Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail "hacked by News of the World"

[ymu]

Come on, that needs a quote!

The FBI has told Scotland Yard it is "prepared to step in" if the Metropolitan Police fails to investigate the full extent of impropriety in the Murdoch empire. The warning came at a meeting between the transatlantic law enforcement groups at the Ministry of Justice in London.

Every piece of evidence surrendered by News Corporation to Scotland Yard is also being passed to US investigators. The disclosures, which prompted more than 20 arrests, including Sun journalists, have also sparked a separate FBI inquiry into whether News Corporation bribed officials in Russia. US investigators are collecting evidence given to the Leveson inquiry and parliamentary select committees.

"The FBI made it perfectly clear that if the British police drop the ball on this they will pick it up and run with it," said one legal source familiar with the US investigation.

Looks like the Met are trapped between a rock and a hard place.

 

[London_Calling]

said one legal source familiar with the US investigation

i.e. no one.

Quiet week. Reheated generalisms cobbled together with a couple of quotes and an update on James' increasingly post-UK 'alignment'. Indie not exactly blazing the trail on this. Onwards.

 

[two sheds]

"Every piece of evidence surrendered by News Corporation to Scotland Yard is also being passed to US investigators. "

 

[butchersapron]

Ex SOCA officer claims this morning at Leveson that the NOTW impeded/jeopardised the Ipswich murders investigation by shadowing the investigating team.

 

[Ted Striker]

Come on, that needs a quote!

Looks like the Met are trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Just not enough likes in the world. You can just imagine 2 "I'm Agent Johnson, this is Special Agent Johnson...No relation" types wanting to make a name for themselves with the bureau (and with a sincere sense of oneupmanship to their British 'rivals') by tearing News Inc apart

 

[butchersapron]

She's been at MK copshop today being questioned over payments to MOD bods.

 

[two sheds]

Nothing treasonous I hope

 

[elbows]

I await the 'Murdoch murdered monkey' headlines:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17494723

A News Corporation company recruited a pay-TV "pirate" to post hacked details of a rival's secret codes online, BBC Panorama has found.
Lee Gibling set up a website in the late 1990s known as The House of Ill-Compute or Thoic.
He said NDS, a pay-TV smartcard maker, then funded expansion of the Thoic site and later had him distribute the set-top pay-TV codes of rival ITV Digital.

Bonus:

NDS manufactures smartcards for all News Corporations' pay-TV companies across the world.
Its UK security unit was 50% funded by Sky. But the satellite broadcaster, chaired by James Murdoch, told the programme it had no involvement in how the unit was run and was not aware of Thoic.
Two former senior policemen ran the NDS UK security unit. Ray Adams had been head of criminal intelligence at the Metropolitan Police and Len Withall, who had been a chief inspector in the Surrey force.
Both men were secretly filmed by Panorama.
Ray Adams claimed he "would have arrested" Lee Gibling if he had known ITV Digital's code had been published on Thoic and denied having the codes himself.
But internal NDS documents, obtained by Panorama, show a hacked code was passed to Len Withall and Ray Adams from a technology expert inside the company.

 

[butchersapron]

Seen one already. This is old news I'm afraid though, 10 years at least. Though it will be interesting to see people dig up the Tron suicide in relation to Adams other connections with suicides and Norris
...

 

[newbie]

