Murdoch paper hacked "two to three thousand" public figures' phones

By Steve Hynd

If Murdoch's gang will stoop to this in the UK, they'll stoop as low in the U.S.

Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers has paid out more than �1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures and to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.

...The suppressed legal cases are linked to the jailing in January 2007 of News of the World reporter Clive Goodman for hacking into the mobile phones of three royal staff, an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. At the time, News International said it knew of no other journalist who was involved in hacking phones and that Goodman had been acting without their knowledge.

However, one senior source at the Metropolitan police told the Guardian that during the Goodman inquiry, officers had found evidence of News Group staff using private investigators who hacked into "thousands" of mobile phones. Another source with direct knowledge of the police findings put the figure at "two or three thousand" mobiles. They suggest that MPs from all three parties and cabinet ministers, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, were among the targets. News International has always maintained that it has no knowledge of phone hacking by anybody acting on its behalf.

And the kicker? The editor of the newspaper in question went on to become the current communication officer for the Conservative party. Former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, one of those who allegedly had his phone hacked, told Channel Four News:

I find it staggering that there could be a list known to the police of people known to have their phone tapped, I am named as one of them, for such a criminal act not to be reported to me and not for action to be taken against he people who've done it reflects very badly upon the police and I want to know their answer.

"I'm not surprised that News International are into this. I think Andy Coulson was editor at the time in the News of the World and moved on from the job while the reporter went to jail. And in that case they admitted to tapping phones. "

"I find it absolutely staggering that Andy Coulson can go to be the communication officer for the Tory party �  surely Andy Colson can not be the man who's been supervising over all this activity as the editor in charge of the paper and still stay in that job. "

I wonder if something like this is how Rove managed to wield so much power.

UPDATE: CJR's Ryan Chittum has an interesting connection for you.

Now, we normally wouldn�t write about a tabloid scandal in Britain. But the executive who oversaw News� UK papers at the time is Les Hinton, who is now CEO of Dow Jones & Company, parent of The Wall Street Journal. The Guardian writes that he has �misled� Parliament and the public, �albeit in good faith.� Basically, the exec ultimately responsible for News of the World at the time of the scandal is now the guy in charge of The Wall Street Journal.