Nick Davies and David Leigh report: "Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account, his legal file as well as his family's medical records. Separately, Brown's tax paperwork was taken from his accountant's office apparently by hacking into the firm's computer. This was passed to another newspaper."
News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch arrives at his residence in central London as more allegations of hacking emerge, 07/11/11. (photo: Sang Tan/AP)
Murdoch's Papers Hacked Into Prime Minister's Records
11 July 11
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News International papers targeted Gordon Brown. Newspapers obtained details from the former prime minister's bank account and legal file and his family's medical records.
ournalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account and legal file as well as his family's medical records.
There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him. That investigator also targeted another Labour MP who was the subject of hostile inquiries by the News of the World, but it is not confirmed whether News International was specifically involved in trawling police computers for information on Brown.
Separately, Brown's tax paperwork was taken from his accountant's office apparently by hacking into the firm's computer. This was passed to another newspaper.
Brown was targeted during a period of more than 10 years, both as chancellor of the exchequer and as prime minister. Some of the activity clearly was illegal. Other incidents breached his privacy but not the law. An investigation by the Guardian has found that:
- Scotland Yard has discovered references to Brown and his wife, Sarah, in paperwork seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who specialised in phone hacking for the News of the World.
- Abbey National bank found evidence suggesting that a "blagger" acting for the Sunday Times on six occasions posed as Brown and gained details from his account.
- London lawyers Allen & Overy were tricked into handing over details from his file by a conman working for the Sunday Times.
- Details from his infant son's medical records were obtained by the Sun, who published a story about the child's serious illness.
Brown joins a long list of Labour politicians who are known to have been targeted by private investigators working for News International, including the former prime minister Tony Blair and his media adviser Alastair Campbell, the former deputy prime minister John Prescott and his political adviser Joan Hammell, Peter Mandelson as trade secretary, Jack Straw and David Blunkett as home secretaries, Tessa Jowell as media secretary and her special adviser Bill Bush, and Chris Bryant as minister for Europe.
The sheer scale of the data assault on Brown is unusual, with evidence of attempts to obtain his legal, financial, tax, medical and police records as well as to listen to his voicemail. All of these incidents are linked to media organisations. In many cases, there is evidence of a link to News International.
Scotland Yard recently wrote separately to Brown and to his wife to tell them that their details had been found in evidence collected by Operation Weeting, the special inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World. It is believed that this refers to handwritten notes kept by Mulcaire, which were seized by police in August 2006 and never previously investigated. Brown last year asked Scotland Yard if there was evidence he had been targeted by the private investigator and was told there was none.
Journalists who have worked at News International say they believe Brown's personal bank account was accessed on several occasions while he was chancellor. An internal inquiry by Abbey National's fraud department found that during January 2000 someone acting on behalf of the Sunday Times contacted their Bradford call centre six times, posing as Brown, and succeeded in extracting details from his account.
Abbey National's senior lawyer sent a summary of their findings to the editor of the Sunday Times, John Witherow, concluding: "On the basis of these facts and inquiries, I am drawn to the conclusion that someone from the Sunday Times or acting on its behalf has masqueraded as Mr Brown for the purpose of obtaining information from Abbey National by deception."
Abbey National were not able to identify the bogus caller who tricked their staff. It is a matter of public record that a Sunday Times reporter frequently used the services of a former actor, John Ford, who specialised in "blagging" confidential data from banks, phone companies and the Inland Revenue (now HM Revenue & Customs).
Also in January 2000, one of the paper's reporters used a conman named Barry Beardall, who was subsequently jailed for fraud, to trick staff at Allen & Overy into handing over details from his personal file.
A tape made by Beardall at the time reveals that he claimed to be an accountant from the "Dealson group of companies" and that they were interested in buying Brown's flat. Beardall also practised trickery in an attempt to provide Sunday Times stories about Blair, when he was prime minister, and Labour's candidate for the mayor of London, Frank Dobson.
Confidential health records for Brown's family have reached the media on two different occasions. In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed his cystic fibrosis.
On the Sun's website it claims it 'set the news agenda' by 'breaking the sad news that Gordon Brown's baby boy Fraser has Cystic Fibrosis.' This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it were in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story.
Five years earlier, when their first child, Jennifer, was born on 28 December 2001, a small group of specialist doctors and nurses was aware that she had suffered a brain haemorrhage and was dying. By some means which has not been discovered, this highly sensitive information was obtained by news organisations, who published it over the weekend before Jennifer died, on Monday 6 January 2002.
