Two weeks into the latest stage of the scandal over phone hacking and other illegal activities by Rupert Murdoch’s News International group in Britain, revelations continue to pour out, each more damaging than the last.
It has been revealed that News of the World, which endlessly banged the drum of “law and order,” over the course of many years tapped into the mobile phones of thousands of people, including politicians, government ministers, police, members of the royal family, film celebrities and journalists.
It and other Murdoch newspapers stand accused of illegally obtaining the personal records of prominent government officials. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has accused Murdoch’s Sunday Times of using “known criminals” to access his financial and legal files, with the aim of “bringing me down as a government minister.”
These accusations have been accompanied by numerous reports of the Murdoch press’s modus operandi of bribery, blackmail and intimidation.
Yet, despite the professed moral outrage of the government and opposition parties, nothing has been done to prepare a criminal investigation into the allegations. The premises of News International should long ago have been declared a crime scene. Instead, the government, by refusing to take even the most basic steps to secure evidence of wrong-doing, is facilitating a cover-up.
It has been reported that thousands, and perhaps millions, of emails relating to the scandal have already been erased by a News International executive. But nothing has been done to stop the destruction of potentially incriminating evidence. No computers have been impounded, no hard-drives seized, no minutes of board meetings subpoenaed.
The promise of a parliamentary inquiry to report months, if not years, from now is being used for the primary purpose of enabling Murdoch’s media group to destroy evidence of illegal activity and buy time to organise a whitewash.
The police have not even called in for questioning the figures at the centre of the allegations, such as the former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, currently the chief executive of News International, Rupert Murdoch’s son James, chairman of News International, or the big boss himself.
Just three individuals have been questioned by the police, including Andy Coulson, editor at the News of the World between 2003 and 2007 and Prime Minister David Cameron’s director of communications until January. None have been charged.
The entire response of both the governing parties—the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats—and the opposition Labour Party to the exposure of the criminal operations of Murdoch has been focused on protecting the international press mogul known to many as the “Dirty Digger”. Every institution of the capitalist state—the major parties, the government, Parliament, the courts, the police—is implicated in Murdoch’s crimes. They are all to one degree or another on the billionaire press baron’s payroll, and have all been involved in covering up for his mafia-like methods. [...]
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