Tom Watson, MP, the committee member who asked the best questions at the Murdoch inquiry, says:
Roy Greenslade has just revealed that six months ago, members of the DCMS Select Committee were the targets of covert surveillance by private investigators and journalists working for News International. This revelation became the third occasion that I know of in which I was a target of covert surveillance News Corp in the UK.
Watson is skipping a conference to consult with the Speaker and other members of his committee to see what he’s going to do.
Greenslade writes for the Guardian, but I can’t find the specific piece Watson is referring to. The Guardian’s story on Watson quotes Tory MP Louise Mensch as saying that the members of the inquiry committee had been tailed a number of times in the past.
Maybe those of you who are following this more closely can tell us whether this is a big deal or not, but it does show that Rupert’s troubles aren’t going away.
PaulW
Doesn’t this show that Murdoch and his crew haven’t learned from their folly? That they’re still using the same tactics that got them into trouble in the first place?
mark
Of course its a big deal! Wtf? Much worse than anything Nixon did to his “enemies”. A clear effort to intimidate, coerce, and corrupt Parliament. Doing this with the police in their back pocket is really scary.
Just imagine what Rupert and the NYPD have going on?
PeakVT
@PaulW: Hopefully. That kind of arrogance can lead to a spectacular downfall. /crosses fingers
Disgruntled Lurker
@PaulW:
That they’re still using the same tactics that got them
into troublemillions in compensation in the first place?Now it’s more of a rhetorical question.
rikryah
I’m not following it closely, but this passes the smell test of being more problems for Rupert and his minions
Nutella
Wikipedia on Rebekah Brooks during the 2003 investigation:
That 2003 intimidation of the parliamentary committee worked and if the current allegations are true they tried it again this year.
So yeah, it’s a big deal.
existential fish
The story is up on Media Matters.
If you want to add the link to the main post, feel free. Huff Po and a bunch of others picked up on this as well, you can find it there as well.
Culture of Truth
Labour Member Tom Watson suggested the News International operated an “omerta” code of silence, “a group of people who are bound together by secrecy, who together pursue their group’s business objectives with no regard for the law, using intimidation, corruption and general criminality.”
“Would you agree with me that this is an accurate description of News International in the UK?” Watson asked. Murdoch replied: “Absolutely not, I frankly think that’s offensive and it’s not true.”
To gasps of amazement from fellow MPs Watson went on: “You must be the first Mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise.”
MattF
Apparently Rupert and his clan are finding their bad habits hard to break. I suppose it’s unfair, but I can’t help comparing the Murdochs to the Assad family method of dealing with unrest by killing people. Just, somehow, doesn’t work the way it used to. It’s also interesting, btw, that the trouble has really started with the Tory + Lib government rather than with Labour.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Watson’s a good guy. I knew him back in his Labour Student days.
geg6
@mark:
Makes me wonder how many US congresscritters they’ve been doing this to, also.
Suffern ACE
@geg6: I’ve often thought the simplest explaination of the motivation for the behavior of washington democrats were the pictures taken at some secret all night drunken orgy. Once you posit the all night orgy, the last decade makes sense.
handsmile
With Parliamentary committees now resuming hearings and with more than 200 Scotland Yard police officers working on various aspects of this scandal, problems for the Murdoch media empire continue to metastasize.
Last week, another Murdoch publication, The Sun, was charged with phone-hacking allegations. Arrests of former employees of Murdoch newspapers and private investigators working on their behalf continue as well. Scotland Yard now estimates that more than 5,000 people may have had their phones or emails hacked by private investigators working for News of the World.
During his parliamentary testimony last Thursday, James Murdoch, “the man who wasn’t there” as the Guardian described his management practices, admitted that Labor MP Tom Watson had been surveilled.
Moreover, Murdoch confirmed accounts that private investigators had run covert surveillance on two of the lawyers who are representing several victims of NoW’s phone-hacking practices. The sordid details may be read in this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/07/news-world-investigator-spy-lawyers
If you click on the Guardian article cited above by mistermix, do read the related article in which the editor of the Times of London rebukes Tom Watson for referring to James Murdoch as a “mafia boss” during last week’s hearing. While claiming that such a remark brings disrepute upon the profession, the article serves to skewer the Times for its failure to report on the NoW phone-hacking scandal when the story first broke in 2009.
Nutella
@Suffern ACE:
Me, too. And the orgy was hosted by AIPAC and Murdoch. They all seem to be terrified of both.
The Moar You Know
Since this is Britain, I don’t know. Pull that shit in America and, depending on your socioeconomic standing, you’ll either find yourself with a one-way boat ticket to Cuba or a job as a lobbyist.
Villago Delenda Est
The Brits used to know how to deal with assholes like Murdoch.
Invite them to London, lock them in The Tower, and schedule an appointment with the headsman.
geg6
@Nutella:
And now, I think, we’re on to something here.
scav
Our grasp of the scope has been expanding recently. Here’s today roundup: Phone hacking: ‘nearly 30 NI staff named in Glenn Mulcaire notes’ and beyond the NI staff, they’ve got the possible hack list up to 5,795 names and between Mulcaire and the new guy Derek Webb (another PI used) they’ve got evidcence of hacking or at least surveillance of some sort from 2001 to beginning of this year. (Here’s a Derek Webb article that mentions Tom Watson, but it’s unclear who did the following) They arrested a Sun reporter (as handsmile said, but I though it was more payment to police related) and both the Sun and the Daily Mirror are mentioned in today’s info on Mulcaire dump. Additional purely speculative scope-related gossip is that John Hartigan most senior NC guy in Australia, a 41-year Murdoch-ite, resigned, but that may be more sign of internal high-level chaos and or re-positioning than anything NotW-ite.
trollhattan
@Culture of Truth:
I listened to that grilling last week with equal parts amazement and glee. Parliament may have its flaws but it’s stocked with literate and fearless members. To have that sort of skill set in Congress would be quite a revelation.
Can we unleash RICO on Newscorp, here?
Nemesis
Ive always wondered why Hagel and Voinovich vacated their pushback against the Iraq war positions so suddenly. Hmmmm…
Bill
I’ve thought for a while now that “pictures with a goat” was the most likely explanation for the “actions” of our Dems. Makes sense that newscorp would be the ones with the pics.
aimai
@Villago Delenda Est:
When was that ever even remotely true? They deported a whole lot of poor people to Australia in the first place, but they don’t have any better a record at dealing with their own upper criminal classes than anyone else.
aimai
Professor
@Villago Delenda Est: Until they captured the politicians and the police. ‘AND Rupert Murdoch became the Kingmaker!
Viva BrisVegas
@aimai:
AA+ Bonds
You kidding? A newspaper owner, upper class? In the UK? I don’t know if they’re ready to admit something like that.
50 years ago this would have made Murdoch an enemy of the state and he would’ve been disappeared to some nice anti-Communist strongman’s paradise on the approval of various barons.