The Coverup of Phone Hacking Widens

This is an important Podcast of the situation. The consensus is that the justice system will run out of time to indict James Murdoch, and that Rebecca Brooks will be the last firewall to get burned. I was fascinated to hear that they think that James did nothing illegal by paying people off to prevent them from suing over criminal behavior.

Nick Davies and Amelia Hill, The Guardian:

Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard’s inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.

The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International….

A Guardian investigation has found that, in addition to deleting emails, the company has also:

• infuriated police by leaking sensitive information in spite of an undertaking to police that it would keep it confidential; and

• risked prosecution for perverting the course of justice by trying to hide the contents of a senior reporter’s desk after he was arrested by Weeting detectives in April.
…
The original archive was said to contain half a terabyte of data – equivalent to 500 editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica. But police now believe that there was an effort to substantially destroy the archive before News International handed over their new evidence in January.

Vikram Dodd, The Guardian:

Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s former royal editor, has been arrested over allegations he bribed police officers for information.

Goodman was convicted and jailed in 2007 after the first police investigation into phone hacking and sacked from the Sunday tabloid.

He was arrested in a dawn raid at his Surrey home, which was searched by officers. In a statement the Metropolitan police said the arrest was over allegations of corruption.

I hope that Scotland Yard has realized that it can no longer minimize the situation, as it tried to do so as recently as a few days ago.

Nick Davies deserves enormous credit for bringing out this story since about 2007.

Court to Media Oligarchy: Not So Fast

During the Bush Administration, the Federal Communications Commission undermined the long-standing ban on media companies owning both newspapers and television stations in the same media market. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has just reversed that move, ruling that the Commission didn’t allow the public public opportunity to comment on the new rules.

The ruling is based on procedure rather than on the merits of the rules change, but I don’t expect the current FCC to be quite so keen to allow a few big corporations to monopolize our news sources.

Friday Cat Blogging

To Understand The Minnesota Legislature, Follow Bluestem Prairie

It’s really that simple.

See, for example, this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

All in the space of two days.

Amazing.

(Crossposted to Renaissance Post.)