phone hacking

It's looking like Fox could be involved in some phone hacking also:

According to former Fox News executive Dan Cooper, whose gripes with his former employer run quite deep after being fired in 1996, Fox News chief Roger Ailes allegedly had him design the so-called "Brain Room" to facilitate counter-intelligence efforts and other "black ops."

In a lengthy 2008 diatribe said to have doubled as a book pitch, Cooper claimed his own phone records had been hacked by Fox News employees, who he says used them to pinpoint him as a source used by David Brock, who founded liberal watchdog group Media Matters.

"Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview," he wrote. "Certainly Brock didn't tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock's telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation's New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie."

Given what's happening in London, this report must be taken very seriously. It's time for congressional hearing and a full blown investigation by the Justice Department. If News Corp is found to have engaged in this highly illegal activity, Ruppert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and anyone else involved must be prosecuted to the fullest extent and News Corp must be taken over by the government and broken up. If that doesn't happen then why even say we are nation of justice?

I think that is the $1 million dollar question right now:

Rupert Murdoch donated $1m to a pro-business lobby in the US months before the group launched a high-profile campaign to alter the anti-bribery law – the same law that could potentially be brought to bear against News Corporation over the phone-hacking scandal.

News Corporation contributed $1m to the US Chamber of Commerce last summer. In October the chamber put forward a six-point programme for amending the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, a law that punishes US-based companies for engaging in the bribery of foreign officials.

News Corp swears up and down that they don't bribe...honest engine!

News Corporation, which has its headquarters in the US, emphasises in its corporate literature that it has a global anti-bribery policy. "We don't offer, give, solicit or accept bribes or kickbacks, either in cash or in the form of any other thing or service of value," it says.

Sure - just like Fox news is "fair and balanced".

It seems like every statement made by News Corp or the Murdochs is quickly invalidated by new evidence coming out. News Corp doesn't engage in bribes, yet they decided to pay $1 million to lobbyists to soften anti-bribery laws? The old adage, "if you don't break the law, you have nothing to worry about" seems to come to mind.

The phone hacking scandal that has plagued the U.K. and gripped the attention of the world could really come home here in the U.S. now. News Corp is an American corporation, and while the entire hacking scandal has been solely in the U.K. (as far as we know), the U.S. does have laws against what News Corp is accused of:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp could face probes by U.S. authorities for possibly violating bribery laws, compounding the media mogul's problems after a phone-hacking scandal in Britain.

The Obama administration has significantly stepped up enforcement of anti-bribery laws in the last two years, winning big settlements from the likes of Daimler AG and BAE Systems Plc by focusing on bribes they paid to foreign officials to win lucrative contracts.

Bribes for business have represented the bulk of these anti-bribery cases brought by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is unclear whether U.S. authorities would use scarce resources to probe News Corp over bribes allegedly paid to British police and other officials for information that became news scoops.

This would be huge if it actually happens. Some might claim that the law can't be enforced since the alleged crimes happened in another country, but that isn't the case. A prime example is child sex laws. Fly over sees to rent a 14 year old hooker and once back in the U.S., you can be arrested. This is something that has been on the books and successfully prosecuted for years.

Of course this also means that the Murdoch supporters on the right will soon cry political-foul. It's already starting. Here's how Drudge is pushing this story right now: