Slashdot Mirror
News Corp. Pays Out For Voicemail Hacking Victims
New submitter SandmanWAIX sends this excerpt from ABC.net.au: "Rupert Murdoch's media empire has made huge payouts to 37 phone-hacking victims, including actor Jude Law, singer Danii Minogue, and former British deputy prime minister John Prescott, their lawyers said. ... The company has set up a multi-million-pound compensation scheme for victims of phone hacking in a bid to avoid further costly civil lawsuits. ... It has also made a payout of 2 million pounds to the family of murdered British schoolgirl Milly Dowler, while Mr. Murdoch made a personal donation of 1 million pounds to charities chosen by her family.'"
Not good enough. He deserves to be in jail along with his son. He shouldn't be allowed to buy his way out.
There is an equiry going on in the UK discussing this and other issues, but the answer is simple: people need to go to jail. Not only is there evidence of illegal activity (accing voicemails and emails), but now it looks like there is evidence of perjury (lying to the enquiry).
There is also evidence of obstruction (destruction of computers). It's quite clear that the illegal activity is at the highest levels of News Corp. People at the highest levels need to go to jail. Paying out this amount of money means nothing to billionaires.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The rest needs to be resolved by severe criminal penalties, jail time and the requirement that the Murdoch empire be broken up. News Corp should also lose all of its broadcast licenses world-wide.
This so-called compensation fund doesn't even figure as pocket change to News Corp. Murdoch is a multi billionnaire ($7.6bn at FYE 2011 according to Forbes). That's his /cash/ worth, not counting his liquable assets. If he gave a Dollar out of his own pocket to every man, woman and child on Earth he would STILL BE A BILLIONNAIRE.
This is in the same league as Microsoft "complying" with compensation orders from the courts in the US by issuing *vouchers for discounts on its own software*.
The consumer is still getting bent over and dryfucked, but legally.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I'd have a much higher opinion of my fellow vigilantes if instead of launching DDOS attacks against sites that the public never visit* they obtained incriminating evidence against their targets. They are supposed to be hackers, aren't they? Why aren't I hearing about leaked emails detailing how Murdoch himself knew about these crimes or how the *AA have been screwing over the people they claim to represent?
*Bringing down the RIAA site seems completely pointless when Joe Public would never see it anyway.
We only hear about this phone hacking scandal happening in Britain, but why not anywhere else? It's at least imaginable that other News Corp operations were going by the same playbook. Or that if it was so technically easy that even News Corp reporters could do it, couldn't something similar have been done by someone else in other countries, but we just don't know about it yet?