Murdoch's Scum Credentials All In Order I See

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

No, I don't like this attempt at justification. The NOTW journalists managed to justify the hacking to themselves too. It's illegal, end of.

 

What exactly am I trying to justify? I'm making a distinction between breaking the law by hacking the phone of a murdered child and 'blagging' records to try to catch criminal activity. The law differentiates between crimes, but I know why you don't seem to want to.

 

And, whilst we're on the subject, I'm not particularly fussed if journalists break privacy law to stop corruption and collusion between the leaders of the country and the richest people that fund and distort democracy. Certainly not as much as I care that they're hacking a dead girl's phone. I guess we'll just have to disagree on that point.

 

More of the same really. The Times bribed a DEA worker in the US to leak classified information, and Baldwin was linked to that too.

 

Source?

 

I think Ed M is playing with fire and he could easily get burnt. If any of these allegations about Baldwin turn out to be true, he's going to look like an idiot - and a hypocrite.

 

Yeah, good luck with that. I'm not going to hold my breath whilst waiting for them to go after Gove.

[DJLJ]

Nice to see the thread descend into my party's better than yours. Lets face it, they're all on the take, or would be if they were in power. Allegedly.

 

Totally agree. I find it very strange people are trying to take the moral high ground for either party on this. Very strange.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Andy Coulson was never given top security clearance in government

Andy Coulson was granted only mid-level clearance, so avoiding the most rigorous security checks into his background

 

Richard Norton-Taylor, Robert Booth and James Ball

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 July 2011 20.48 BST

 

Andy Coulson did not face the rigorous government security checks into his background that most recent Downing Street press chiefs have undergone, it emerged on Wednesday.

 

The former News of the World editor was granted only mid-level security clearance when he was appointed by David Cameron as his director of communications, so avoiding "developed vetting" involving a detailed interview by government investigators looking for anything in his past that could compromise him.

 

The checks would have involved a review of his personal finances and cross-examination by investigators of referees, who could include friends and family. Coulson would have been asked by government vetters, some of whom are former police officers, such questions as: "Is there anything else in your life you think it appropriate for us to know?"

 

Alastair Campbell and Dave Hill, who ran communications for Tony Blair, and Michael Ellam, who did the same job for Gordon Brown when he was prime minister, were all subject to the more rigorous checks which are said to be in part targeted at uncovering potentially damaging secrets in an employee's background.

 

In the Commons, Cameron said Coulson had gone through the "basic level of vetting" and was not able to see the "most secret documents in government".

 

The prime minister added: "It was all done in the proper way, he was subject to the special advisers' code of conduct."

 

The disclosure will fuel suggestions that Cameron failed to take proper steps to check allegations that Coulson had been involved in illegal behaviour at the NoW.

 

The Cabinet Office denied that Coulson was spared high-level security vetting to avoid any potentially embarrassing information coming out which could have compromised his appointment.

 

A spokesman declined to comment in detail on Coulson's security status but said he would have been consulted by a senior official over which level of vetting he should undergo. "In normal circumstances at a senior level the postholder would be consulted. You get the standard level and you discuss whether to go higher."

 

Jonathan Powell, Blair's former chief of staff, said: "In our time in No 10, the press officers were all cleared at the highest level. It is essential if you are going to work on international matters to be able to read intelligence and other relevant material."

 

The Cabinet Office said that, unlike Campbell and Powell, Coulson's job did not require him to have high-level security clearance. He did not attend cabinet meetings, the bi-weekly national security council meetings, or Cobra, the government's emergency committee.

 

"He had 'security check' level of security clearance which most officials in No 10 and most special advisers would be subject to," a spokesman said. "The only people who will be subject to developed vetting are those who are working in security matters regularly and would need to have that sort of information. The only special advisers that would have developed vetting would be in the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and maybe the Home Office. Andy Coulson's role was different to Alastair Campbell's and Jonathan Powell. Alastair Campbell could instruct civil servants. This is why [Coulson] wasn't necessarily cleared. Given [the nature of] Andy Coulson's role as more strategic he wouldn't have neccesarily have been subject to developed vetting."

 

Coulson was also screened by a private company when he started working for the Conservatives in 2007. Asked in the Commons, Cameron refused to name the firm involved.

 

Electoral Commission returns show that the party last year used Control Risks Screening to vet several staff at a cost of £145.70 per check. If this is the level of vetting undergone by Coulson it is likely to have involved only the most cursory checks of online records.

