Millie Dowler trial.... a disgrace

Probably not - they always seem to have a "work hard, play hard" attitude but this is a bit too convenient death for News International though, surprising lack of coverage of the story on Sky News too.
 
Every time I turn the news on this story has taken another weird and amazing twist. Where's it going to end?
 
So that's Coulson under the cosh, Sir Wotsit (Paul?) Stephenson of the Met OUT, Rebekah Brooks OUT and 'arrested', Yates of the Yard OUT, Hoare dead... I don't know where it's going to end, but it's all gone very Agatha Christie!
 
Unpleasant and unsavoury as this reading of voice mails is I am sure that if I walked into the local cop shop and said " xyz has been reading my voice messages", they would do sweet FA. It a pretty minor crime, way less in my book than a mugging.

This is taking up many, many hours of the the time of MPS, ministers, that part of the police force that deals with counter terrorism and so on and on. What a waste of time and money. Address real issues please, you people who are meant to act on my behalf- stop playing silly games.
 
I think I'd feel just the teensiest bit upset if a tabloid hack had been accessing the mobile phone of my murdered child, and actually deleting some messages so that he could listen in to the new ones, leaving me to believe that perhaps, hope against hope, she was being kept alive and might one day be released, however damaged.

I'm more than delighted that we are having the sheets whipped off the bed, frankly, as I had no idea at all that many stories in the tabloids - and possibly the so-called quality papers, too - are the result into intrusions into not just privacy but grief and suffering, and that the police appear to have facilitated access to these phones in exchange for money, which makes them prostitutes by any other name. Perhaps when I get my Council Tax bill, showing where the money goes, the police force will be good enough to show its outgoings for snouts and its income from selling private information?
 
I'd also be upset but I would be a teeniest bit more upset if 100 people were killed by a bomb because the officers were not available having been allocated to chasing petty criminals. Its all about priorities for me. Why don't we have a massive judical inquiry at enormous cost and pay for it by taking more coppers off the streets. Oh we will! Brilliant

BTW When this was going on the kids at school were merrily "hacking" each others phones cos the phones at that time required you to set a password- actually a number to protect your voicemails- otherwise it was a default number (1000 iirc or something similar).
 
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I don't think the anti-terrorist fuzz has been taken off its duties, Tout, to investigate phone hacking. The idea that the Met now is incapable of functioning because of this issue is ridiculous - a bit of scare-mongering that is not (gasp!) down to the News of the Screws, but ably taken up by surviving rags. I cannot see the slightest join between listening in to international chatter, liaising with Interpol and other agencies on a 24/7 basis, and what the Met has to do to paper over the cracks its actions - or rather inactions - have revealed.

I'd be more concerned that if it doesn't listen to what is being said to it, how much else does it choose to ignore? If someone reports their neighbours as possibly very dodgy, but these neighbours happen to be Masons in the same Lodge as some of the police officers, do they take it any further, or do we wait to hear how 'amazed' they all are when they turn out to be drug runners/sex traffickers/child sex traders/terrorists? I want a police force that listens to what sounds wrong, and does something about it.
 
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The hacking did not stop at taking advantage of default PINs.

The relationship between the Met and News International, with all sorts of payments and back-scratching going on is the real story anyway.
 
Tout, MI6, the CIA, Interpol, and whatever all the other major countries' spy services are called are the main lines to counter-terrorism. The Met, says Stephenson, has dealt with 800,000 crimes a year, which I imagine range from busted windows, dom vi, common assault, to protestors getting out of hand. What it didn't do was prevent 7/7 and what it didn't (seemingly) know was going on was that the people with whom Sir Paul (the Met's resigned Commissioner, now under the gun this moment in front of MPs) was so damn matey were hacking into the mobile phones of the victims and families of that atrocity, and, it comes to light, the widows of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. No event or grief too big or small to exploit surreptitiously. And you mean to say that the police could not trace back to the phones' hackers, had they the will at that time? Or does technical wizardry extend only to outside the police's capabilities?

You think that the Met miraculously protects British citizens from terrorism? Of course it doesn't - it is a global effort involving pretty much every major country: America, Australia, NZ, all of Western Europe, Russia and many of its devolved states, India and many Asian countries, not to mention tiny listening posts dotted through nooks and crannies of the world, plus satellite and airborne ones, every day and every night. All the chatter is analyzed and is supposed to be turned into preventative measures. Obviously, not all of it is interpreted in time to stop the continuing suicide bombings in India and Pakistan, for example, and it certainly wasn't realised in order to stop our own atrocity in London.

