News Corp. Settles With Jude Law, Other Phone-Hack Victims

Bloomberg
Eric Larson

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- News Corp.’s British newspaper unit settled 36 lawsuits by phone-hacking victims including actor Jude Law and soccer player Ashley Cole, with compensation set on the basis that senior managers at the company knew of the practice and tried to conceal it.

The settlements by London-based News International resolve more than half of the 60 lawsuits filed by victims of voice-mail interceptions at its now-defunct News of the World tabloid. News International agreed to a range of cash payments to victims and provided details about hacking, including the number of journalists involved, three lawyers representing victims said in a statement ahead of a hearing today before Judge Geoffrey Vos in London.

News International “is ready, willing and able to settle” all the claims and a trial shouldn’t be necessary, company lawyer Michael Silverleaf said at the hearing. The compensation is “generous.”

The settlement amounts are larger than those normally paid in privacy-violation cases, according to today’s statement. They range from 5,000 pounds ($7,700) for less-serious phone-hacking instances to about 100,000 pounds for the most-offensive cases, a person familiar with the matter said. Of the 18 settlements outlined in court today, total payouts will be at least 642,000 pounds plus legal fees.

The agreements come about a month before the first civil trial in the matter is scheduled to begin. Vos said a trial is still important for resolving various issues stemming from phone hacking to help settle future cases.

Pop Star, Comedian

There are 10 cases prepared to go to trial, including those by sports agent Sky Andrew, comedian Steve Coogan and pop star Charlotte Church, who sang at News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch’s wedding in 1999 when she was 13 years old, lawyer Hugh Tomlinson said.

Issa: We Won’t Investigate News Corp’s Alleged Hacking Of 9/11 Victims Because We Don’t Want To Pick On The Media

Think Progress

Yesterday on Fox News, a subsidiary of News Corp, Issa responded to those calls by claiming that (1) the Justice Department is investigating the matter so he doesn’t need to, (2) it is not his responsibility to look into an issue that occurred “in another country,” and (3) the “most inappropriate” course of action would be “picking on media”:

ISSA: Well, thank you for being fair and balanced. [...] This is being looked at by the Justice Department. This is being looked at by the Senate, and we’re keeping and eye on it. But at the same time, this is a story about a unit in another country, and we want to make sure we don’t enter the ground that is most inappropriate for us, which is we don’t start picking on media whether they’re the left or the right just because we can.

Issa’s claims are laughable for several reasons. First, just because the Justice Department is already probing an issue never precludes the House Oversight Committee, charged with investigating matters in the interest of the American people, from conducting its own inquiry. Second, the 9/11 victims allegedly hacked by News Corp employees was not a foreign matter, as Issa said on Fox News.

According to reports, the victims were living in the United States — making the concern all the more important for the Oversight Committee. And the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which News Corp allegedly broke by bribing British police, makes the matter a concern of American authorities. News Corp is also embroiled in another hacking scandal, one involving its American marketing division and its domestic competitors.

Finally, Issa says he would not want to investigate the many criminal accusations against News Corp because the company consists of media outlets, and Congress should never be “picking” on media. In reality, Issa has used his taxpayer-funded media team to harass the New York Times with largely empty charges of inaccuracy. News Corp has aided in the campaign, airing segments attacking the Times for criticizing Issa.

The view that media outlets are above the law led to a crime spree in the UK. Politicians, under pressure from News Corp and threats of smear campaigns by its many newspapers, refused to take on the company as News Corp’s tabloids continued to recklessly hack celebrities, dead children, and political adversaries alike. Given News Corp’s growing control over American media, scrutiny over serious accusations of hacking is all the more important.

Last year, when I interviewed Issa concerning a separate News Corp issue, Issa suggested that he trusts News Corp because he personally “know[s] Rupert Murdoch.”

Attorney general to investigate NoW 9/11 phone-hacking allegations

Guardian
Dominic Rushe

US attorney general Eric Holder has promised relatives of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks he will begin a preliminary criminal investigation into reports that News Corporation journalists tried to gain access to the phone records of the dead.

Family members who lost loved ones on 11 September 2001 met Holder at the Justice Department on Wednesday to discuss allegations first reported by the Daily Mirror that News of the World reporters attempted to gain unauthorised access to 9/11 victims' voicemails.

Norman Siegel, a lawyer representing some of the families, told reporters that the attorney general had said it was "very disturbing" that phones of 9/11 victims and their family members might have been hacked. The relatives met Holder for over an hour to discuss the allegations.

The hacking allegation was made in an article in the Mirror last month. The paper said NoW journalists had approached a former New York police officer working as a private detective and asked him to do the hacking, which he declined to do.

So far, no evidence has emerged to corroborate the story, which has been strenuously denied by News Corp. If the Justice Department finds any truth in the claims, News Corp would face a damaging battle with the US authorities as well as a rash of civil law suits from family members.

The US authorities have considered investigating News Corp, a company listed on the US stock markets, under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act over payments allegedly made to police . But the 9/11 allegations are the most serious issue the firm has faced in the US over the scandal.

The Mirror story was based on unnamed sources, including one described as a former New York police officer who became a private investigator. Heclaimed to have rejected requests by journalists from the now closed NoW to retrieve private phone records of victims.

News Corp has dismissed the report as "anonymous speculation" with "no substantiation" and said earlier this month that the company was fully co-operating with all investigations into the firm.
Ahead of the meeting Siegel told Associated Press the families were working with the FBI to determine if hacking "was attempted, and/or occurred".