 

The party said last night it would not comment on the company or the level of scrutiny involved in Coulson's clearance, which involves a check of health records, police files, financial history, MI5 records and possible interview if recommended by the security service.

 

Andy Coulson was never given top security clearance in government | Media | The Guardian

 

It just seems a little more curious-er and curious-er as each day passes.

 

This company that Cameron and the Tories wont mention, makes me wonder if it is linked to somebody very very close to home for Cameron.

 

Who is Cameron trying to protect? As well as himself and Osborne.

[PestiRed]

I don't think it was the company but the levels of checks that Cameron doesn't want to admit to. He deliberately didn't want to know what would be found

[PestiRed]

No huge surprises as it emerges that James Murdoch was lying through his arse to the select committee

James Murdoch: hack victim's payout sparks queries over hush-money denial | Media | The Guardian

[ChrisM]

Who is Cameron trying to protect? As well as himself and Osborne.

 

Osborne keeps getting mentioned in this thread - am I missing something? The only time I've heard him mentioned was in Brooks evidence to the select commitee the other day when she said he'd suggested hiring Coulson. Cameron brushed this aside in the commons yesterday saying he'd spoken to Osborne about it but that it was his decision.

 

As much as I think Osborne is a sneery twerp I don't see anything linking him to it?

[PestiRed]

Osbourne is closer to the Murdochs than Cameron. He had dinner with Murdoch a couple of days before Cable was sacked for coming out against the BSkyB deal. So far they've done a good job of keeping him out of it as the focus has been on Cameron.

Gove is another one who's up to his neck in it but has mysteriously disappeared in the last few weeks

[PestiRed]

LulzSec are putting the S*n's emails online at 1pm today

 

Should make the next 24 hours quite interesting

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

LulzSec are putting the S*n's emails online at 1pm today

 

Should make the next 24 hours quite interesting

 

As in, the actual emails, or the addresses and passwords.

[zigackly]

One would presume the passwords were changed fairly damn quickly. This must be the emails.

[PestiRed]

LulzSec will be dumping The Sun emails today, aswell as some Royal family dumps. Rumours the booty will be dropped a 1pm GMT. Stay tuned...

 

We are working on: 4GB of Sun mails, SCADA, Royal Family dumps, Federal Contractors (4), Foreign banks (2) and others. Busy, busy, busy.

 

Tweets are apparently from reliable LulzSec sources

[lifetime fan]

One would presume the passwords were changed fairly damn quickly. This must be the emails.

 

I'll be fucking made up if they are implicated by this.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

You know, following on from some stuff SD was saying about justification, I think this is a very raw version of the people holding power to account.

[zigackly]

People like wikileaks and lulzsec here are keeping our "democracies" honest certainly, but there is a difficult line when we condemn newspapers for doing it, but laud hacktivists. I suppose the difference is not making money from it and not going after victims or celebrities. If the NoTW had only used illegal techniques to expose the corruption of those in power, I'm guessing there would not be so much of an outrage. Certainly not from me anyway.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Osborne keeps getting mentioned in this thread - am I missing something? The only time I've heard him mentioned was in Brooks evidence to the select commitee the other day when she said he'd suggested hiring Coulson. Cameron brushed this aside in the commons yesterday saying he'd spoken to Osborne about it but that it was his decision.

 

As much as I think Osborne is a sneery twerp I don't see anything linking him to it?

 

You honestly believe that Osborne has nothing at all to do with this?

[Dougie Do'ins]

It's going to be very interesting to hear what the law firm Harbottle & Lewis has to say about this. As I understand it, they've been given right by NI to talk but NI are still hiding behind client confidentiality. What ever is in the safe of Harbottle & Lewis must be pretty explosive. Why else are NI still using client confidentiality as a defense ?

 

If this whole saga proves anything, it's that the people who lead this country are corrupt to the core.

 

I hope that there's evidence that NI tried to hack the victims of 9/11 as I don't think the Yanks will give Rupert such an easy ride.

[PestiRed]

It's a hugely grey area

Wikileaks took the information offered by an inside source so, in my view, have done nothing different from any newspaper that uses leaks as a source

LulzSec do break the law to get their information but believe that it's justified as the people they target are breaking the law to hide the information

 

However on this one I am hugely biased so sod the ethics, let's sit back, watch and hope all hell is unleashed on the S*n

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

People like wikileaks and lulzsec here are keeping our "democracies" honest certainly, but there is a difficult line when we condemn newspapers for doing it, but laud hacktivists. I suppose the difference is not making money from it and not going after victims or celebrities. If the NoTW had only used illegal techniques to expose the corruption of those in power, I'm guessing there would not be so much of an outrage. Certainly not from me anyway.

