In case you've been too busy focusing on the Casey Anthony trial, you should be reminded that the rest of the world is watching the unfolding drama currently taking place in Great Britain, where one of the most notorious right-wing media moguls to have ever lived, Rupert Murdoch, is finding himself embroiled in an ever-deepening saga of criminal conduct, conspiracy and corporate cover-up. It is a scandal and legal drama that may cause the undoing of his vast media holdings, including Fox News, in the United States.
What is the issue? Rupert Murdoch's major UK tabloid, the News of the World, has been shown to have hacked into the email and cell phone accounts of countless individuals throughout British society, threatening ongoing police investigations, spoiling and tampering with evidence in criminal cases, and threatening national security.
New information is breaking by the hour and Rupert Murdoch's plan to acquire more media holdings in the UK has been put on hold, indefinately. He has returned to the UK to engage in damage control, and manage what could be, the onset of the demise of his large media empire.
The whole scandal was ignited by evidence that News of the World reporters hacked into the cell phone of a missing girl to read her text messages and listen to her voice mail, without notifying the police, or receiving their consent. Although the girl was later found murdered, News of the World reporters deleted messgaes in her voice mail, so as to collect and record sob-filled messages left by despondent family members. This is evidence tampering on a grand scale.
News recently broke that News of the World reporters have been bribing members of the Queen's personal guard to provide them with personal details, top secret schedules, cell phone numbers and email accounts of leading members of the Royal Family, such as Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and the Queen herself, not to mention the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, thus compromising British national security. In addition, countless families of 9-11 victims may have had their cell phones hacked as well.
Rupert Murdoch's HQ company, "The News Corporation," has a major subsidiary in Britain, which manages, like a parent company, all of his British media holdings. This company is called "News International." It has just been revealed that News International has known about these hacking events, including the hacking of the Queen and Prime Minister, and has kept silent about it. When news broke about the misconduct, News International's immediate action was to dissolve the News of the World, lay-off its workers and set a large group of lawyers with the task of sifting through all its documents, and dealing with all its pertinent employees, for purposes of the coming, inevitable trials, both civil and criminal. Dissolving a company this large, overnight, is not something that is done very often and it speaks to the panic and fear of News International and may be evidence of a massive form of damage-control. What better way to control a situation than by disolving the offending corporation?
Again, this sort of action is unheard of in the annals of corporate law. It makes me very curious as well as highly suspicious.
That said, what does this hacking case, in general, mean about News Corporation and its liability? Did they know about the hacking? Did they encourage or condone it? Did they, too, participate in a cover-up? To what extent was Rupert Murdoch and/or members of his inner-circle involved? If these behaviors were common at News of the World, and encouraged by its parent company, how common are they in other "News Corporation" subsidiaries and affiliates, such as Fox News?
If Murdoch and his inner circle are found to have had knowledge about these events, and to have engaged in a cover-up, will they be able to "hide behind the corporate veil," so as to escape criminal liability, or will a "fall guy" take the blame, so as to preserve his media empire?
Aside from the dramatic personal legal and political issues brought to the fore by this event, there are major long-term policy implications that we all need to focus on, as well.
As Right-wing owned tabloid media enterprises push the envelope in terms of what privacy rights are violated, albeit on pop-culture issues, does the more sinister arm of right-wing media, that dedicated to politics and economics, harvest the benefits? Is there a mutually beneficial relationship here, that has heretofore been unexamined?
Tabloids have been the major party carving-out and expanding the scope of First Amendment "freedom of the press" issues, particularly in regard to invasions of privacy. Indeed, they often justify the latter by appeal to the former. And at the end of the day, these new rules more often than not, work to the advantage of the big right-wing news outlets that own said tabloids. And these outlets, in turn, use their media organs to destroy enemies of laissez-faire economics, neoconservatism and the global corporate elite. For these Oligarchs, the First Amendment and Free Speech is nothing more than a tool by which they can use their vast money to drown out the voices of the opposition, and furthermore, utilize yellow, sensationalistic journalism, rumour, gossip and cheap tabloid-style smear attacks on those whose political and economic ideas differ from those favored by the Establishment.
Ruppert Murdoch's news companies have some serious explaining to do. They are doing the same sort of thing that Nixon once did. And just because they are doing it for "pop culture concerns" is meaningless to me. Because the precedents established could easily be utilized to hurt private individuals who run afoul of powerful corporate or political interests.
