钢铁王座 精校:Will the phone-hacking scandal be another Watergate?

来源：百度文库 编辑：九乡新闻网 时间：2024/04/27 23:43:15

Will the phone-hacking scandal be another Watergate?

FBI to open 9/11 victims 'phone-hacking' investigation


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Republican Congressman Peter King calls for an FBI inquiry


The FBI is investigating reports that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation sought to hack the phones of victims of the 9/11 attacks.


The criminal probe follows calls from a growing number of senators and a senior Republican for an investigation.


In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mr Murdoch defended the company's handling of the crisis.


Meanwhile, Mr Murdoch and his son James have agreed to answer UK MPs' questions on the hacking scandal next week.


The Commons media committee issued summonses after the pair initially declined to appear.


Another arrest


Also in London on Thursday, a former News of the World executive editor, Neil Wallis, became the ninth person involved with the newspaper to be detained by police probing phone hacking.


The Murdoch-owned Sunday tabloid was shut down last week amid the mounting scandal over the alleged hacking of phones belonging to crime victims, politicians and celebrities.


FBI sources told US media on Thursday it was looking into claims that phones belonging to victims of the September 11 attacks could have been hacked by News of the World journalists.


News Corporation, based in New York, is the parent company of News International, the UK firm at the centre of the scandal over phone hacking and payments to police officers.


The fallout prompted News Corporation on Wednesday to withdraw from a huge takeover bid for the UK's largest pay-TV operator, BSkyB.


UK Prime Minister David Cameron has set up a judge-led inquiry into the allegations.


US senators this week asked the authorities to investigate allegations that 9/11 victims' phones were hacked. News International has not commented on the claims.


Democratic senators Jay Rockefeller and Barbara Boxer urged the attorney general and the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether US laws had been broken.


Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who wrote to the attorney general separately, said claims that newspapers had sought to "exploit information about... personal tragedies for profit" needed to be investigated.


Republican Congressman Peter King - who is chairman of the House homeland security committee and represents a constituency in New York that lost more then 150 people in the 9/11 attacks - called on Wednesday for an FBI inquiry.


"The thought that anyone would have hacked into the phones of either those who were killed, those who were missing, the family members, during that tragic time... is contemptible," he told the BBC on Thursday.


He declined to say whether he had any direct evidence that journalists working for News Corporation companies had sought to hack 9/11 victims' phones.


Embattled News Corp CEO resigns

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Chief Executive of News International Rebekah Brooks listens to speeches during the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, northern England in this October 6, 2009 file photograph. [Photo/Agencies]


Rebekah Brooks, the loyal lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch, resigned Friday as chief executive of his embattled British newspapers, becoming the biggest casualty so far in the phone hacking scandal at a now-defunct Sunday tabloid.


Murdoch had defended Brooks in the face of demands from politicians that she step down, and had previously refused to accept her resignation. He made an abrupt switch, however, as his News Corp. company struggled to contain a UK crisis that is threatening his entire global media empire.


Brooks was editor of the News of the World tabloid between 2000 and 2003, including the time when the paper's employees allegedly hacked into the telephone of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler when police were searching for her. That has raised allegations of interfering in a police investigation.


That allegation last week provoked outrage far beyond previous revelations of snooping on celebrities, politicians and top athletes, and knocked billions off the value of News Corp. In quick succession, Murdoch closed the 168-year-old News of the World and abandoned his multibillion-pound attempt to take full control of the lucrative British Sky Broadcasting, while Prime Minister David Cameron appointed a judge to conduct a sweeping inquiry into criminal activity at the paper and in the British media.


Brooks said the debate over her position as CEO of News International was now too much of a distraction for parent company News Corp. and she would concentrate on refuting allegations in the scandal.


"I have believed that the right and responsible action has been to lead us through the heat of the crisis. However my desire to remain on the bridge has made me a focal point of the debate," Brooks said in an email Friday to colleagues that was released by News International. "This is now detracting attention from all our honest endeavors to fix the problems of the past."


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News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch is seen leaving his flat with Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, in central London in this July 10, 2011 file photograph. [Photo/Agencies]

Tom Mockridge, chief executive of News Corp.'s Sky Italia television unit, was appointed to succeed Brooks immediately. Mockridge began his career at a paper in New Zealand and then served as a spokesman for the Australian government before joining News Corp. in 1991.


News Corp. also announced Friday it would run advertisements in all of Britain's national papers this week to "apologize to the nation for what has happened."


"We will follow this up in the future with communications about the actions we have taken to address the wrongdoing that occurred," said James Murdoch, who heads the international operations of the New York-based News Corp. and has been considered to be his father's heir apparent.


He said News Corp. had set up an independent Management & Standards Committee to establish and enforce clear standards of operation.


That was an abrupt shift in tone from Rupert Murdoch's comments Thursday to The Wall Street Journal - one of his own papers - saying that News Corp. management had handled the crisis "extremely well in every way possible" with just a few "minor mistakes."


Brooks has been in charge of News International's four British newspapers since 2007, following a four-year stint as editor of the market-leading daily tabloid, The Sun. Just a week ago, she faced 200 angry employees of News of the World who had lost their jobs when Murdoch shut down the paper amid the scandal.


Murdoch begins series of apologies


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Rupert Murdoch's apology promises further steps "to make amends for the damage caused".



Murdoch began a campaign of contrition and reform Friday, apologizing to the family of a murdered British teenager whose voicemail allegedly was hacked by staffers of News of the World.


"As the founder of the company, I was appalled to find out what happened," Murdoch said after speaking with relatives of Milly Dowler, 13, who went missing and was later found dead. "Of course I apologized."


Murdoch will offer a broader apology to those whose privacy may have been violated by journalists in an ad that is to appear in newspapers Saturday.


Police in the United Kingdom have identified almost 4,000 potential targets of phone hacking. There were also allegations that News Corp. reporters may have bribed law enforcement officers.


Some of the claims Brooks faces relate to the News of the World's alleged hacking, while she was editor, into Dowler's mobile phone account.



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Staffers were accused of intercepting messages in search of news. They then allegedly deleted messages to keep Dowler's mailbox from filling up, giving her family and friends false hope that the schoolgirl was still alive.


The family's attorney, Mark Lewis, said the family will seek "legal remedies" after their ordeal.


"They were suffering private grief," Lewis said. "People were intruding into it."


Murdoch appeared humble and sincere during the meeting, Lewis added. "He apologized many times."


Murdoch's News of the World, a 168-year-old tabloid that was Britain's biggest Sunday newspaper, folded over the weekend in the wake of accusations that its reporters illegally eavesdropped on the phone messages of murder and terrorism victims, politicians and celebrities.


"We are sorry for the serious wrongdoing that occurred," Murdoch will say in Saturday's ad. "We are deeply sorry for the hurt suffered by the individuals affected."


"The News of the World was in the business of holding others to account. It failed when it came to itself," according to text of the ad provided by News International, which will also express regret for not acting more quickly "to sort things out." (CNN/BBC)



Back to 1970s, the famoous Watergate hacking story made Nixon resigned from the most powerful post in the most powerful country. Now, a similar phone-hacking scandle is shaking the Murdoch's empire. Will Murdoch follow the old path of Nixon and finally bring an end to his magnificant empire? If the answer is a "yes," then a worldwide "earthquake" can be expected since it is not only the business of a 168-year-old newspaper!
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