News Corp. News Corp Shuts News of the World Amid Hacking Furor

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

Hacking here obviously means "cracking" into someone's phone, or sniffing someone's over-the-air cell phone transmissions (which I think are mostly clear text, unless you buy an encrpyted phone and service). IIRC, it was OTA sniffing that caught Prince Charles and Dians cooing with their lovers.

brute-force attacking (weak) passwords is cracking into a private space, in this case by a corporate hired criminals.

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Hacking is much more generic than that. At least it used to be. I used to be proud to be called a hacker, but now the term is thought of only one way.

Murdoch has withdrawn his bid to buy controlling interest of BskyB

The government signalled its intentions to derail the bid. It was the only thing Murdoch could do. Not only did he lose his political backing, his backers now stand against him, including David Cameron.

Murdoch is toast and his son James may face charges. Retirement can't be too far off.

Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal Finally Acknowledges Its Publisher’s Role In Hacking Scandal

It took an entire week, but the Wall Street Journal newsroom finally got around to informing readers that the newspaper’s publisher, and longtime Rupert Murdoch confidant, Les Hinton plays a starring role in the unfolding phone-hacking scandal in Britain.

Indeed, since the long-simmering phone-hacking story re-ignited last week amidst allegations of criminal conduct and a corporate cover-up, Hinton has stood at the epicenter of the News Corp. scandal in terms of how Murdoch’s company in recent years misled the public, as well as members of Parliament, with regards to how Murdoch’s News of The World tabloid apparently hacked citizens’ voice mails. Routinely. (The hacking took place while Hinton oversaw the tabloid.)

Hinton is now CEO of the Dow Jones Company and publisher of Murdoch's Wall Street Journal and is facing growing pressure to explain his previous claims about how the illegal hacking had been limited in scope. (It was not.) And that’s why the Hinton angle has been aggressively pursued by global news organizations. (Just not by Murdoch’s Journal.)

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011071...County+Fair%29

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“Les [Hinton] will be sacrificed to save James and Rebekah,” one person familiar with the company said. “It happened on Les’s watch,” another added: “James was not even a director of News Corp at the time.”

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c43aca6-a...#ixzz1RpOt4DAC

Trouble For Murdoch: Feds Collecting Billions In Fines, Sending Executives To Jail For Corruption Abroad

Over the last several years, the United States Department of Justice has aggressively prosecuted U.S. companies involved with corrupt activities abroad, collecting billions in fines and sending executives to jail. These legal actions, pursued under the auspices of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, could spell trouble for Rupert Murdoch.

In 2008, Siemens paid over $1.6 billion in disgorgement and fines to settle alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act. The SEC complained alleged that “Between March 12, 2001 and September 30, 2007, Siemens violated the FCPA by engaging in a widespread and systematic practice of paying bribes to foreign government officials to obtain business.” [SEC]

Former KBR chairman and CEO Albert Stanley was accused of making illicit payments to Nigerian officials to obtain contracts. In 2008, Stanley pled guilty to “conspiracy to violate the FCPA” and other charges. He agreed to face up to seven years in jail and pay $10.8 million in restitution. [Department of Justice]

Last year, Filmmaker Gerald Green and his wife Patricia were sentenced to six months in prison and fined $250,000 after they were found guilty of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Greens bribed a Thai tourism official to secure a contract with the Bangkok film festival. [ABC News]

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/...h-fcpa-record/

Phone-tapping scandal?

Hopefully, this is like Arab spring for Murdoch trash media properties, and they fall like dominoes.

Depends on what the various bureaus did in the various countries. Guilt by association is a bitch, tho.

Were the bribes fair and balanced?

Any see any of this scancal on Fox Repug Propaganda network?

I read something about a caller who asked and fox person said on air "I'm not touching it" :lol

Shareholder Lawsuit: Phone-Hacking Scandal Damaged News Corp.'s Image

A group of News Corp. shareholders led by Amalgamated Bank has sued the media company claiming several of its business decisions, as well as the recent phone-hacking scandal at News of the World, have adversely affected shareholder interests.

