Murdoch's minions reach a new low

[Cain]

Was just coming to post about that.

Investigation in the US seems to be centering on Hinton, the Wall Street Journal editor who previously worked at News of the World during the hacking scandal phase.

[Igor]

Boingboing pointed out that this may make her unavailable to attend her scheduled public grilling in parliament.
Which is convenient, I suppose.

[MMIX]

The rats leaving Murdoch's sinking fleet may drown in money . . .

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015435/Rebekah-Brooks-resigns-line-3-5m-payout-News-International.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[MMIX]

. . . and another one bites the dust

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14180043

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned following the phone hacking scandal.

[Cain]

Boingboing pointed out that this may make her unavailable to attend her scheduled public grilling in parliament.
Which is convenient, I suppose.

It is.  The role of the police in this whole thing is highly suspect, to say the least.  It really depends who arrested her, which is a massive indictment of the Met alone, that we now have to fact-check which officers are ordering the arrests to see if there is a political-corporate agenda at play here.

All I hope is that the police properly investigating this can find just one corporate exec from News International with insider info and no way to pass the buck.  All it takes is to get one to squeal, and the whole thing turns to courts and trials and prison sentences very quickly.

Equally, if some pressure were put on the Competition Commission, we could see Murdoch's media empire broken up (along with a couple of others I could name...) and some actual independent journalism in this country.

[Triple Zero]

One less squealer:

News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead

Death of Sean Hoare – who was first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson knew of hacking – not being treated as suspicious

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.

Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home.

Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a 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."

Hoare first made his claims in a New York Times investigation into the phone-hacking allegations at the News of the World.

He told the newspaper that not only did Coulson know of the phone hacking, but that he actively encouraged his staff to intercept the phone calls of celebrities in the pursuit of exclusives.

In a subsequent interview with the BBC he alleged that he was personally asked by his then-editor, Coulson, to tap into phones. In an interview with the PM programme he said Coulson's insistence that he didn't know about the practice was "a lie, it is simply a lie".

At the time a Downing Street spokeswoman said Coulson totally and utterly denied the allegations and said he had "never condoned the use of phone hacking and nor do I have any recollection of incidences where phone hacking took place".

Sean Hoare, a one-time close friend of Coulson's, told the New York Times the two men first worked together at the Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At the News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of his activities. Coulson "actively encouraged me to do it", Hoare said.

In September last year, he was interviewed under caution by police over his claims that the former Tory communications chief asked him to hack into phones when he was editor of the paper, but declined to make any comment.

Hoare returned to the spotlight last week, after he told the New York Times that reporters at the News of the World were able to use police technology to locate people using their mobile phone signals in exchange for payments to police officers.

He said journalists were able to use a technique called "pinging" which measured the distance between mobile handsets and a number of phone masts to pinpoint its location.

Hoare gave further details about the use of "pinging" to the Guardian last week. He described how reporters would ask a news desk executive to obtain the location of a target: "Within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the news desk would come back and say 'right that's where they are.'"

He said: "You'd just go to the news desk and they'd just come back to you. You don't ask any questions. You'd consider it a job done. The chain of command is one of absolute discipline and that's why I never bought into it, like with Andy saying he wasn't aware of it and all that. That's bollocks."

He said he would stand by everything he had told the New York Times about "pinging". "I don't know how often it happened. That would be wrong of me. But if I had access as a humble reporter ... "

He admitted he had had problems with drink and drugs and had been in rehab. "But that's irrelevant," he said. "There's more to come. This is not going to go away."

Hoare named a private investigator who he said had links with the News of the World, adding: "He may want to talk now because I think what you'll find now is a lot of people are going to want to cover their arse."

Speaking to another Guardian journalist last week, Hoare repeatedly expressed the hope that the hacking scandal would lead to journalism in general being cleaned up and said he had decided to blow the whistle on the activities of some of his former News of the World colleagues with that aim in mind.

He also said he had been injured the previous weekend while taking down a marquee erected for a children's party. He said he had broken his nose and badly injured his foot when a relative accidentally struck him with a heavy pole from the marquee.

Hoare also emphasised that he was not making any money from telling his story. Hoare, who has been treated for drug and alcohol problems, reminisced about partying with former pop stars and said he missed the days when he was able to go out on the town.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I find nothing suspicious about this assassination death 

[Cain]

Yeah.  I mean, the Met said it doesn't seem suspicious, and it's not like the Met are up to their neck in News International-related corruption and so may have a conflict of interest or anything...

[P3nT4gR4m]

The movie of this is going to be fucking brilliant!

[Triple Zero]

If the guy was having drugs and alcohol problems, it's not too difficult to make something look like an "accident" ...

But they haven't mentioned anything anywhere about the cause of death, have they? I mean you should be able to tell something whether it's stabbing, gunshots, head trauma, heart failure, brain explody or eaten by a sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods — the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.

[P3nT4gR4m]

If the guy was having drugs and alcohol problems, it's not too difficult to make something look like an "accident" ...

But they haven't mentioned anything anywhere about the cause of death, have they? I mean you should be able to tell something whether it's stabbing, gunshots, head trauma, heart failure, brain explody or eaten by a sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods — the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.

[Triple Zero]

Anonymous/lulzsec/antisec/whoever are on it. If they actually got an email dump [and not just passwords to email accounts that are probably being wiped right now], that might be very interesting.

@anonymouSabu
Sun/News of the world OWNED. We're sitting on their emails. Press release tomorrow. In the meantime check: new-times.co.uk/sun/ #antisec
http://twitter.com/#!/anonymouSabu/status/93062692327264256

[P3nT4gR4m]

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

This whole thing is just going to be a gigantic clusterfuck.  This guy will not be the last to have a "little accident"!!

[P3nT4gR4m]

So Rebekah Brooks got a 3mil pacifier. Best case scenario - she ends up looking at serious time 5-10 years and blows off the money to turn snitch on the promise of a reduced sentence. Front page news the next day: She commits suicide by shooting herself in the back of the head, from a distance, whilst in police custody.

The met say the death is not being treated as suspicious