LGS Blog
Listen to Brian Cathcart on the Phone Hacking Scandal
The scandal of phone hacking at the News of the World tells us a great deal about how Britain is run. On any normal measure the revelation that a foreign-owned corporation might have been intercepting the communications of Cabinet ministers should be sensational and shocking, yet five years into this affair most people are barely conscious that that is at issue here. Why have we been so slow to react? Why is it taking so long for the facts to come out?
Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University London, and served as specialist adviser to the inquiry into phone hacking by the House of Commons select committee on media, culture and sport. He has also written about the affair in the Guardian and the Independent on Sunday, and on the Free Speech blog of Index on Censorship.
To listen: click here
Yard said Tuesday that two had been arrested for questioning as part of its renewed inquiry into the illegal hacking of private voice-mail messages by The of the the Rupert Murdoch-owned that is one of Britains most widely circulated tabloids. LONDON Rupert Murdochs powerful operation reversed course on Friday and admitted responsibility in a hacking that had already cost the prime ministers spokesman his job.
………..Law experts dismiss police claims that they cannot investigate if victim has already listened to phone message as nonsense……… Claims by police and prosecutors that cases of hacking into voicemails could not be investigated if the victim had already listened to their message were dismissed as nonsense today by experts in the law surrounding interception.Addressing the home affairs select committee today John Yates the assistant Metropolitan police commissioner repeated earlier claims by police that cases of hacking into voicemails could only be prosecuted if the victim had not yet listened to their messages. That is nonsense and a recurring problem with this police position in this case said Simon McKay author of Covert Policing Law Practice. The police are getting confused about a number of things relating to the evidential status of a voicemail. The law is that in the nanosecond between someones voice being converted into an electromagnetic system and being transmitted to the recipient who listens to the voicemail thats the course of transmission.
Photograph Andy Rain EPA The head of the Metropolitan said that no stone will be left unturned in the fresh investigation into the of the World phone-hacking allegations announced yesterday four years after the initial convictions in the case. Speaking at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority in Londons City Hall this morning acting commissioner Tim Godwin promised a robust investigation that will restore… Friday April 29 2011 Wayne Rooney has been visited by Scotland Yard detectives investigating the News of the World phone hacking scandal he has revealed on Twitter.The England and Manchester United football star said he had been shown documents that suggest his voicemails have been hacked.