Guardian: Survey USA poll finds 73% suspect Murdoch outlets in US of similar activity

[seafan]

At the Guardian news Blog:

Posted by Peter Walker, Paul Owen and David Batty Thursday 21 July 2011 09.47 BST

8.49pm: My colleague Ed Pilkington in New York writes that a poll has found that the majority of Americans want an investigation into whether News Corporation hacked into the phones of any US citizens or broke any other laws in their country.

The poll carried out by Survey USA on behalf of the monitoring group Media Matters underlines how closely the UK scandal over phone hacking is being watched by Americans. Of the 1,200 adults sampled, 72% said they were very or somewhat familiar with news stories about phone hacking and payments to police in the UK.

Suspicions about News Corporations activities are running high in America. Some 73% of respondents said they thought it very or somewhat likely that similar activity had occurred at Rupert Murdoch's news outlets in the US.

A resounding 77% thought that the justice department should look into any illegal activities by News Corp in America – showing wide public backing to the decision of the attorney general, announced last week, to begin a preliminary investigation. Similarly, 73% supported the decision of the FBI to investigate hacking of cell phones belonging to US citizens.

The FBI is looking into allegations that News of the World journalists tried to gain phone records of 9/11 victims, though as yet no convincing evidence has been produced of such a ploy.

Americans are paying close attention. This is tremendous news.


All hands on deck.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. yep. why would their illegal activity be kept in one country

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, seafan.

[ladjf]

3. We need proof. nt

[malaise]

4. People are smart

Lil Jimmy (Mr. Slick) is up shite creek without a paddle