Commander Ray Adams

By 1993, Ray Adams was a police commander in the south London area where Stephen Lawrence was murdered.
His only documented involvement – and he insists his only involvement – in the case was to sign a letter to the Lawrence family, one week after the murder.
In his 1999 report, Sir William Macpherson outlines the Lawrences' claims that Adams may have had links to Clifford Norris. Adams gave evidence to the inquiry for two days. The former head of criminal intelligence for the Met said he had no contact with Clifford Norris and did not know him.
Sir William concluded that while there were "strange features" to Adams's account, there was no evidence to support the allegations against him. Macpherson wrote: "Whatever maybe the suspicions of Mr and Mrs Lawrence's legal team, there was never any substantiation of the allegations that were made ... We have seen nothing to suggest Mr Adams was involved in collusion or corruptly involved in efforts to hold back this prosecution."
Macpherson's adviser, Richard Stone, says the inquiry was not told of the two reports containing information about Adams, from Operation Russell and Operation Othona. Among police officers one aspect of Adams life that raised questions was the fact he lived in an expensive house called Wildacre in Shirley, Surrey, which backed on to a golf course. That seemed unaffordable on a Met commander's salary, which in the late 1980s would have been approximately £30,000. One claim was that his wife was wealthy and thus the couple could afford the house.
Adams told the Guardian that the allegation that he had taken money from a criminal was wrong. He said the criminal had bribed a different officer, and Adams had told investigators the identities of the corrupt police officers. He also said he did not know who former detective sergeant John Davidson was. Adams's close associate, DC Alan "Taffy'' Holmes shot himself dead on 27 July , 1987, on the eve of Adams being interviewed by corruption investigators. Holmes had been interviewed twice, and was expected to face further questioning.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/16/stephen-lawrence-inquiry-questions-remain

 

[London_Calling]

Hugely interesting to now have evidence supported by stand-up witnesses in this area:

Panorama's emails appear to state that ONdigital's secret codes were first cracked by NDS, and then subsequently publicised by the pirate website, called The House of Ill Compute (THOIC)

Lee Gibling, operator of THOIC, says that behind the scenes, he was being paid up to £60,000 a year by Adams, and NDS handed over thousands more to supply him with computer equipment.

He says Adams sent him the ONdigital codes so that other pirates could use them to manufacture thousands of counterfeit smart cards, giving viewers illicit free access to ONdigital, then Sky's chief business rival.

The BBC effectively saying 'Sue me' to the Murdochs.

Ugly weekend; first Murdoch shafts Cameron via the Sunday Times, and a day later the BBC kicks Murdoch in the nuts.

People may notice the slight absence of police interest at this stage. Presumably it's all just one rogue employee and nothing to worry about.... lets see what else Ofcom and the BBC can come up with ...

 

[ymu]

Has there been time to notice a lack of police interest yet? It seems vanishingly unlikely that they wouldn't be interested to me. The FBI are paralleling the Met's investigations, and there is at least one US company with an identical story to tell (NI hacked into a start-up advertising company's computers, stole their client list, got sued, and eventually settled by buying out the company once it was desperate enough for cash).

But then again, you don't believe that the FBI are breathing down the Met's neck on this one because the source for the story wasn't named.

 

[teqniq]

From the Graun article on this, something that could be interpreted as an oblique admission of culpability:

In 2002 Canal Plus, which supplied ONdigital with its smart card system, sued NDS in a US Court, alleging that NDS had hacked its codes. But no evidence about a link to ONdigital emerged: the case was dropped following a business deal under which Murdoch agreed to purchase some of Canal Plus's assets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/26/news-corp-ondigital-paytv-panorama

 

[ymu]

That's not an admission of culpability - that's their business strategy. Destroy rival companies until they are better off selling up to NewsCorp than they are trying to pursue justice in the courts.

I'll go find a link for the advertising company thing they pulled - it's a virtually identical story. Which is what might help nail them, on this and possibly a large number of other cases that have been settled but are now a matter for criminal investigation.

 

[ymu]

Here we go - NewsCorp hacks company, then buys it

 

[teqniq]

Well ok, maybe it's a bit of both though? On the face of it, it look like Murdoch has bought them off in an effort to keep it out of the courts. It is a win/win strategy though, buying some shares in order to shut someone up was probably small beer.

E2A thanks for the link, so this is SOP for NI

 

[ymu]

Oh yeah - absolutely, I'm not really disagreeing with you, just putting some more flesh on what this might mean. It's the established MO thing that I think is important. They have a history of settling court cases by buying out the (rival) company concerned, having already crippled the company's finances through their actions. If this is investigated properly - and I see no way that it can't be (Murdoch has few friends across the pond who can help him here) - it could very well bring NewsCorp down entirely.

 

[London_Calling]

But then again, you don't believe that the FBI are breathing down the Met's neck on this one because the source for the story wasn't named.

