys in while you went back in the house and grabbed something it's still theft.
In the US at least if you hire a PI for something you are responsible for anything they do that is illegal.
War doesn't show who is right - just who is left.
For all of the right-wing clowns here who are saying that it is unfair to brand Fox News and the other "fine" Murdoch properties with the tar coming from this story, I have one response: If you buy properties that lie down with dogs and don't clean them up, you shouldn't be surprised when the fleas hop onto you. God knows Rupert's had time to change this paper's editorial policies if he didn't approve of them - he's owned it since 1969.
That is all.
So.... plausible deniability... you'll go far revoltron!
Why is FAUX News an insult? Surely since they report Fair & Balanced news, it would be a big compliment - a nick name for being fair and balanced.
If organisations keep appearing in a bad light and there is a common link, do you not think the common link should be mentioned?
P.S. You, dear sir are the first to use the term "FAUX NEWS" TM !!!
BM3
To me, it's that Fox News U.K. actually attempted to gather primary source material, as despicable as their tactics were.
Fox News U.S.A. doesn't need to hack into anybody's mail, they can just make shit up.
Rupert Murdoch didn't personally hold anybody at gunpoint demanding a passcode. News Corp didn't send Nazi Zombies after her family demanding information. But I can already tell from the headline that some people will just go there right off the bat. I'm all for charging the PI with obstruction of justice, but unless News Corp explicitly told him what to do, their involvement in this is tangential at best.
The profits make their way up, why not responsibility?
Is it hacking when you guess the passcode? 1-2-3-4?
Yes. If someone steals your care because you left the keys in while you went back in the house and grabbed something it's still theft.
It could diminish the charge from premeditated to opportunistic though, but yes it's still theft even if you are an idiot for leaving the keys in the car (which could be a crime in itself depending on where you live)
If they paid him for the info they are guilty. It's like how viewers of child porn are guilty because their demand causes children to be abused for the pix.
Korma: Good
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/04/david-cameron-dinner-rebekah-brooks-mystery
We are a perfectly corrupt society.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I may be old fashioned here, but maybe they got the phone number out of the phone book? Or if that doesn't work, just phone up information from the telephone company. Phone numbers aren't exactly well hidden and private.
Just because you remove yourself from the equation with money -- just like a mafia don does when he hires a hitman -- doesn't mean you get a pass when they correctly interpret your winks and nods, even if you escape the legal ramifications on technical grounds. As Nick Fel and pmc point out, the participation of people within NotW seems to have been already proven in a court of law.
In a larger perspective, this perfectly supports the theory that News Corp doesn't give a shit about news, but it pretends to for money. Take the American side of his empire, for instance. Roger Ailes founded Fox to push his political agenda, and Murdoch bankrolled it because he thought it would make money. That's not a conspiracy. That's just a common sense understanding of known facts. The idea that a Nixon aide and a capitalist would lie and cheat and hire people of questionable character to achieve their objectives shouldn't surprise anyone at all.
This might be the straw that's very likely going to break the camel's back, but it's been a long running story now. Back in 2005 they were rumbled for hacking into voicemail of aides to the royal family, a good article from a US source, the NYT, here. The tl;dr version of that article is a minor uproar ensues but Newscorp contains it and is more or less successful claiming it as a one-off, rouge scenario, offering up the resignation of Andy Coulson, the editor, though he claims not to have known anything about it of course.
Now Andy Coulson makes the mistake of getting a job - head of communications, think Toby Ziegler in the West Wing - in the Conservatives, who get into government. This, combined with statements made by the private investigator who's decided he's not going down alone, adds enough fuel to get the fire burning again. The Guardian and Channel 4 get digging and out comes a documentary. A handful of celebrities are sniffing around it now, lo and behold Hugh Grant throws gas on the fire by bugging the bugger. All is forgiven Hugh, well played.
Accusations just keep mounting up and the picture is forming pretty solidly of a newsroom where such things were par for the course. An oft-repeated point directed at Coulson I'll paraphrase as "either he knew and he broke the law, or he didn't and he's grossly negligent" (not sure who started that, I think Ian Hislop). Coulson is given the boot.
The shit is flying pretty thick now and it just keeps coming. But it's all the royals, celebs and politicians. There is a sense that whilst it's overstepping the mark considerably, these are all public people and fair game. Milly Dowler, on the other hand, was a child and a tragedy. This is a recent turn in events and very quickly major advertisers have started to step away. I'll applaud Ford for being the first of the big advertisers to drop them, though I'm quite surprised it took so long. I suspect more shuffled away quietly.