In 2003, Devon and Cornwall police discovered that one of their junior officers was providing information from the police national computer to a network of private investigators. The Guardian has established that one of these investigators, Glen Lawson of Abbey Investigations in Newcastle upon Tyne, used this contact to commission a search of police records for information about Brown on 16 November 2000. Lawson also commissioned searches related to two other Labour MPs, Nick Brown and Martin Salter.
Lawson made these searches on behalf of journalists, a previously unreported court hearing was told. Transcripts obtained by the Guardian show that the search on Martin Salter was made at a time when the News of the World, then edited by Brooks, was attacking him for refusing to support the paper's notorious "Sarah's law" campaign to name paedophiles. Lawson currently refuses to name the journalists who commissioned him.
An attempt to prosecute this network was blocked by a West Country judge, Paul Darlow, who shocked police by ruling that it would be a misuse of public money to pursue the case. However, Devon and Cornwall police contacted the office of the then chancellor to warn him that he had been a victim, as they also did with his two Labour colleagues.
Brown's tax paperwork was obtained from the offices of his accountants, Auerbach Hope, in late 1998.
The first sign that the records had been taken came when a journalist from the now defunct Sunday Business called the accountants to say that they had been passed a copy of the records, including a schedule of Brown's income for the most recent year. The journalist acknowledged that the paperwork showed no sign of any kind of wrongdoing on Brown's part but wanted to do a story about the fact that it had been stolen.
Police came and found no sign of any break-in. The originals of the documents were still in Brown's file, which ruled out the possibility that they had been taken from the firm's dustbins.
Auerbach Hope discounted theft by an insider on the grounds that they would have stolen paperwork which showed wrongdoing and thus had greater media value. They concluded that the most likely explanation was that somebody had hacked into their computer systems, specifically targeting Gordon Brown.
Senior Labour figures also strongly suspect that a news organisation broke the law to obtain the emails that led to the resignation in April 2009 of Brown's close aide Damian McBride. The emails, which disclosed a scheme to smear Tory MPs, had been exchanged between McBride and a Labour party activist, Derek Draper. The Labour figures believe that the emails were hacked from Draper's computer and that their contents were then sent to the political blogger Guido Fawkes, whose stories were then followed by Fleet Street. News International said in a statement: "We note the allegations made today concerning the reporting of matters relating to Gordon Brown. So that we can investigate these matters further, we ask that all information concerning these allegations is provided to us."
David Muir, one of Mr Brown's most senior advisers at No 10, said: "They were contacted by Rebekah Brooks, who told them that they had information that Fraser had cystic fibrosis, which was a matter that they, the family, were just getting their heads around at the time and dealing with.
"And you've got to remember this is just after they had suffered the bereavement with Jennifer (the Browns' first child, who died soon after she was born) as well.
"They didn't know how Rebekah came across this information and now, what's come to light, it was obtained by what appeared to be illegal methods."
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Yep. Adolph Hitler told his people, in 1933, that God was on their side. They believed him.
If prohibition on alcohol, illegal drugs, and illegal thugs failed because criminals get what they want anyways, what makes you think a prohibition on guns will do any more good?
You might end up in the very situation of bringing a knife to a gunfight!
http://signon.org/sign/ask-nh-chiefs-of-police?source=c.em.cp&r_by=6908476
Thanks!
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911 ... it took the Newtown police 20 minutes to respond. How long does it take where you live? Sandy Hook Elementary was a Gun-free Zone. That didn't work very well. You want to make the US a Gun-free Zone? About mind-boggling idiots, Barbara....let' s not go there.
Switzerland learned a long time ago that healthy citizens make a healthier country, both mentally and physically, and that militaristic aggression only leads to death and destruction.
Never compare the U.S. to a country as Switzerland.
We no longer have a good government. Read the Declaration of Independence. It is time for us to form a new government.
And your terroristic threats are the very thing that could get you swept away never to be seen again, merely because of your words...freedom of speech has ended. You, like all of us, are in danger.
The rebels of 130 years ago were a minority, they had few men-o-war or cannon, but they succeeded. But then King George was a clumsy tyrant, and today's tyrants move more slowly and cautiously. Like a stalking crocodile, they move silently until...SNAPPP. ..too late.
Democracy is a process that ensusres that the people get the government they deserve. That the bankers broke our economy and aren't being prosecuted is because Americans voted for politicians who sided with the bankers who have hightly paid lobbyists looking out for them. What should the people do?
Interesting question: Does the Social Contract imply tacit agreement to annihilate mankind in the Nuclear Age?
We keep blaming the politicians but it is we who are to blame. So few of us participate. Most of us do not. So we deserve the govt we get. We need more to participate but that would require us to be good sports and realize we do not always win. We are a nation that only wants winners and promotes win at all costs. We are a Republic but how many know what that means? It does not mean we are not a democracy. It means the govt is owned by the people and not a monarchy and/or an elite class. We have a form of democracy called representative democracy. That does not mean we just sit at home and do nothing.