I don't what? The 'story' you found so interesting was an attempt by the Indie to represent itself as investigative and on the ball, when it was actually just the usual no name 'sources' and reheated filler. I made no comment on the FBI investigation at all.

 

[ymu]

i.e. no one.

Quiet week. Reheated generalisms cobbled together with a couple of quotes and an update on James' increasingly post-UK 'alignment'. Indie not exactly blazing the trail on this. Onwards.

I'm fairly sure that the FBI demanding copies of all the evidence and saying that they'd take over if the Met failed to do it properly was new news when it was reported by the Indie. In that context, you were very much commenting on the FBI investigation. But if I misread you, I apologise.

If you do accept that the FBI are keeping a very close eye on this, why do you think the lack of a police press release about it indicates that they'll try not to investigate it?

 

[Dan U]

That's not an admission of culpability - that's their business strategy. Destroy rival companies until they are better off selling up to NewsCorp than they are trying to pursue justice in the courts.

I'll go find a link for the advertising company thing they pulled - it's a virtually identical story. Which is what might help nail them, on this and possibly a large number of other cases that have been settled but are now a matter for criminal investigation.

according to the press today Canal took Murdoch to court in the US over hacking of smart cards. The case was dropped when NewsCorp bought some Canal assets....

 

[London_Calling]

If you do accept that the FBI are keeping a very close eye on this, why do you think the lack of a police press release about it indicates that they'll try not to investigate it?

For the Indie to talk in terms of 'stepping in' - I'm sorry, not the Indie but "according to one legal source" - is bogus. The FBI will be investigating News Corp in the context of US law. That will be concurrent with anything TMP is doing. Indeed, the entire premise of the FCPA is dependent on international cooperation among police forces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act

 

[laptop]

Fnigers crssoed for one or more Murdochs to do time over this hacking...

For years, in the context of arguments about enforcing copyright, I've been saying "the pirate I'm most worried about is called Rupert". I wasn't aware how accurate this was...

 

[ymu]

For the Indie to talk in terms of 'stepping in' - I'm sorry, not the Indie but "according to one legal source" - is bogus. The FBI will be investigating News Corp in the context of US law. That will be concurrent with anything TMP is doing. Indeed, the entire premise of the FCPA is dependent on international cooperation among police forces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act

NewsCorp are handing over the emails and other evidence that drops them in it to the Met precisely because they have to be seen to be cooperating with the investigation to try and avoid prosecution under the FCPA. There is nothing at all strange or unbelievable about the Indie report when the police force that is investigating the corruption is itself in the frame for being part of that corruption.

In the current context, suggesting that the police might try to avoid investigating accusations of hacking a commercial rival to death makes no sense whatsoever. Murdoch's power has gone, and with it his ability to silence critics.

 

[London_Calling]

strange or unbelievable

I'd assume you quoted the wrong post, but I don't think anyone else has written in terms of "strange or unbelievable" either so, umm, good luck with whoever you think you're talking to. Ftr, I merely wrote that the FBI will be concurrently investigating News Corp within the context of US law.

 

[laptop]

Please let there be a US connection to the hacking story. Does it count as a corrupt practice? I'm so wanting the extradition story...

Meanwhile, I'm trying to think of a Belgian connection too - those are the courts you'd want to go to to sue the Murdochs for breach of authors' and performers' rights in the TV programmes, if not for a massive US-style jail sentence. And for some reason "Rupert battles extradition to Belgium" appeals to me as a headline.

 

[laptop]

One to watch at Leveson: Kit Malthouse (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime) - Thursday 29 March, probably after lunch. (So did he try to rein in the Met for Boris?)

This week's witness list.

 

[DaveCinzano]

And for some reason "Rupert battles extradition to Belgium" appeals to me as a headline.

WALLOONACY!

King Rupert in vile sin extradition shocker

Liège not denied a prisoner

 

[London_Calling]

Tie this Walloonacy down, sport
Tie this Walloonacy down

 

[laptop]

WALLOONACY!

Meanwhile, according to the Standard, Murdoch fils et pere due back on Leveson in the week of 23 April...

 

[London_Calling]

I wonder what the new version of 'This is the most humble day of my life' might be...