Phone hacking: 'The whole political system has failed'

[marmar]

Phone hacking: 'The whole political system has failed'
An edited version of Chris Bryant's speech at the emergency debate on phone hacking in the House of Commons on Wednesday 6 July 2011

Chris Bryant
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 July 2011


At 8.50 am tomorrow, it will be six years since the London bombings, which saw 52 people murdered and 700 injured. Today we hear that the police are investigating whether the mobile phones of several of those who lost family members in those attacks were hacked by the News of the World. One such family member spoke – very movingly, I thought – on the Today programme this morning. Another has been in touch with me and there may be several others. In addition, I am told that the police are looking not just at Milly Dowler's phone and the phones of the families of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

The charge sheet is even longer, unfortunately. I am told that the News of the World also hacked the phones of police officers, including those investigating the still unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan. This is particularly worrying considering the collapse of the long-delayed trial of the private investigator, Jonathan Rees, who also worked for newspapers, earlier this year. Scandalously, it also seems that the News of the World targeted some of those police officers who were, at various times, in charge of the investigation into the News of the World itself. We can only speculate, Mr Speaker, on why they would want to do that.

These are not just the amoral actions of some lone private investigator tied to a rogue News of the World reporter; they are the immoral and almost certainly criminal deeds of an organisation that was appallingly led and had completely lost sight of any idea of decency or shared humanity. The private voicemail messages of victims of crime should never, ever have become a commodity to be traded between journalists and private investigators for a cheap story and a quick sale, and I know that the vast majority of journalists in this country would agree with that.

If we want to understand the complete moral failure here, we need only listen to the words of Mr Glenn Mulcaire himself: "Working for the News of the World was never easy. There was relentless pressure. There was a constant demand for results. I knew what we did pushed the limits ethically. But, at the time, I didn't understand that I had broken the law at all." .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/07/phone-hacking-chris-bryant

[bemildred]

1. Exactly. nt

[damntexdem]

2. Organized crime.

And Murdoch is the head of the crime family.

[Doctor_J]

3. and that's the optimistic viewpoint

the pessimist would say that's it's succeded exactly as planned.

[The Second Stone]

4. It would be interesting to see if the Brits have any backbone

left at all. Prosecute the criminal enterprise and all the criminals involved and make them disgorge all profits. Put the sleaze in gaol.