NoTW (News of The World and privacy)

[SeanMacGabhann]

MP's claim a whole bunch of sometimes ludicrous and sometimes legitimate expenses, amounting to not much more than what they should be payed as a salary anyway = a mass feeding frenzy of condemnation

The mere suggestion of ID cards and the elected government tracking you = campaigns and righteous fury

the News of the World (and effectively the Sun) go illegaly fishing for tittle-tattle by hacking people's phones, listening to their voicemails and reading text messages and not a peeep!! And your future PM Cameron actually defends them!!!

What is the matter with people??

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/5785465/Police-examine-News-of-the-World-phone-tap-claims.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/08/murdoch-papers-phone-hacking

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/09/newsoftheworld-newsinternational

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8141884.stm

Mail and Times seem less interested - gobsmackingly enough

(my pc isn't letting me tag links for some reason - sorry)

[red devil]

he's actually defending Andy Coulson, previous NOTW editor, now a Tory spin meister, as one of the newspaper articles stated, the first rule of spin is not to persoanlly become a news item, nice one Andy!

I'm really going to enjoy this...

[Keef]

Not a word from me, because this is the first I'd heard. Bloody shocking behaviour if proven!

[Jeremy]

Good post SM, it puts some of the big "news" stories into perspective.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Good correction red devil

Given that Murdoch controls the news supply for a lot of people in the country it's possibly not surprising a lot of people may not know about it yet (which has long been an argument against his accumulation of media outlets)

[silverfox]

Hang on to your hat Sean, this one's going to run and it's not just the (Murdoch) press who'll be implicated - most big companies wouldn't be doing their jobs properly if they didn't do something similar.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Really silverfox?

Most big companies will say in their contracts with employees that their phones will be monitored at work. Ditto customers to those companies. Anything else is a big no no. Are you suggesting big companies are listening in to your personal phone calls at home and on your mobile?

[Nero]

Used to buy the Times occasionally, but won't from now on. I realise that won't cause the demise of Mr Murdoch, but it is - quite literally - the least I can do.

[silverfox]

No, I'm not important enough and have no terrorist inclinations. But if I was a big player, say going for a big banking position or sensitive govt position enquiries would be made into my background, lifestyle etc. Similarly, if I was a film star, there's big money to be made with tittle-tattle and gossip in our celebrity obsessed culture. For example, if I was editor of the NoTW and didn't have a posse of journalists and photographers waiting outside some hilltop village in Italy hoping for a scoop on Wayne Rooney's wedding I wouldn't be editor for long.

I'm not saying it's ethical or even legal, rather that it's commonplace.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Where is AllforNun when you need him/her to complain about a media organisation burying a story?

[antijen]

Over one million sites on phone hacking tools, and your surprised Sean?? I think the politicians, should have there own little personal drone (remote control little helicopter filming) following them, seriously though, when techniques that are so obviously available to the public, cant believe politicians, people in the public eye aren't aware of phone tapping.

[SeanMacGabhann]

What do you think I'm surprised by antjen?

The fact that it goes on? Nope

The fact that politicians aren't aware? I disagree they aren't aware

The only thing I'm surprised by is the lack of public outcry now the facts have been published

I'm not as anti politician as many on here, but this isn't about them - it's the non-political figures. I have a hard time dealing with Vanessa Feltz, but the fact that she has been subjected to this by the NoTW absolutely repulses me. And yet the NoTW moralises regularly on teh conduct of politcians and others in the public sphere

[antijen]

Happens all the time Sean, but what I'm saying is its much closer to your own door, I put a thread up about peoples civil liberties "drones at Stonehenge" on this forum, technology taking away freedom and apart from honaloo posting a joke there was nothing, but no I wasnt surprised, the fact it has been published, makes me suspicious or do they really believe that we believe they didnt know, what kind of public outcry did you expect.

[giggirl]

Civil liberties just aren't sexy. Sometimes when I've had a glass of red I'll start banging on about the erosion of civil liberties and the "thin end of the wedge" and I usually find that people's eyes glaze over. Maybe it's me that's not sexy!

There are so many celebs involved in this story that maybe that?ll be enough to sex it up and it will get the public outrage it deserves. God forbid they hacked Peter & Jordan, I can see the headlines in OK Magazine now! Hack into a cabinet minister?s phone and you?ll get a paragraph on page five; but Gwynnie Paltrow ? that?s front page news surely?

When exactly did I get this cynical?

[antijen]

Change from our goverment being guilty.

http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=59918

[antijen]

http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=59918

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1576937/Phones-tapped-at-the-rate-of-1000-a-day.html

As I said, happens every day

[silverfox]

Only thing is Antijen, Sean is referring to (allegedly) illegal ops. The examples you show are, to whatever degree, somehow justified by the powers that be under laws and regulations.

The NoTW (allegedly) has been naughty for using info obtained on it's behalf by private investigators using illegal methods. Their Royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, previously took the rap and went to prison for an earlier incident. Now we are being told the practice is more widespread and systemic. It is a scandal and there should be an outcry against such practices. I suspect this may be a slow-burner until more details are revealed.

[antijen]

Yes silverfox your right they were illegal methods but it has been argued time and time again, that these methods are being used on the public everyday within the law and are being abused, that to me equals illegal. It doesnt surprise me that the papers will behave in this way and I'm sure this is not just done to people in the public eye.

[bon3yard]

Peter Oborne did a brilliant piece on this on Charlie Brookers Newswipe. He refers to it as the 'Dark Arts'...buggered if I can find it on YouTube though. Let the conspiracy theories commence...

[SeanMacGabhann]

this bit?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXFIwnV3y0k&feature=related

You might mean a different one but still good

But I wouldn't want this to be a politicians v media debate. Politics is one thing and people have been absolutely vehement in there hatred of them

The media doing something like this seems to warrant a shrug - and they are arguably far more powerful

[silverfox]

I must admit I thought this subject would be more explosive than it has been. However I see it's still rumbling along with the latest suggestions that the princes may have been hacked.

[Ted Max]

It's not over yet.

Phone operators say that over 100 accounts were hacked. Not "a handful".

Also, Max Clifford's lawyers have obtained disclosure of evidence that the NoTW wanted kept secret...

Jeremy Reed, Clifford's barrister, said the documents would help disprove the paper's claim that it generally did not do "naughty things".

He told the court: "The documents are likely to illustrate the modus operandi of the News of the World's journalists when seeking private and confidential information about individuals for the purposes of stories being written about them." Anthony Hudson, counsel for the News of the World, said the paper resisted the disclosure of the documents, arguing they were irrelevant to Clifford's claim and contained no information about the publicist.

He did not dispute the contents of the information commissioner's evidence which alleges that 27 News of the World reporters paid the investigator, Stephen Whittamore, to obtain personal data. One submitted 130 requests.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/03/news-of-the-world-phone-hacking

[silverfox]

I see Stuart Kuttner stepped down/was moved last summer. As managing editor he would have signed off/approved the invoices.

'Stuart Kuttner steps down as News of the World managing editor' http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/08/stuart-kuttner-news-of-the-world-managing-editor-steps-down

[ruffers]

Coulson lives on Wood Vale, there was couple of reporters hanging around outside his house when this first came out.

[Ted Max]

Gotcha.

Told you.