So what the people should do is get civics classes and learn the branches of govt. They should learn classical roman govt and see how ours was modeled after then to better understand our system. We should demand BETTER representation and as to why is the House limited in seats when the Constitution makes no limits. We need to demand gerrymandering stop and demand its control be set to non partisan control. We need to demand publicly funded elections and end the corporate take over of our govts.
Our form of government was NOT modeled after the Roman Republic, but after the Iroquois Confederation and suggested by Benjamin Franklin. Felix Cohen proposed, in a 1952 article called "Americanizing the White Man," That "(historians) have seen America only as an imitation of Europe," but that "the real epic of America is the yet unfinished story of the Americanization of the white man."
The DOI follows Rousseau's theory of social contract. The constitution follow's Locke's theory. Rousseau's social contract is an agreement among people about their interests and government is a by-product of a community contract.
This is the foundation of good government. The Dec of Ind issues the ultimatum to governments -- perform well or we will abolish you.
Too bad no one today has the courage or the intelligence to write a Declaration of Independence against the Washington Regime which is probably at least 10000000 times worse than the British ever were.
However A person does have the right to self defense and it does not require more a than ten round magazine to accomplish that task. Anyone who is addicted to some pacifistic fetish and thinks all situations can be resolved peacefully, seems as logical as some scientific illiterate that espouses creationism and thinks of some tell lie evangelist as learned individual . Evolution states those suited for survival are those who survive !!! How . has Pacifism ever been a tool other than national extinction or personal demise ?
Well, Ghandi overthrew the British Empire with pacifism and gave India back her sovereignty.
BTW, isn't your best defense plain old common sense?
They couldn't mount a credible arguement against single payer health care, so they used fear. They said single payer is "socialism", "government control of our bodies", and will have "death panels" to deny seniors the care they need to stay alive. And many, many Americans fell for it.
The other day Obama said that gun control people need to listen to weapons- toters. Baloney! With all due respect, baloney. Don't dsss you base to appease the crazies! You did that with health care reform and look at the fix we're in! The ACA is horribly lacking.
The more we cede to the crazies the more they will want. And they'll use God as a backdrop to justify their screed whenever they think it will help.
Inherent rights be their source from Nature or God are those things that can not be given by government or a gang or an individual.
Right to life, and the liberty to pursue of happiness is an inherent right to living human beans.
Anyone who believes that there is a right to the life of another believes in a slave state.
The ability to destroy those inherent rights is not the same as the ability to create them : Once the government or a thug kills some one there is not oops here is your life back.
Political privileges are social contract confused as rights. Today you have a right to walk through my yard, tomorrow you do not, the day after that you can again -- political privileges can be granted or revoked at political fiat.
Most of our alleged "rights" are privileges granted to some at the forced expense of others.
A right to life requires a right to defend that life.
As I said before nature has no rights. What you keep stating are human constructs of what it believes are rights.
A bear has no more a right to the salmon it fished out of a stream than the salmon has a right to swim up it to spawn. Don't both have a right to this life you speak of? Do not both have the right to pursue this happiness? Or did both pursue it but the bear got it? Or should the salmon have had an assault rifle?
If taking away your ability to buy an assault rifle and magazines larger than 10 rounds takes away your right to defend your self then why does not the ban of ANY weapon take away that ability? Why does a bazooka not make me better to defend myself Martin? Full auto weapons? Mortars? Why not claymores in the front yard and back? Why not a low yield tactical nuke? These are all inherent rights by some magical nature. If all of those being banned do not take away my ability to defend myself then why does an assault rifle ban etc do so?
In adopting the new Constitution John Jay said Americans would be giving up some rights in order to empower the new government with its needed authority.
One of the rights American gave up was the right to be totally free of restrictions to "defend" oneself at the expense of others. That is reflected in the Constitution where it says Congress has the power to arm and discipline the militia, which is every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 49, according to the Founders.
And "taking away your ability to buy an assault rifle and magazines larger than 10 rounds" is exactly one of the rights Americans give up in order that Congress has the power to arm and discipline the militia.
For some reason, those who claim to honor the "original intent" of the Founders can't seem to find this "original intent" when it's spelled out in easy-to-read English right in front of their faces.
I ask this not to be pedantic, but because the above problems do not necessarily respond to the same medicine.
Then comes a swat team to save them all.
This is real and is insane. The gun issue is out of control. I am much more afraid of the rabid gun lobbyists and defensive citizens than I was of the threat of atomic war, blowing cities and families away, depicted in documentaries shown every Saturday matinee.