News is now coming in that the police investigating the phone hacking have contacted the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the girls killed by the Soham Murderer. This was one of the biggest stories and national tragedies I can remember.
The News of the World really must not be allowed to survive this, it is a stunning failure of ethics, governance and plain decency on a huge scale with substantial evidence. If they can't be brought down for this, they clearly cannot be taken down for anything. Yet it's even proving difficult to remove the editor.
It's like Ross Perot and George W got together and decided to have an aphorism contest...
round them all up and give them all the harshest penalty under law
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
under the new draconian anti-hacking laws, some of which have been classified as 'terrorism', perhaps NewsCorp could be declared a terrorist organization.
im referring to the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, some of which paragraphs now qualify under 'terrorism' and RICO law.
maybe the UK has something similar - they used terror law to go after Iceland when the banks busted.
Sources, please! Or else you're no better than the evil you claim they are.
Whoah, hold on a minute.
A News Corp subsidiary that happens to be a tabloid (which as we all know don't count as real journalism)
The subsidiary in question is News International. They run the biggest selling papers in the UK including The Times, which has one of the most respected newspapers here for centuries.
hired a private investigator to complete his own investigation on the murder of a girl
No they (presumably a team at the News of The World) hired a man to investigate the disappearance of a girl. This is quite an important distinction, they knew the types of technique liable to be used, it would be quite a different kettle of fish doing this once it had become a murder investigation.
The private investigator, acting as a lone agent, "hacked in" ... to her voicemail and used a message on it to add to his investigation.
They (News International) have already acknowledged they are responsible for a string of similar incidents (targetted at celebrities rather than murder victims).
I think the most reasonable explanation is that they didn't know the details, didn't want to, and didn't care what techniques were employed to get their story. News International should work hard to show they've grown enough respect for journalistic ethics to keep their house in order.
Also the investigator manipulated the messages on the phone (apparently to free space so more could come in). Meditate on how awful a thing to do that is.
Rupert Murdoch didn't personally hold anybody at gunpoint demanding a passcode. News Corp didn't send Nazi Zombies after her family demanding information. But I can already tell from the headline that some people will just go there right off the bat.
No one is seriously suggesting Rupert Murdoch is complicit here or was anywhere close to decisions being taken here. Shit goes uphill though, and you're tarred by association. It is completely correct for people who are revolted by the actions of the News of The World appoint some blame to the parent, right the way up to the top.
When you send someone out to get you something, and they come back with a bunch of cash and a stain for your reputation - you can take both or neither.
I'm all for charging the PI with obstruction of justice, but unless News Corp explicitly told him what to do, their involvement in this is tangential at best.
This is not an isolated phone hacking incident; to suggest that journalists would get information from PI's using these techniques over and over and over without knowing some shennanigans were going on is absurd to the point of lunacy or extreme naivete.
Certainly the brunt of public ire (and there is substantial outrage and shock) is where it should be with News International and not the parent News Corp, but if you want to make some radical argument like the parent does not have any responsibility for the culture of subsidiaries, or that the News of The World acted in good faith throughout this affair - spouting enough factual errors to prove you have only a tenuous grasp on events is not a good starting point.
if you go into a courtroom defending Bradley Manning or Wikileaks against Espionage Act charges, you are going to want as much pro-first-amendment precedent as you can get. and you also want as much pro-hacking precedent as you can get.
that means that you want a bunch of cases on the books where hackers and journalists did not go to jail for doing their job, and whistleblowers did not get punished.
is murdock a scumbag? hey, thats irrelevant. if murdock and/or his organization get massively punished for this, then the courts will use that precedent to justify sending people like Wikileaks to jail for even longer.
Fun fact: out of Obama's several espionage act prosecutions, several also involve the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Manning has many, many charges against him that are from the CFAA.
If you want to uphold 'anti-hacking laws' to go after Murdock, then you are only weakening your defense of Manning.
No shit. This is why the hacking scandal has been taking so long to prosecute about it. A seperate team of police investigators has had to be hired because the rest of the police force can't be trusted to be honest about it.
