Murdoch wiretap woes now domestic

WASHINGTON – The phone hacking scandal that has ignited a political firestorm in Britain jumped the Atlantic on Thursday as the FBI opened an investigation into whether British reporters tried to access cellphone messages and records of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in violation of U.S. law.

The preliminary probe further rattled the New York-based global media empire of Rupert Murdoch, who was forced this week to withdraw his $12 billion bid to take over Britain’s largest satellite broadcaster, and raises new questions about the future of News Corp.

U.S. officials said the FBI is trying to determine if a full investigation is warranted, and no evidence has yet emerged to confirm that News Corp. employees sought to hack phones in the United States. But the unfolding scandal sent the company’s battered stock down another 3 percent in trading.

The FBI’s New York field office launched the investigation after several members of Congress urged an inquiry into British media reports that journalists at News Corp.’s recently closed News of the World tabloid in London had tried to gain access to phones of Sept. 11 victims and the families of those who died, according to federal law enforcement officials.

“We are doing this based on their requests,” said one official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is under way. “But after reviewing the letters and their allegations, and after consultation with the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, we are proceeding.”

Felony convictions in a U.S. court could imperil the 27 federal licenses that News Corp. uses to operate TV stations across the country. The stations are part of the Fox Broadcasting Co. network.

Overall, News Corp.’s U.S. holdings are larger and more profitable than those in Britain. They include the 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Wall Street Journal and New York Post newspapers, and HarperCollins Publishing.

Facing an angry backlash by lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic, Murdoch told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday that corporate executives would create an independent, internal committee to “investigate every charge of improper conduct.”

Murdoch defended his company’s handling of the widening controversy, saying executives had made only “minor mistakes.”

Murdoch said he was “getting annoyed” with media coverage of the scandal but said, “I’ll get over it.” He predicted the financial and political damage to News Corp. is “nothing that will not be recovered.”

A News Corp. spokesman said the company had no public comment on the FBI investigation.

In a letter Wednesday to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, had cited reports that News of the World journalists “attempted to obtain phone records of victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 through bribery and unauthorized wiretapping.”

He also cited reports that the reporters had solicited a New York police officer “to gain access to the content of private phone records” of the Sept. 11 victims.

Paul Browne, deputy commissioner for the New York Police Department, said the New York police officer no longer is a city employee and now works as a private investigator. It was in that capacity that the newspaper was reportedly soliciting help, Browne said.

Browne added that “we have no inquiry” under way at the NYPD, deferring instead to federal investigators. “This would be at the federal level,” he said.