 

There would be virtually nothing said about it, Zig. Whilst it's technically wrong, it's a whole different affair isn't it. If the News of the World illegally obtained information about illegal activities from Blair on the war, for example, then I'd have supported it.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

It's going to be very interesting to hear what the law firm Harbottle & Lewis has to say about this. As I understand it' date=' they've been given right by NI to talk but NI are still hiding behind client confidentiality. What ever is in the safe of Harbottle & Lewis must be pretty explosive. Why else are NI still using client confidentiality as a defense ?

 

If this whole saga proves anything, it's that the people who lead this country are corrupt to the core.

 

I hope that there's evidence that NI tried to hack the victims of 9/11 as I don't think the Yanks will give Rupert such an easy ride.[/quote']

 

I don't know, but Louise Boat needs to get on it.

[zigackly]

It's a sad indictment on our society that we would both condone illegal activity to uncover the corruption of those supposedly representing our interests though isn't it?

 

I remember travelling through some third world countries a few years ago and everyone would tell me how great it must be to live in a country with no corruption. I used to have to explain that whilst corruption is not endemic in the west in the same way as the east, and conducted in a more civilised fashion, it still happens, and is certainly endemic at the highest stratospheres.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

It's a sad indictment on our society that we would both condone illegal activity to uncover the corruption of those supposedly representing our interests though isn't it?

 

I'm not sure it's a sad indictment of society, but it's certainly paints a very poor picture of how we're governed and the murky nature of power.

 

I remember travelling through some third world countries a few years ago and everyone would tell me how great it must be to live in a country with no corruption. I used to have to explain that whilst corruption is not endemic in the west in the same way as the east, and conducted in a more civilised fashion, it still happens, and is certainly endemic at the highest stratospheres.

 

It's just much more sophisticated corruption. In some parts of Africa, you can take money out of the metaphorical till drawer and get away with it because there's no paper trail. Here, we're not interested in till drawers, we want the shop, and the street it is sat on.

[PestiRed]

Harbottle will say that their brief was only to look at phone hacking & so they did not examine the evidence of other criminality such as paying off the police

James Murdoch will say that he took their clearance as meaning that there was no criminality at all

Somewhere in the middle some poor sod of a mid-level NI employee will get blamed for the mis-communication.

What I'd be interested in is the legal requirements placed on Harbottle to declare the criminality found either to NI or the police. Lord MacDonald seems to think that they had a duty to inform but whether they can legally be held to account is a different matter

[lifetime fan]

Harbottle will say that their brief was only to look at phone hacking & so they did not examine the evidence of other criminality such as paying off the police

James Murdoch will say that he took their clearance as meaning that there was no criminality at all

Somewhere in the middle some poor sod of a mid-level NI employee will get blamed for the mis-communication.

What I'd be interested in is the legal requirements placed on Harbottle to declare the criminality found either to NI or the police. Lord MacDonald seems to think that they had a duty to inform but whether they can legally be held to account is a different matter

 

As I understand it (and this is based on A-level Law nearly 15 years ago), the law firm can be held to account for malpractice outside of court but not when representing their client in court.

 

I'm sure someone will be better placed to confirm or clarify this.

[ChrisM]

You honestly believe that Osborne has nothing at all to do with this?

 

Who knows? Its a very real possibility, my point was I haven't seen him mentioned anywhere in connection to the scandal apart from on this thread and wondered what the insinuation was.

 

Obviously as Cameron's right hand man if Cameron can be implicated then I would say it is extremely likely that Osborne could be too, naturally. But I've already stated on this thread that I don't think any of the shit will stick to Cameron, he'll no doubt at some point have to eventually apologise for hiring Coulson which Milibot will quite rightly take as a victory for forcing the issue, but I'd be surprised if they keep on at it because of the skeletons in their own closet. Labour have courted the media more than anyone over the last few years, we all know it (not that I'm saying courting the media is wrong, just that attempts to split this issue down party lines is, I think, rather daft).

 

Cameron is already beginning to turn defence into attack, for instance publishing details of meetings with the media since the last election and calling for Brown and Blair to do the same when they were in power, and trying to force the agenda back to the economy etc.

 

I think at some point Labour will have to call it a draw, albeit with a moral victory.

[Anny Road]

A politician once said

 

'We're all in this together.'

 

How true.