"We are going to the meeting with the attorney general to listen to what he can tell us about the investigation and to ascertain the scope, the goals and timetable of the inquiry," Siegel said.
Rupert Murdoch was asked about the 9/11 hacking claims when he was questioned by parliament last month. He said: "we have seen no evidence at all and as far as we know the FBI haven't either". He said he did not know if NoW employees or the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire took it upon themselves to do it.

Rupert Murdoch Hires Author of U.S. Patriot Act to Assist with Phone Hacking Scandal

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Straight to the children
Climate Research Unit, East Anglia University

Climate Audit
Steve McIntyre

Editors Note: The idea that a East Anglia's CRU is compelled to hire a public relations firm over questions regarding its scientific research is absurd. Their research should stand on its own.

Today brings news of the arrest of the managing director of a firm hired by the University of East Anglia’s CRU (Climatic Research Unit) to carry out “covert” operations (h/t reader Chu here). Neil Wallis of Outside Organisation was arrested today in connection with the spreading News of the World scandal.

Last year, Wallis’ partner at Outside Organisation , Alan Edwards, was profiled in Music Week in a story that led with:

Don’t tell the conspiracy theorists. But one PR company was at the centre of the Michael Jackson funeral, Climategate and Naomi Campbell’s appearance at Charles Taylor’s trial in The Hague.

Edwards is described as the “man who has also helped shape the careers of Amy Winehouse, Blondie, The Rolling Stones, Jimmy Cliff, David Bowie, Spice Girls, David Beckham, P Diddy, Kevin Pietersen and Shayne Ward” and the man who masterminded PR for Naomi Campbell’s trial. Outside Organisation’s handling of Climategate for CRU was described as “more covert”.

Less apparent is its work in the corporate field, where its activities tend to be rather more covert. [my bold]

“We don’t advertise a lot of the things we do,” says Edwards, who was called in by the University of East Anglia when Climategate blew up. “That was really interesting. It’s very high level, and you’re very much in the background on that sort of thing.”
The university’s Climatic Research Unit wanted Outside to fire back some shots on the scientists’ behalf after leaked emails from the unit gave climate change skeptics ammunition and led to an avalanche of negative press about whether global warming was a real possibility.

 Related Stories:

Scientists Gagged From Interpreting Study That Links Climate Change To Cosmic Rays

We Have to Get Rid of the Medieval Warming Period

FBI opens inquiry into Murdoch's News Corp.

Los Angeles Times
By Richard A. Serrano, Jim Puzzanghera
and Kim Geiger, Washington Bureau

The agency launches an investigation at the request of U.S. lawmakers alarmed by reports that British reporters may have tried to hack into phones and access records of Sept. 11 victims and their families, in violation of U.S. law.

Reporting from Washington—

The phone hacking scandal that has ignited a political firestorm in Britain jumped the Atlantic on Thursday as the FBI opened an investigation into whether British reporters tried to access cellphone messages and records of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in violation of U.S. law.

The preliminary probe further rattled the New York-based global media empire of Rupert Murdoch, who was forced this week to withdraw his $12-billion bid to take over Britain's largest satellite broadcaster, and raises new questions about the future of News Corp.

U.S. officials said the FBI is trying to determine if a full investigation is warranted, and no evidence has yet emerged to confirm that News Corp. employees sought to hack phones in the United States. But the unfolding scandal sent the company's battered stock down another 3% in trading.

The FBI's New York field office launched the investigation after several members of Congress urged an inquiry into British media reports that journalists at News Corp.'s recently closed News of the World tabloid in London had tried to gain access to phones of Sept. 11 victims and the families of those who died, according to federal law enforcement officials.

"We are doing this based on their requests," said one official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is underway. "But after reviewing the letters and their allegations, and after consultation with the U.S. Attorney's office in New York, we are proceeding."

Felony convictions in a U.S. court could imperil the 27 federal licenses that News Corp. uses to operate TV stations across the country. The stations are part of the Fox Broadcasting Co. network.

Overall, News Corp.'s U.S. holdings are larger and more profitable than those in Britain. They include the 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Wall Street Journal and New York Post newspapers, and HarperCollins Publishers.

Facing an angry backlash by lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic, Murdoch told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday that corporate executives would create an independent, internal committee to "investigate every charge of improper conduct."

Murdoch defended his company's handling of the widening controversy, saying executives had made only "minor mistakes."

Murdoch said he was "getting annoyed" with press coverage of the scandal, but said, "I'll get over it." He predicted that the financial and political damage to News Corp. was "nothing that will not be recovered."

A News Corp. spokesman said the company had no public comment on the FBI investigation.

Separately in Britain, Murdoch and his son James, after initially refusing a summons, agreed to appear Tuesday before a committee in Parliament that is investigating the alleged phone hacking and police bribery there. Rebekah Brooks, who heads the company's British newspaper division, also agreed to testify. She was editor of the News of the World when some of the hacking allegedly occurred, but has denied any knowledge of it.

News Corp. has faced a deepening crisis in Britain since reports in a rival publication that News of the World reporters hacked into the phone of a teenager kidnapped in 2002 who was later found slain, and may have impeded a police investigation into the girl's disappearance. The pressure intensified Thursday with the arrest of former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis, the 9th person who worked at the tabloid to be detained by police.

In a letter Wednesday to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, had cited reports that News of the World journalists "attempted to obtain phone records of victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th through bribery and unauthorized wiretapping."

King also cited reports that the reporters had solicited a New York police officer "to gain access to the content of private phone records" of the Sept. 11 victims.