Have you ever been in a school? Teachers are trained to protect the students - tornado training, fire, earthquake - not take up a gun and blast away. You want a firefight in a school? How about where YOUR kids go to school?
It'll be your only defense when the government knocks on your door with F22 Raptors and Hellfire missiles to confiscate your assault rifle.
Don't forget to stand your ground and vote for people handing your social security over to wall street, too.
god also wants you to believe in the two party scam. It's your only defense against thinking.
What about the argument that since this god inspired the framers, he also must have inspired the 2nd Amendment (so clear in its wording and intent that it's downright godly!)?
Yes the phenomenon of mass shootings has only become tragically commonplace during the past decade or so? Why? Most of the shooters did not have misnamed "assault weapons". They did, however, have an insane desire to kill.
We will do far better to look very closely into what creates such monsters. We just might find an answer. Turning currently law-abiding Americans into criminals will only compound, not solve, a very real problem.
When civil authorities went into the Garden of Gethsemane to serve an arrest warrant on Jesus Christ, Peter took out his sword and cut off the ear of the head priest's servant. Christ admonished Peter and told him to put away his weapon and submit to civil authority.
This is a basic tenet of Christianity, but "true believers" can't find it. David Koresh of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas, couldn't find it even though his followers thought him to be Christ incarnate. Randy Weaver of Ruby Ridge in Idaho, who claimed to find justification in the Bible for his white-supremacy beliefs, couldn't find this most-obvious Christian principle.
Now we have people, given space in publications such as the National Journal, who also can't find what is plainly in front of them but will spout off in ignorance.
John Locke's assertion that "people must give up to the government their natural right to punish criminal behavior and agree to have the government settle grievances" is exactly what our first Chief Justice John Jay told Americans in adopting their new Constitution, although his statement referred to much more than just criminal behavior. Guess right-wingers can't find that also.
I told him to go to Hell.
The military oath pledges to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic...
Governments at the time of the revolution were powerful, but not beyond a fighting citizenry as it is now.
I don't really think jerryball, was commenting on fighting the government - he mentioned fighting outside threats, but we have turned on each other, which the ole forefathers never imagined in the incidents we are seeing today.
Without a firm grasp on the facts in the Sandy Hook case, our politicians are jumping the gun, literally. Without knowing that it was Adam Lanza fingerprints on the guns? Or the magazines? Or on the steering wheel of the car that was alleged to be his? Or on the assault rifle? What was his time of death? How did the assault rifle get out to the car in the parking lot before he allegedly shot himself? Is it his mother's car or the car of Christopher Rodia, a career petty felon facing several indictments? This brings still more questions.
How can anyone make rational decisions with incomplete,inco nsistent, and anomalous forensics? How can politicians be so certain that the problem was a lack of gun control in a state with very stringent gun control laws already? Was Adam Lanza taking prescription drugs for his Asperger's Syndrome, pyschotropic drugs such as SSRIs that effect suicical and homicidal behaviors in people under the age of 24? If so, there is a much more clear and present danger from a commonly prescribed class of drugs than from assault rifles. Looking back at the shooters from Columbine forward, nearly all of them were using such drugs & under the age of 24. What's the real cause of this tragedy
Yes, though, robcarter.vn, the U.S. is living the old testament and emulating the Jews leaving the desert hellbent on ridding the world of everybody not accepting their new religion. That includes their own citizens.
We have the advantage of seeing what effect gun bans can have on gun violence, because both the U.K. and Australia have removed most of the weapons from their citizens.
Do your own research, do not let hysterical reactions guide your decisions. This tactic of rolling out victims to sway the vote is inflammatory at best and more akin to outright propaganda.
It has been the Northern Hemisphere that has produced all this crap, the atom bomb that has actually been used against Japan, even the Climate Change has prediminately been a northern problem! Both World Wars (and the Cold War inclusive) have been initiated in the Northern Hemisphere!
Too many people in the north as illustrated both by China and India! I am not aware that South Africa, Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Australia/New Zealand has overpopulation cisis like the north. Hell, even the ONLY 'gem' on the African Continent which respects human rights (today) is in the south! South Africa! So I think that I am going to move there to the Southern Hemisphere! Sayonara north!
Don't say I didn't warn you!
Number two: Once again the Middle East or sometimes referred to as the Near-East is STILL WITHIN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHER! (Pisst! Hey dude, it is still NORTH of the Equator! Go look at an atlas -- or better yet Wiki it)!
But from what I have ascertaind through my own research, with exception perhaps to Post War Japan, the Southern Hemisphere being less popualated in gereral seems to be a tad bit more civilised and more genuinely better behaved. That is my personal opinion, if you choose to differ, please, be my guest!
Thanks!