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July 14, 2011 in Nation/World
FBI probing News Corp. 9/11 phone link
NEW YORK — The FBI has opened an investigation into allegations that media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. sought to hack into the phones of Sept. 11 victims, a law enforcement official said Thursday.
The decision to investigate was made after U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Republican, wrote FBI Director Robert Mueller demanding an investigation, said the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. The FBI had received letters from King and other members of Congress.
News Corp., based in New York, has been in crisis mode because of a scandal that sank its U.K. newspaper the News of the World.
A rival newspaper reported last week that the News of the World had hacked into the phone of U.K. teenage murder victim Milly Dowler in 2002 and may have impeded a police investigation into her disappearance.
More possible victims soon emerged: other child murder victims, 2005 London bombing victims, the families of dead soldiers and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The FBI’s New York office didn’t immediately comment Thursday. There was no immediate response to a phone message left for News Corp. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan referred a call to the Department of Justice, which declined immediate comment.
On Thursday, Murdoch caved in to pressure from Britain’s Parliament as he and his son James first refused, then agreed, to appear next week before lawmakers investigating phone hacking and bribery by employees of their newspaper empire.
Murdoch began his media career in Australia in 1952 after inheriting The News newspaper after the death of his father, and he has built News Corp. into one of the world’s biggest media groups. Assets include Fox News, the 20th Century Fox movie studio, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and three newspapers in Britain — down from four with the death of the News of the World.
Also Thursday, Scotland Yard said it had made its seventh arrest related to the inquiry into phone hacking at the now-defunct tabloid, whose closure was a doomed effort to keep alive a bid for the highly profitable network British Sky Broadcasting. Police didn’t disclose the name of the arrested man.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Stocks plummet as outlook in Europe dims 
detroitdude on July 14 at 12:21 p.m.
Is anyone surprised by this? Really?
MrNatural on July 14 at 1:16 p.m.
Yeah Right…Muduck’s political shills will come to his rescue and this will be just as criminally convoluted and unyielding as the Scooter Libby investigation…
meadman on July 14 at 4:30 p.m.
The best course of action –— find the proof (I”m sure it is there), convict Murdock and any of his lieutenants, and throw their sorry A$$es prison (AFTER taking away all his FCC licenses). America would be far better and better informed as a result
hawken on July 14 at 5:41 p.m.
Nonsense.
Indicting Rupert Murdoch in the press and on this web site, for this, is like indicting Obama for the crimes of a low level, US Government spy.
Even I wouldn’t do that.
DickAdams on July 14 at 6:26 p.m.
Big brother should talk.
misjustice on July 14 at 6:53 p.m.
Hmmmm, seven arrests and counting…
nslopeofw on July 14 at 9:17 p.m.
Interesting piece on how much fox news parent company News Corp. paid in taxes vs. MSNBC parent company GE. Seems NC paid $4.8 billion in taxes on $10.4 billion at a tax rate of 46% (for those of you who think big corp.s are not paying enough taxes), while GE paid zip.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jack-coleman/2011/07/14/smug-ed-schultz-forced-admit-huge-blunder-about-news-corp
greenlibertarian on July 14 at 11:02 p.m.
Ed Shultz, who I couldn’t give a damn about, at least directly provided a correction to his story about NewsCorp, doubt Faux news ever does.
MSNBC is NOT charged with hacking into people’s phones. NewsCorp is.
GE’s lack of paying corporate taxes is regrettable, but perfectly legal, given enough accountants. Such are the ridiculous loopholes in the tax code.
nslopeofw on July 15 at 6:53 a.m.
OK, Green-
I hope you remember that for future conversations. Its regrettable?
misjustice on July 15 at 11:09 p.m.
The ONLY reason north pretends to care about GE’s taxes is because of MSNBC…usually he is a cheerleader for corporations and if a progressive calls out corporations for not paying their fair share he calls us jealous or accuses us of waging “class warfare”…
Just sayin’…