Sir Paul has said he's resigned 'for the sake of the organisation' so as not to take away focus on Olympics security, that he had no idea that Wallis was part of any phone hacking operation and that he did not understand the link between Champneys, Wallis, News Intl, the PM, etc., etc. He has also had a bit of trouble explaining his decision to not inform the Home Secretary of such things once he was made aware. So, we were in a good, safe pair of hands which didn't know key links, didn't know about phone hacking on an epic scale involving the very cases in which the Met would've been involved, and someone who chose what information to impart to key political figures, and what to keep to himself.

The MPs have asked him whether he resigned at this time in order to embarrass the Prime Minister, and what the reaction of Boris Johnson and Theresa May was. The answers, naturally, were 'of course not' and 'both were very sorry, even cross, to see me resign'. But, noble martyr that he is, he's going anyway. Probably on a half-pension out of contrition for presumably a selective deafness to a few relevant things you'd think might've registered with him when Hoare originally spoke up, do you think, and which might have prevented the farrago seen today, at vast taxpayers' expense, had he bothered to stop to take Hoare seriously. Or, perhaps, he did take him seriously, and made yet another private decision to do bugger all about his accusations. Which leads on to further questions as to why? Where did he think the lines of inquiry might end?
 
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My stance is basically that we have some hugely important issues that should be occupying our leaders , we are at war and we are in a very critical position financially that if mishandled could ruin the lives of millions. Let's concentrate on these current problems rather than trying to score points by turning a seedy episode into a full blown drama. Were we all amazed that the press stoop gutter low to get scoops and that some policemen supplement their income? Not I and I expect not you.
 
TS, no offence, but your posts show you don't grasp even a tiny part of this saga, and what it means for a democracy.

Also, the finance crisis has been and is been dealt with on a daily basis - I have yet to see what time of Osborne and no.11 this has taken up (zilch). I also doubt MI5 are taking their eye off possible terrorist activities because they are following the online coverage.
 
Im off this forum now, but had to step in and say Tout is right of course

The NOTW was very distasteful and their has been some appalling judgement but this hasnt put peoples lives or livelihoods (outside the direct parties involved) at risk

Interesting reading about heaths government in the 70s when their focus was knocked sideways by relatively fringe issues too

the illegal leaking of confidential files on matters of national secuirty could well have put peoples lives at risk . The Guardian had few problems with the law being broken then and their only disappointment was that the so called wiki eaks contained very little that couldnt have been guessed. If anything they showed the US and other enemies of the left as being entirely reasonable and practical

A lot of the squealing is the usual obsession with murdoch (who i dont like particularly) and his apparent role in convicing the population that they do not want a stalinist government with a collapsed command economy (there is no other type) There are a lot of papers Murdoch doesnt own and all of these will also have their agendas and biases. No doubt some would prefer a state run pravda press but freedom will mean ownership which will have its point of view. never been any different. get used to it
 
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This is riveting stuff: James and Rupert Murdoch are being (lightly) grilled by t'other side now - MPs forming the investigation into the wrongdoings from the media point of view, rather than the criminal probing. It's amazing - nobody knew anything, any time! From the cops not being informed and not informing, now Rupert seems to be playing the "I know nothing" hand as CEO of the world's most powerful news organisation. Didn't know of the prior blackmail conviction of one of his staff - "I employ 53,000 people worldwide", as if we expect him to have their staff files in his office - didn't know this, didn't know that, only heard about stuff well after everyone else had. It's a good, clear probing of him, though - every time James tries to be the eager puppy with the answers, the investigators continue to return to Daddy, trying to find out how much he knew and just didn't give a goddam about.

There is a very quiet tone to these inquiries, but the questions are still very pointed, in contrast to the rather blurry responses. Beats any soap any time!

Clive, since when does the control of the media become a fringe issue? You can't make a link between media control + social ties to the PM + docile and partial policing equalling a very serious issue? Whether it's leftist, centrist, or right-wing is irrelevant.
 
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Anyone who thinks this saga is a fringe issue misunderstands the whole concept of a democracy.
 
:lol:

Marvellous grilling of the Murdochs as to why large compensation payments (to those whose phones were proved to be hacked) they "didn't know about" were made directly by duty editors. Asking Murdoch Sr how often he talked with his seniors at the papers - oh, hardly at all. Pressed about how often he got to talk with Brooks (which we all know was often, plus the socialising), he still didn't know why he wasn't told about these payments of some £100,000-odd. Presumably because that's just teeth-picking money to him, and everyone figured he wouldn't give a damn, anyway, considering that the NotW represented only around 1% of his global empire.

The underlying feeling of a sense of sullen arrogance brought to book is what I'm getting from Senior.

Yeah, he's about as senile as Mladic! Surely two in line for the Oscar noms next year?
 
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