The lawsuit claims, among other things, that "News Corp executives are ... grossly overpaid, ensuring their loyalty to Murdoch and his personal initiatives," later stating that Murdoch is "larding the executive ranks of the Company with his offspring."

Among the lawsuit's complaints: the company's purchase of Elisabeth Murodoch's Shine Group has harmed the shareholder value; the board as it is comprised has numerous conflicts of interest; and the phone-hacking scandal has hurt the company's reputation and investor value.

"In sum, these acts will cause a direct harm to News Corp shareholders by diluting their ability to influence the Company through the exercise of the shareholder franchise because a greater percentage of the Board will be completely beholden to Rupert Murdoch's wishes," the lawsuit, filed Friday, stated in part. "In contemplating, planning, and/or affecting the foregoing conduct, Murdoch and the other Defendants were not acting in good faith toward News Corp shareholders, and breached or will breach their fiduciary duties owed to them. As a result of these actions, News Corp shareholders have been and will be damaged."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011071...County+Fair%29

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

News Corp Targeted Former PM Gordon Brown: Hacked Police, Medical Records; Obtained Bank Information

The latest revelations in the widening News International scandal are simply stunning. “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” is apparently as true now as it was in Shakespeare’s day. The idea that a news organization would have the audacity to target a head of state a Cabinet member and later PM over a decade, as News International papers the Sun and the Sunday Times did with Gordon Brown, and not with the usual tools of invective and gossip, but via the theft of personal information, raises the scandal to a whole new level.

It’s bad enough to monitor cell phone calls. The state of cell phone security is a disgrace, as our Richard Smith points out. One of my clients (a media company!) refuses to discuss deals or corporate strategy on mobile phones for that very reason. Per the Guardian, the decade-long campaign against Brown included:

Repeatedly obtaining data from his bank account

Hacking into his accountants’ computer to get his tax fiilngs

Fooling his attorneys into providing details from his legal records

Purloining family medical records (which led to the publication of information about Brown’s ill infant son)

Suborning a police officer to scrape national police computer records

Several issues bear noting:

There is no way to pretend this sort of lawbreaking and invasion of privacy was not News International policy. This took place at two separate papers, the Sun and the Sunday Times.

There is also no way to pretend that Rebekah Brooks’ fingerprints are not all over this. From the Guardian:

In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed his cystic fibrosis.

This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it were in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

Phone-tapping scandal?

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Yup. They were tapping phones of people as well.

Legal (I think), but highly questionable.



Britians surveillance state routinely taps people's phones much like their CCCTV captures people.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...000-a-day.html

It was probably this capability that was bent by the corrupt police.

First came to light when it was revealed that News of the World tapped the phones of the Royals:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/...s-cameron.html

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Now even the Prime Minister is taking heat for the weekend piece in The New York Times Magazine detailing how two News of the World staffers—a reporter and a private investigator employed by Britain’s largest paper—hacked into the phones of British royal family aides. Clive Goodman, a reporter, and Glenn Mulcaire, an investigator working for the paper, obtained PIN codes to access the voicemail inboxes of royal aides, and News of the World used the messages to run stories about Prince Harry’s personal life in 2006. A Scotland Yard investigation has revealed that Mulcaire potentially hacked into the phone messages of more than thousands of people. The article details that then-editor Andy Coulson “actively encouraged” phone hacking and the newsroom was “out of control” under his leadership. Coulson resigned from his post but denied involvement in the hacking, although sources now say “even the office cat” knew. British PM David Cameron went on to hire Coulson as his communications chief, saying “I believe in giving people a second chance.” Now that it seems the hacking was much more extensive than believed, Cameron must choose whether or not to stand by his man.

Read it at The Guardian
September 5, 2010 6:01 AM

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This has been roiling for months.

People didn't get all that upset when it was just the politicians or the royal family, but the details of everything else pushed it over the edge.

The thing is, the Murdoch properties had flat coerced, bribed and terrorized civil servants and government officials. When blood is in the water, you'll see what you see now; everyone coming forward in a feeding frenzy to bring down their former oppressors. Newscorp is totally on the defensive.

he better come up with some bullshit health problems to avoid court time...

whats the difference between this clown and the wikileaks founder? same offences or difference? wikileaks dont think did any hacking besides released classified information while the other is hacking to get its own material while bring down a whole force of corruptive cops...

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Originally Posted by TDMVPDPOY

whats the difference between this clown and the wikileaks founder? same offences or difference? wikileaks dont think did any hacking besides released classified information while the other is hacking to get its own material while bring down a whole force of corruptive cops...

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The target, mostly. Wikileaks targeted the government, whereas News of the World is targeting grieving members of the public.

One could also say that the info gleaned by the Wikileaks release is of more import to the public than tabloid material.

Edit: Note, if the tapping scandal was about bringing down corrupted cops, I doubt you'd hear this much of an outcry. I think the outcry is mostly due to the tabloid stuff.

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Edit: Note, if the tapping scandal was about bringing down corrupted cops, I doubt you'd hear this much of an outcry. I think the outcry is mostly due to the tabloid stuff.

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certainly they try to shift the blame of the fiasco to the corrupt cops to get the blame, then the conduct of these writers how it got its information...whether its public or not, there was news the got inside information about medical records of ex-PM gordan browns son or someshit....i think it extends more to every figure thats newsworthy, not just ur local important news making the headlines....

Reuters Ponders Why Hollywood Remains "Largely Silent" On Murdoch Hacking Scandal

July 12, 2011 11:56 pm ET by Media Matters staff

In an article headlined "Hollywood gloats, silently, over News Corp scandal," Reuters contemplated why "the U.S. entertainment industry is watching from afar -- more spectator, than participant" as questions continue to emerge about the Murdoch hacking scandal and whether it extended into the U.S:

Bryce Nelson, professor of journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, attributed the reluctance to speak out in Hollywood to the power of Fox "in movies and television and in running tabloids that can get sensational material on people in the entertainment fields."

Said another industry source; "Murdoch touches everybody in some way, so nobody is standing up" to speak publicly.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011071...County+Fair%29

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Murdoch's scumbags are exactly mimicking the illegal activities of J Edgar Hoover. Nobody in Congress would stand to JEH, because they knew (perhaps were told by him) JEH had dirt on them (or if he didn't, he'd slander and destroy them anyway). Today's FBI can tap or snoop just about anybody anytime, esp any war protesters or dissenters for any reason, without a warrant.

News Corp-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Leading Campaign To Weaken Key Anti-Bribery Law

stepped up enforcement of the FCPA has not escaped the notice of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has reportedly received millions of dollars in funding from News Corp. The Chamber is now leading a high-profile campaign to weaken the landmark anti-bribery law.

On October 27, 2010, the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform held a summit at which it released a white paper outlining the Chamber’s suggestions for weakening the FCPA. After its 2010 summit, the Chamber began actively lobbying Congress to weaken the FCPA. In March of this year, the Chamber’s ILR hired marquee talent, former Bush administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey, to aid in its push to weaken the law.


http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...r-weaken-fcpa/

HOLLYWOOD WANKERS ARE SCARED cause newscorp dont it own fox or whatever its called

News owns (20th Century) Fox and a bunch of fan, tabloid celebrity/paparazzi mags, and produces a lot of TV shows. You don't want to be target of Fox or want to work for Fox, then STFU.

Not surprising. That's exactly how UCA runs its subsidiary, the US govt.

That's also how Monsanto silences scientists and researchers who try to expose the dangers of Monsanto chemicals and GM seeds (Monsanto sics PIs on them to slander them), while also running systematic revolving door between Monsanto and US govt.

Mired In Scandal, News Corp Seeks New York State’s Signoff For $27 Million No-Bid Contract

Yet while these shocking allegations continue to come out, the state of New York is preparing to finalize a $27 million no-bid contract to Wireless Generation, an education firm specializing in testing that is owned by News Corp itself. As the acquisition was announced, Murdoch said he sees a “$500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs.”

The story of how News Corp landed the no-bid contract begins in November 2010. That month, Murdoch’s mega-corporation purchased Wireless Generation, which is based in Brooklyn. That also conspicuously happened around the same time as New York City schools chief Joel Klein announced that he’d be leaving to join News Corporation.

:lol :lol :lol

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...-911-contract/