His position at the time would be roughly equivalent to Tim Geithner.
No, not really. This is like Neville Chamberlain, serious shit. The PM really should have been in the Commons today.
No, much more serious.
NotW employees (I hesitate to call them journalists) approach NYC cop to acquire phone records of dead 911 victims. CREW calls for US Congressional investigation. I agree.
I seem to recall a Slate article that implied that US cell phones may be somewhat more resistant to hacking, although I would emphasize the “somewhat”. Tabloid phone-hacking scandal: Could it happen here?
ETA: wrong thread
News Corp shareholders are starting to attack the company’s leadership, filing suit against them for not acting quick enough and being too lax in their governance.
It’s a bit hard to compare. The Chancellor is the second most powerful man in government, yet is supposed to be quite independent of 10 Downing St., only caring about the accounts, and not getting involved in politics per se: if we can’t afford it, then we can’t afford it, irrespective of whether the policy in question is a centrepiece of government policy. Recent criticism of both Brown and the current Chancellor are that they’re much too political.
Indeed. It is better, allowing the default to be used was insane, but there are other issues. A lot of discussion is going on now about “blagging”, the obtaining of passcodes by deception, often pretending to be someone you are not when contacting the telephone company. Of course there’s also the probability of people at the telcos being bribed to give up passcodes, although rumour has it they have finally closed that door by hashing the passcodes in their databases. I’d like to say it is amazing that they didn’t used to, but I used to work for a large telco and remember that all email passwords were stored in plain text in the database.
Ironically, these new revelations are actually serving to drum up some sympathy for Gordon Brown who is not exactly a well-loved public figure himself these days.
Interesting that Brown stated quite categorically that information about his son was obtained by criminals, with records of violence.
I assume that when the story came out in the press there was an investigation at some level and the report came up with that conclusion, would not be at all surprised if this was intelligence agency led.
Fact is, that no matter how it is put, the fact that The Sun printed this story at all shows that no matter how the information about Browmn’s son was obtained, it should have never made the media, and this in itself is likely to be illegal.There is no legal way to make public the medical records of any living person and quite possibly most dead people, and especially a child.
Guess who was editor of The Sun at that time?
Brooks? I’m really just guessing, so would you please care to reveal the name?
David Yates - the Met Police assistant commissioner - is currently answering questions about the police’s role in the original hacking investigation and why it didn’t go further. Asked about his relations with News International, he claims, he went for dinner with Guardian just as much as with News International.
I mention this because I am fairly certain that The Guardian, being the leading investigator of these claims on the press side of things, must be under heavy scrutiny from News Int - I can imagine that they are busy trying to nail them to the wall right now, in an effort to take the heat off. It’s unsurprising to me that someone under suspicion of having swept the original investigation under the carpet due to links with News Int, is now trying to impugn the name of The Guardian.
I hope that The Guardian is basically above suspicion here - the editor has made statements in the last few days saying that they have used private investigators to help them get stories but only in cases where the public interest demanded it. They should probably come clean on all their associations with PIs before someone else tries to distort the truth.
To quote Top Gun, they (The Guardian):
need to be doing it better, and cleaner than the other guy.
This whole story has been fascinating for days - new stuff coming up all the time - a clear ad hominem attack is not something NI are above to try and wrest back mroe control, so hopefully The Guardian will take it out of the picture.
You got it in one.
This Andy Hayward is a right cock. Come on mate, it is a parliamentary hearing/committee thing, not a chat down the pub.
Yeah, the Met are not coming off well here - neither presentationally nor with respect to their initial inquiry. The only decent argument I have seen advanced thus far is from Clarke, saying that he wanted to continue the initial investigation but had to pull the investigation as man power was required for counter-terrorism. Whether he is correct or just trying to worm his way out, I suppose we’ll only discover in the fullness of time - but I can imagine these sorts of juggling of resources go on a lot, with stuff going up and down the priority list accordingly.
I watched some of him as I went home for lunch today. Guy really came off badly.
Yeah, he was terrible. Sue Akers looks like she is competent though, a bit reassuring that she is in charge of the investigation now.
The Chancellor has total control of the state economic apparatus, like the American Secretary of the Treasury and the head of the Federal Reserve put together, along with any financial powers the President might have and the guaranteed support of congress for whatever budget he suggests.
There were rumours back when Blair was PM of him begging Brown to know what was going to be in the next budget.
Well, you know what they say. There’s no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right.
You know, I even went back to check it. I blame being at work. I was supposed to be concentrating on other things …