back to article NotW reporter accused of hacking over 100 mobiles

Disgraced former News of World royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, and a private eye accomplice, Glenn Mulcaire, allegedly tapped into the voice-mail records of far more celebrities and public figures than previously admitted according to mobile phone records. The pair were jailed in 2007 after both pleaded guilty to hacking …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. breakfast Silver badge

    civilities

    If they were informed of it, could the people subjected to these hacks enter into civil procedings against the NOTW.

  2. theblackhand
    Thumb Down

    The question is...

    ...how is the Guardian getting the information from the mobile phone companies? Is it by legal means? Or are they campaigning for compensation for the victims?

    The NotW reporters are supposed to have accessed mobile phone voicemail using default or guessed passwords and ended up in jail for a few months. What does the Guardian want? For the reporters to be executed for crimes against those who didn't know any better?

    Ahh - here's the answer, it's an attempt to smear the tories in the run up to an election:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/01/now-phone-hacking-scandal

    "And it puts new pressure on David Cameron's media adviser, Andy Coulson, who edited the paper at the time of the illegal activity and who has said repeatedly that he does not recall any of his journalists being involved in hacking anyone's voicemail messages."

    1. blackworx
      Unhappy

      Yeah, but...

      Considering Andy Coulson is usually the one running the smearing (or worse) I'm willing to forgive the Guardian this one. Seems pretty clear to me they're not making anything up. The sad thing is that this carry on (both the voicemail tapping and the smearing) is the expected norm. How long now before we have wholly US-style diversionary "politics"?

      1. theblackhand

        Re: Yeah, but...

        The police looked into the matter, they were able to prove a crime had been committed and those responsible were punished.

        I would guess the police chose to only prosecute with a handful of cases because the punishment wouldn't differ between 5 cases and 100 but would provide the defence with a potential loophole if problems were found with some of the investigations in all 100 cases or would have caused the case to take longer at a higher cost to tax payers.

        Andy Coulson may have instructed the reporters to access the voicemail ("tapping" implies listening in on a conversation and "interception" implies that you prevent the intended recipient recieving the message), but proving it would be impraticial if no witnesses or evidence is available to the police.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Instincts of the Britards

      "Ahh - here's the answer, it's an attempt to smear the tories in the run up to an election"

      Oh, yes: it's all about the Tories. No, Labour! "'Cause The Grauniad's a Labour paper, right?"

      How about it being about people doing bad things en route to a government post getting away with those bad things? Why can't the Britards stop framing everything political (and even non-political) as a Labour versus the Tories, football-supporter-level jeering contest, nodding in violent agreement as their news source of choice just tells them more things they want to believe?

      And it's not as if anyone needs to smear the Tories, exactly. Many of the Tory top table could slide into a room without moving their legs, and the same could be said about various other members of the Britard political elite.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Not just those two

    I think those within NOTW who knew about the scam should be in prison and left there to rot. Also, the management of News International, right up to the top. They were all complicit in the whole incident and were making money out of it.

  4. TeeCee Gold badge
    Grenade

    Editor not involved?

    Hmm, can anyone think of any other Tabloid editors who've got away with a crime scot free which a couple of his foot soldiers have gone down for?

    Think pump 'n dump stock scams if it helps.

    1. Magnus_Pym

      Print Tabloid Editor

      We know they will make shit up, defame the innocent, incite hated of all kinds and seek to influence public opinion for fun and profit. it is virtually the job description. Surely it would be easier to just imprison them as soon as they agree to take the post.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Eh?

    "The Guardian says it has discovered from mobile operators that "more than 100 customers" had mobile phone voice-mail messages accessed by phone numbers used by Goodman and Mulcaire"

    And how did the Grauniad "discover" this without breaking the law?

    Mr Kettle? I've got Mr Pot on line two for you.

    Like politcians many journalists are corrupt, and the bigger the paper (or other oraganisation) they work for the more corrupt they are likely to be. Given the rate the Grauniad is going down the tubes their journalists must be getting less corrupt by the minute.

    Is it lunchtime yet?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Who cares?

    Celebrity... blah blah blah.

    1. Apdsmith

      Re: Who Cares?

      Who cares? Andy Coulson is likely to be a member of the next government, and clearly believes that privacy is only important as long as it doesn't get in his way. You might find that he finds all of the rather shady tricks new labour have been up to recently too convenient to get rid of, and he's got Dave's ear, that's his job, remember?

  7. davefb

    does nobody read the article?

    It states they know, because the put an FOI request in about the investigation. Obviously they probably knew anyway, but they probably wanted to show that the police also know.

    Grief, if this was the other way round (say something campbell had done), the tabloids would be full of it..

  8. Catkins
    Linux

    @theblackhand

    From the linked Guardian article it appears that a lot of the info was gleaned from Freedom of Information requests.

    If the Guardian story is correct the Met Police seem to have covered up a great deal of what was going on, publicly claiming that only a 'handful' of people were hacked, when in fact they had found pin codes for over 90 people held by the NOTW.

    It appears that the police withheld this information from the original trial, didn't bother to investigate the crimes, and breached an undertaking to the Direcor of Public Prosecutions that all victims would be contacted and told that their security had been breached, despite being in possession of tapes and transcripts of intercepted messages.

    What exactly are the police playing at here?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    "the Met Police seem to have covered up a great deal of what was going on"

    Gosh, fancy that.

    (Sorry, but it has to be said. Maybe it should have its own iCon).

    "What exactly are the police playing at here?"

    Same game the Met have been playing for years. I say the Met specifically because I've had some dealings with other forces and on the whole the Met seem to be on a different planet, both on the front line and in HQ. The only Thames Valley bloke I ever had a problem with gave the game away one day when he said "Before I was here, when I was in the Met (etc)". Others may have different experiences, but those are mine.

    BTW, since when has accessing someone's voicemail using their usual voicemail PIN been properly classed as "hacking"? There may be some social engineering or downright bribery here, but I see little evidence of hacking as such.

  10. Tom Paine
    Happy

    Private Eye

    Private Eye readers with the fortitude to read some of the 8-point-type articles have been following this for several years now. Far from being "an attempt to smear the Tories", Cameron's had plenty of opportunities to ditch Coulson, who's obviously going to be a liability as long as he stays in that position, in the past. The closer it gets to the election, the bigger a disaster it will be for the Tories, and the more crap will stick to their brand. They've only got themselves to blame!

  11. Matt D 3
    Stop

    It was hacking.

    hack 1 (hk)

    v. hacked, hack·ing, hacks

    1. To cut or chop with repeated and irregular blows: hacked down the saplings.

    2. To break up the surface of (soil).

    3.

    a). Informal To alter (a computer program): hacked her text editor to read HTML.

    b). To gain access to (a computer file or network) illegally or without authorization: hacked the firm's personnel database.

    Read 3b again. "To gain access to (a computer file or network) illegally or without authorization." The access to the voicemail account was both illegal and without authorisation. The voicemails were, not to put to fine a point on it, hacked. The fact that they used the correct PIN numbers is irrelevant.

    Stop. As in "stop moaning about the perfectly accurate use of a word."

  12. J 3
    Big Brother

    What did you expect?

    Conservatives, using illegal/immoral/questionable/disgusting (delete/add as appropriate) practices again?

    Shock, horror, etc.

    Not that all other political groups don't do such things now and then. Most, if not all, do. But conservatives are always the dirtiest, for some reason, at least in the three countries I know at least relatively well.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like