The Phone Hacking Scandal

Gandalph

Hey, can someone explain this to me in brief? I have been reading non stop about it but so many stories of X Y Z's phones getting hacked that Im completely lost as to how/why this case was discovered and errupted.

Few questions I have regarding;

- When was the hacking first discovered? (Who was targeted?)
-Why is this such a big deal (Im not saying its not) but have the media not done worse things than read someones text messages?
-Why was it so serious that NOTW had to shut down?

Thanks in advance

DamoKen

think the seriousness of hacking the phone of a missing 13 year old girl who was subsequently found to have been murdered, DELETING voicemail from concerned family and friends and thereby leading to false hope as well as destroying potential evidence for the police not to mention hampering investigation efforts should be self evident.

Just a pity it took a lot more people coming forward before with similar experiences before something was done about it.

brian_t

Gandalph wrote: »

When was the hacking first discovered? (Who was targeted?)

Thanks in advance

The newspapers printed a story about Prince Williams knee injury which the palace authorities decided could only have come from messages left on his phone.

The NOTW shut not because of the hacking per se but because of the potential damage (bad publicity) to Murdochs attempt to gain full controll of BskyB.

BrianD

Hacking is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to generally snooping on people and the NOTW were certainly not the only ones at it.

You'd be happy to turn a blind eye to journos listening to the voicemail of some z list celeb who didn't secure their mailbox.

However, dialing to a dead girls voicemail and deleting messages is just to far. It also potentially disrupted the investigation as both family and police may have thought she was deleting messages and therefore alive (I presume the NOTW had to delete the messages otherwise they would have been 'marked' as read). The interesting thing here is that there would be records of who accessed the mailbox - so did the police know about this a long time ago?

The other side of this story is information for sale and the police using anti-terror laws to get info on people - car ownership details, pinging a phone to fid it's location and so on. There's also the question as to who else has been selling or providing info to journos.

This is going on in Ireland too and there should be more examination into it. Once again we have staff in the Dept. of Social Welfare accessing personal information on clients. Why or what they were doing it for isn't fully explained. One guy was apparently addicted to it but was smart enough to use a Section Account to anonymise his snooping.

IRE60

When was the hacking first discovered? (Who was targeted?)
2006, the royal story

Why is this such a big deal (Im not saying its not) but have the media not done worse things than read someones text messages?
Well, it's the invasion of privacy and all that.

Why was it so serious that NOTW had to shut down?
Basically it was killing their share price. The NOTW contributes less than 1% of turnover, therefore - curtains!

coylemj

Gandalph wrote: »

-Why was it so serious that NOTW had to shut down?

The NOTW didn't have to shut down, almost none of the people involved with the paper when they were involved with phone hacking were still working on the paper. The paper was shut down by Rupert Murdoch as a sacrificial lamb in an attempt to save Rebekah (that's how she spells it) Brooks. That didn't work and she was dumped a week later anyway.

If Murdoch had dumped her and printed a large apology on the NOTW front page it would probably have satisfied most commentators, nobody was pointing the finger at the current NOTW staff but sadly they were made to take the bullet.

BrianD

IRE60 wrote: »

When was the hacking first discovered? (Who was targeted?)
2006, the royal story

Why is this such a big deal (Im not saying its not) but have the media not done worse things than read someones text messages?
Well, it's the invasion of privacy and all that.

Why was it so serious that NOTW had to shut down?
Basically it was killing their share price. The NOTW contributes less than 1% of turnover, therefore - curtains!

Phone hacking has been going on for as long as mobile networks allowed remote access to voicemail and default passwords. Journos have been doing it, business people have been doing it, friends do it and I'm sure lovers do it. It's probably been going on for 20 years?

It is has only really became an issue as a result of politics - if it wasn't this issue it would have been some other issue that would have been used.

It is against the law to do this. Journalists who are in chasing a genuine story that it's in the public interest have been known to break laws.

tawnyowl

BrianD wrote: »

Phone hacking has been going on for as long as mobile networks allowed remote access to voicemail and default passwords. Journos have been doing it, business people have been doing it, friends do it and I'm sure lovers do it. It's probably been going on for 20 years?

It's also in breach of the law - probably the Data Protection Act (1984).

It is has only really became an issue as a result of politics - if it wasn't this issue it would have been some other issue that would have been used.

There's also the matters of the deletion of voicemail messages in in Milly Dowler case - interfering in a police investigation, the allegations of payments to police officers, allegations of deleting emails that were evidence.

tawnyowl

Gandalph wrote: »

Hey, can someone explain this to me in brief? I have been reading non stop about it but so many stories of X Y Z's phones getting hacked that Im completely lost as to how/why this case was discovered and errupted.

Few questions I have regarding;

- When was the hacking first discovered? (Who was targeted?)
-Why is this such a big deal (Im not saying its not) but have the media not done worse things than read someones text messages?
-Why was it so serious that NOTW had to shut down?

Thanks in advance

There's a summary here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/jul/21/phone-hacking-what-happened-when

IRE60

From the Sun today:

A SENIOR Guardian journalist could face a police probe on phone hacking after it emerged he had admitted breaking into a businessman's mobile.
Assistant editor David Leigh made the admission in his own paper - which has led reporting of the hacking scandal - five years ago.

He said he got a "voyeuristic thrill" out of hearing private messages.

coylemj

IRE60 wrote: »

From the Sun today:

A SENIOR Guardian journalist could face a police probe on phone hacking after it emerged he had admitted breaking into a businessman's mobile.
Assistant editor David Leigh made the admission in his own paper - which has led reporting of the hacking scandal - five years ago.

He said he got a "voyeuristic thrill" out of hearing private messages.

The Sun journo who wrote that article will definitely get a Christmas card from Rupert!

IRE60

But doesn't s/he deserve it!

BrianD

tawnyowl wrote: »

It's also in breach of the law - probably the Data Protection Act (1984).
There's also the matters of the deletion of voicemail messages in in Milly Dowler case - interfering in a police investigation, the allegations of payments to police officers, allegations of deleting emails that were evidence.

What I meant that had it not been highlighted because of politics we would probably not know of the Milly Dowler interference, corrupt payments etc. that came out with the wash.