Sun team probing "sustained criminality" - source

[dipsydoodle]

(Reuters) - An investigation into Rupert Murdoch's top-selling British newspaper, the Sun, has uncovered evidence that it paid tens of thousands of pounds in retainers to public officials for tipoffs, a source with knowledge of the probe said on Wednesday.

Much of the evidence passed to police has been provided by Murdoch's own News Corp group, and deepens a crisis at the Sun, where officers have arrested nine former and current senior staff in recent weeks over illegal payments.

Murdoch has been trying to regain the high ground ever since an outcry last summer - over revelations that his journalists had hacked the voicemails of crime victims and their families - forced him to close the profitable News of the World title and abort a planned multibillion-dollar buyout of Britain's biggest satellite broadcaster.

"This is not about sources or expenses, this is an investigation into serious suspected criminality over a sustained period," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/15/uk-newscorp-sun-police-idUKTRE81E1DU20120215

Sun staff line up human rights challenge to News Corp inquiry team.

Senior journalists at the Sun are preparing to launch a legal challenge to the News Corporation unit that disclosed confidential sources to the police, leading to the arrest of nine of the paper's current and former staff this month.

Journalists at the News International red-top have approached the National Union of Journalists with a view to hiring the leading human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson QC, to question the legality of parent company News Corp's management and standards committee.

The NUJ has been contacted by more than a dozen journalists from the Sun with concerns about the protection of sources, it is understood.

The potential legal challenge represents a dramatic new front in the civil war at Rupert Murdoch's Wapping newspaper headquarters on the eve of his arrival in London to deal with the crisis at the Sun.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/15/sun-staff-news-corp-inquiry?newsfeed=true

[DCKit]

1. Guess Rupert didn't think to get the laws against bribing public officials changed...

before bribing public officials. Or did he just think he was above the law?

Makes one wonder just how deep NewsCorpse is into our own government, how much dirt they're holding over our Congressional Senators and Representatives.

[Nostradammit]

2. I don't really wonder at all.

I just assume they are so deep into our own government that the average Republican, were he/she to become suddenly and fully aware of it, would be clamoring for their heads.

The threads seem to be consistently unraveling on the emperor's clothes in England.

Godspeed their final undoing - though the thought of a naked Rupert is truly nauseating.

[BlueToTheBone]

7. eww! Truly nauseating.

Now I have to go wash my brain!

[dipsydoodle]

4. What you're referring to

is in fact our Official Secrets Act.

It was nearly used against the Guardian but the CPP / DPP backed down : http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/16/phone-hacking-met-court-order Nobody know the full background to that yet. It was what followed on from the Guardian making the mistake of publishing the name of someone the police had arrested BEFORE the name had been released by the police.

In this instance its beginning to look like some of the police etc involved were actually on the Sun's payroll.

[oldironside]

3. No sympathy for any of them.

The Sun journos are whining that it's just not fair. Tough. When did they ever have any compassion for anybody else?

You couldn't make it up: Sun staff hope Strasbourg can save them from Murdoch

The crisis in Rupert Murdoch's news empire deepened last night when Sun journalists began planning legal action against their employer with the help of two things they have previously shunned – the Human Rights Act and the National Union of Journalists.

Several senior journalists have contacted the NUJ – to which they do not belong because News International has its own staff organisation – seeking its help in putting together a case claiming that the parent company has breached their right to freedom of expression by passing information about their sources to the Metropolitan Police.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/you-couldnt-make-it-up-sun-staff-hope-strasbourg-can-save-them-from-murdoch-6953004.html

This is what Schadenfreude was invented for.

[dipsydoodle]

5. They joined the NUJ to get their help

which the NUJ seems to have welcomed.

[oldironside]

6. I'm sure the NUJ was glad of the members...

and I bet they couldn't resist a little "I told you so" as they signed them up.

It doesn't diminish the shocking hypocrisy of the senior Sun journos who've spent the last 20 years trumpeting an anti-Union, anti-EU view. As soon as it's their jobs/liberty on the chopping block they sing from a totally different hymn sheet.

These people were Murdoch's propaganda arm in his assault on all we hold dear and as such I feel no guilt about saying: "Serves you bloody well right!"

[BlueToTheBone]

8. If they were American, I would call them

Republicans.