We focus so much on the threat posed to citizens by "Big Brother," namely, government, that we forget about the threats posed to people by "Little Brother," namely, "Companies."
We are entering a new era of Privacy Rights jurisprudence. We know that these rights protect you from state-action and government-based intrusions. Can they be extended to protect private citizens from Corporate-level intrusions and privacy violations as well?
In my humble opinion, this will be the new forefront of privacy rights jurisprudence in the 21st century.
-------------------------------------------
Good links regarding the issues mentioned above:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/11/phone-hacking-charles-camilla
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/i-was-targeted-too-gordon-brown-to-say-2311980.html
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Ted Frier
Tom Degan
pob2006
500words
john guzlowski
Bob Simpson
Salon.com
Comments
Watch this space - the media will be exposed much more than the current exploits but Murdoch will survive and prosper.
His threats to our politicians who oppose him and the sucking up by those who know their careers need him plus the police bribes are only just coming to the surface.
SHit FLoats ..........
Good post, thank you from the UK.
However the immediate effect might be that they have a harder time fighting their war on Media Matters as a result of the hit to their reputation; and I wouldn't be surprised if there were other secrets revealed in the near future about other operations. Lets hope so; it is clear that they're no damn good even without more revelations.
Of course I'm rooting for the peasants. I'm ignorant about these laws so I'm looking forward to your insights as it goes along. Thanks for the post.
Piers Morgan was a part of this doggerel of mess, but seems to have escaped early on and toward CNN, where he slinks away from the topic and tells us what to do.
On the other hand, if people fear for their jobs and are insecure, they are more likely to stab their employers in the back and become whistleblowers.
One thing Fox News and the pop culture press have in common, aside from their ownership, is their total disregard for evenhanded reporting. Murdoch is way too highly political a figure to give a pass for being apolitical in any context.
This is like Nixon but, if anything, more polished.
I'd rather see the unemployment than the influence. The influence does more economic damage than the layoffs do, by far.
I think Germany has the best privacy laws in the Western world, and they cover private/corporate intrusions as well. This is due, in part, because the Nazis were able to do an "end run" around Weimar Republic privacy/rights protections, at least during the early days, by having non-gvt agents do the dirty work.
Here, the SA and SS were private party-police and party-forces and were not under the control of the police forces. Hence, in the late 1920s and very early 1930s (prior to the post Reichstag-burning, Enabling Acts), they were able to do alot of bad stuff, but without violating the Constitution of the Weimar Republic, because they passed it off as "isolated, random acts of isolated, random members of a private party army." Of course, Hitler said he would be able to put a stop to such stuff if he was given more power. Some people actually believed him. In any event, this is why Germany protects its citizens, today, against Private-Entity based infringements on liberty and privacy. Its also why a religious group, like Scientology, has problems there.
But before that, they were different and distinct and often fought eachother, believe it or not. As early as 1924, members of the SS were arrested on sight in Bavaria, following the Putsch.
There is talk on some blogs of liability for NI in the US, as their offices are in New York. Could get very interesting.
Here's my prediction: if the House of Commons does end up striking down the BSkyB deal, Rupert will adjust laterally--that means they'll buy up the next best carrier, along with another tabloid. Remember, this guy really is a face for a very large corporation. Don't fixate on him too much. Notice how the news has become one long bitch fest among billionaires and their various political cronies. It's all quite incestuous, and pointless.
As for freedom of speech, or privacy...people will have as much as they're willing to fight for. Nobody is getting anything from this system for "free" anymore. The real issue will be access for public use, versus any kind of halfway decent cable/phone/internet service for less than an arm and a leg. Freedom is primarily limited by the chaos of an unconscious market now, not by decree...
Rated
Huh? Off to read the rest.
HEY!! NOBODY MOVE OR THE EMPLOYEES GET THE AXE!!!
I especially appreciate the reference to the Valerie Plame case. I've always said that if that case had happened that way on Bill Clinton's watch, he'd be in prison for treason now for the outing of a CIA agent with an active network. The lack of culpability in this case has always amazed me, particularly given that it's exactly the thing you'd expect to drive Republicans nuts.
If Murdoch has hacked into so many in the UK, how many has he hacked in this country of the US??
Fox News has always seemed to pull many strings in many high places.
why is it assumed that his hacking influence stops on the other side of the pond??