I certainly do not condone the behavior of the investigator working for the News Corp subsidiary. However, I do have a question for people who defend wikileaks no matter what they are releasing. Where do you draw the line for a third party doing an investigation of a sensitive matter? I'm not trying to troll. It's a serious question from someone who is trying to figure out the role of today's media.
the modern organization has everything timed, measured, and decided on down to when you take a shit.
the 'one bad apple defense' has been repeatedly proven to be
1. a classic tactic of modern organizations to insulate themselves from responsibility
2. very often based on utter lies
It was used by the government to act like Abu Grahib was an accident, when it was the direct result of a wide spread policy to approve of and promote 'harsh interrogation' and get rid of the culture that respected Geneva and LOAC
It was used by the government to act like My Lai was an isolated event. In reality, the Army itself collected and documented several other incidents that were similar to My Lai, and hid them in a box on a shelf for decades until they were discovered by journalists and researchers.
It is used by bank CEOs to try to act like they had no idea what their CDO trading desks were doing. Utter nonsense. They had people screaming at them about what was happening - those people got fired because they were hurting short-term profits and presented political risks to the executives.
and on and on and on
the 'one bad apple' theory has been proven time and time again to be utter lies in the modern corporate organization.
other organizations.
the head of a media company will often be involved in piddly little bullshit , like how the CEO of NBC was involved in the Conan O'Brien thing.
Bill Keller of the NYTimes was directly involved in the Wikileaks debates.
because, uhm, a couple hundred thousand people died in that one.
did anyone 'hack' and 'phones' about that 'tragedy'?
Slashdot isn't Wikipedia; do your own fucking research for easily-verifiable information. Rebutting with "citation needed" while making no attempt yourself only says that you're gigantic douche.
I refer you to my comment in reply to a post expressing similar thoughts further up in the thread. No point repeating myself, not even on /. ;-)
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
I guess this is for Americans who think Fox News is the pinnacle of Murdoch's evil, or anyone under about 25! There's another Murdoch property, The Sun. Its circulation is still next-to-nothing in Liverpool 22 years after they published an infamous front page (THE TRUTH) lilbelling Liverpool Football Club fans. They blamed them for the Hillsborough football stadium crush, accusing fans of attacking the emergency services, urinating on dead bodies etc. For 22 years there's barely a newsagent in the city that will stock the paper, and it's the UK's biggest selling daily. News Of The World is (basically) the Sunday edition, and they are the first to call for lynch mobs whenever covering crimes against children
This is enormous news in the UK except of course in The Sun and the Times, both Murdoch papers. It's happening at a time when Murdoch wants to buy complete control of Sky, a deal which needs approval from the state. Our Prime Minister David Cameron pulls Christmas Crackers with the News of the World's former editor, who's at the centre of this scandal. And the NoTW's editor after her, Andy Coulson - Cameron appointed him as his party's communications director in 2007 - but he had to resign in January when it became clear he knew all about the illegal phone hacking. This man was in government until this surfaces.
So it's just the pinnacle of the bizarre relationship between the Murdoch press, our main political parties, and apparent public opinion. If advertisers and readers boycott the paper, which seems quite likely in the short term, you could only call it "a good start".
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
allegedly targeted too. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/06/families-7-7-targets-phone-hacking
one love, one spaceship earth.
Something that bothers me about this that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is that "hacking" in to anyone's voicemail is far too easy to do.
Every voicemail system I have had has used a 4 digit pin to protect it. Many times it comes pre-set with the last four digits of the phone number as the pin or something simple and obvious like 0000 or 1234. As far as I know there is no company that implements throttling or lockout when too many wrong combinations are tried, meaning that using an automated dialer you could try every possible combination in around 10 hours even if you could only try one attempt every 30 seconds.
I don't know what else is required to "hack" into someone's voicemail but I'm tempted to think that if a private investigator could do it, the phone companies are not trying hard enough.
Punishing the people who have committed this crime is appropriate, but it is not sufficient to prevent the crime from being committed again.
Sig matters not. Judge me by my sig, do you?
A News Corp subsidiary that happens to be a tabloid (which as we all know don't count as real journalism) hired a private investigator to complete his own investigation on the murder of a girl. The private investigator, acting as a lone agent, "hacked in" (Is it hacking when you guess the passcode? 1-2-3-4?) to her voicemail and used a message on it to add to his investigation.