How much email reading, cell phone listening, etc goes on here/has gone on here??
I have not seen that idea referenced at all. If he can read the emails of the PM of the United Kingdom, has he/can he read emails of the US gov't??
My suspect ions are that he is into some deep do-do.
Any thoughts??
However, I want to take this opportunity to mention how absurd it is that a snake oil salesman like Murdock should have SO MUCH influence over the thinking of American conservatives.
Whether this group of people, who have amassed too much power, are able to deprive the yeomanry of its rights by way of public servants or corporate henchmen is irrelevant at this point, I think. I think Americans, at least, understand the threat posed by British-style Big-Brother tactics, with cameras everywhere.
In the US, you have programs like Echelon and the like.
If companies start doing this too, we are finished. Its as if the entire Aristocratic Caste is unified against the rights of the yeomanry.
We must unite to defend the liberties of the commonwealth.
The modern American middle class is the functional equivalent of the Old English yeomanry: a group of freed serfs, who have newly acquired free peasant status. However, this status was fleeting, because most folks who left serfdom found that they were worse off under Yeomanry (economically) than they were under serfdom. That said, the nobility liked the emergence of yeomanry, because free citizens were fungible, could move around, weren't tied to the land, and could pay direct taxes to the crown (and thereby bypass the manor house system, which embezzled funds).
This is a major side-track, but I like these historical parallels. In many cases, the issues we deal with in politics today are recycled issues. They are the same old battles, replayed, over and again, throughout the span of human history.
Some get cynical from this realization. But I think its very fun.
The mans own son, his flesh from flesh, walked away from him and Americans still had not a clue! This is one of the most wicked men that ever lived. In my book he surpasses Hitler and Stalin, they did what they did for nationalist reasons. Murdoch had not ever a single doubt that all his efforts were focused on one objective and one objective alone: to secure his own throne in the emerging Order of Globalist criminals who have commandeered this planet. He is directly responsible for the murder of millions of Moslems. What a surprise he was snooping on families of 9-11 victims. We can’t have to many of them wizening up like Cindy Sheehan can we now? I am sure if Murdoch and friends could do it all over again Cindy would have died in a tragic “accident”. That is far more economical than having to engage in a campaign of systematic slander like they have done to her.
Murdoch no doubt overstepped his bounds when he figured he could use J Edgar Hover tactics in Europe where there is an entrenched aristocracy who have covertly ruled the world for a thousand years. All he is to them is something you wipe off your shoe, he should have asked me I would have told him but now I will sit back and watch with amusement, the intense revulsion they will convey through their own information apparatus’s as they go about wiping.
;)
Jack I think Cindy probably was at risk for that 'accident' initially, until it was determined that making light of her was a more profitable course for the long run. Had Cindy actually been a cohesive *group* of individuals with any kind of access to any real power there probably would have been an 'accident' or three.
Rated for getting the word out.
{{except that likely this will only serve to make 'them' cover themselves more carefully}}
there is no need to worry, dear sheeple, your government is working night and day to smooth your path. go back to the sports channel, or 'bold and beautiful,' and leave your life in the capable and caring hands of the politicians guild.
There has been some development in American law over the past 30 years where the Tabloid media interests have been consistently pushing, in the name of the First Amendment, to infringe on the privacy rights of those whose personal lives make "good headlines" and thus, revenue, for the Tabloid industry.
How to balance the First Amendment and the Right to Privacy?
I think that the Tabloid folks really aren't into free speech, so much as they are into "making money" and they bastardize the First Amendment, in order to make money. And the effect of this is to "chill speech" in fact, because people are afraid of doing anything pertaining to financial transactions, medical choices, religion, politics and the like, because it can all be exposed and used to smear them.
So, by radically pursuing the First Amendment, one could actually hurt the issues the First Amendment aims to advance.
Another effect is the coarsening of our politics. If Elliot Spitzer gave a private speech in which he said that all Americans should become Baptists and that Oklahoma should secede and join Texas in a civil war, then that's important political speech that he has no right to privacy in regard to.
But his text messaging was prurient and yet we think the First Amendment protects stories like this. It does not.
In the latter half of the 20th and early part of the 21st century, for most corporate liberals, the First Amendment really means nothing more than the right to engage in sexual speech and to invade public people's right to privacy in regard to sexual issues.
The triumph of "CROTCH POLITICS," to the detriment of WALLET POLITICS.
Best,
Pranay