Firstly- they used information gathered from the phone hacking (and which can only have been gathered from phone hacking) as the basis for a front page story. The editors and journalists involved have exactly as much responsibility for the methods used as the PI.
Secondly, this is just one more leaf in a very mucky story. Among stories of hacking celebrities, senior politicians, the royal family, 7/7 terrorism victims, and a raft of other murder victims, other highlights include bribing the police and monitoring and intimidating a police officer investigating a PI with News International connections. And yes, hacking is still hacking even if brute forcing the password only takes 2 attempts...
(Incidentally, watch the interview with the NI executive in the second link. I don't know what the poor man did to deserve being given that job, but it's one of the funniest things I've seen in weeks. The poor chap doesn't stand a chance when the party line is so intrinsically stupid and illogical.)
We have done this for VIP clients, and involves rerouting the calls to a better system.
However, we've gone one better, which is why journalists really hate us now - we keep forensic quality logs..
Take off Murdoch, you have been rumbled! Surely now the guilty News International employees must be named and shamed so that the vigilante justice that the News of the World so approves of can be done.
They may also have hacked phone calls of the realtives of theo killed in the 7/7 terrorist bomb explosion in London.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/8619373/News-of-the-World-bereaved-relatives-of-77-victims-had-phones-hacked.html
Opportunistic is walking past a car with an unlocked door and keys in plain view. These people didn't happen to get a wrong number and find themselves opportunistically in Milly Dowler's voice mail service. It was premeditated. They went out of their way to listen to and delete her messages.
I think you've filled in all the details, and you've completed a business plan that actually works. Bravo Sir!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Thats right, if murdered 13yo doesn't care enough to change the PIN number on her voice mail, NotW had every right to listen to everything sent to her voice box.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Why isn't Mastercard and Visa REFUSING to accept "subscriptions" to this paper? Why hasn't THEIR Paypal account been frozen?
See how it's one set of rules for common people and another set of rules for Big Business?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Rupert Murdoch didn't personally hold anybody at gunpoint demanding a passcode. News Corp didn't send Nazi Zombies after her family demanding information.
By your breathtaking logic, and no Godwin involved as you started it, Hitler had nothing to do with the concentration camps, because he wasn't there turning on the gas showers every time.
Now fuck off and die somewhere.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Ohhhhhh! You're right! Of course! Because every 13yo girl has their mobile phone number in the phone book. Twattering dumbass. Utter fuckwit. They got the number by blagging it from the phone company. It's the modus operandi. It's vile and illegal and just about acceptable if there's a strong public interest (ie exposing corruption) but it is not fucking acceptable to find the fucking phone number of a presumed teenage murder victim. Tosser.
... they are the first to call for lynch mobs whenever covering crimes against childre
including the notorious time that they got a crowd sufficiently fired up to attack the office of a paediatrician....
However, nothing has been proven at this point. I personally don't like the way the public (read: Twitterati) has launched a campaign to destroy the company's advertising revenue without any wrong-doing being proved.
Why are there so many fucking apologists for Murdoch's sick crew on slashdot?
Do you think News International/Corps have been apologising to and paying off phone-hacked celebrities for the fun of it?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Sources, please! Or else you're no better than the evil you claim they are.
Try foxnews.com!
Oh, wait...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
in the UK, tabloids love "hacking" voicemails to get info for their largely made-up stories.
Er, why don't they just make up their made-up stories?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
the ridiculous line drawn all the way to News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch.
As has been pointed out several times here, the editor of the NOTW at the time, Rebekah Wade/Brooks is now a high ranking executive at News International. It's not a case of some "rotten apple" being naughty behind His Murdoch's back, she's part of the fucking power structure there, not least because she's friends with the PM.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Does this corporation employ similar newsgathering methods in its other markets? Australia? USA?
Korma: Good
if you read through enough court cases involving the first amendment, for example the recent Thomas Drake case (google FAS.org thomas drake case files), you will find out what happens when we let the first amendment 'slide' a little against people we dislike or disagree with.
precedents used against terrorists (who i do not approve of) and oliver north (who i strongly disagree with) in first amendment cases were later applied to thomas drake.
tahts why you have to protect it no matter who is on the other end of the prosecution. because eventually the government will use any precedent to further restrict that freedom of speech.
uhmm dude you just said you want someone to die for hacking into a phone. thats not really considered by most people to be an appropriate punishment for the level of crime allegedly committed