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[lemon10]

Meh, I don't think that News corp is stupid enough to do something like that.
Possible Benefit: Scare other people into not whistle blowing? (and that's only if they believe news corp did it).
Possible Repercussions if caught: Huge, to the extent that News Corp would have SERIOUS problems, it might not destroy the company, but most of/all of its international holdings would be sold off, and its stock would drop by a crazy amount.

Sure, maybe News Corp might do something if they had something to gain, but I don't believe it would be done simply out of revenge.

[Aqizzar]

I think his theory is that NewsCorp has nothing to do with any deaths, but rather that it was the work of (dun dun dun) the Metropolitan Police.  Police bribery and corruption is also a big part of this event, and the chief resigned almost immediately despite no personal implication, and they (as the law enforcement) would have the means and wherewithal to kill people, rig the official findings, and lock away the case.

I for one think that whatever the fairly street-level foibles of the Met Police already on the table, there wouldn't be nearly enough endemic, absolutely cold corruption of enough officers to do something like that, right at the moment that the world is watching them for bad behavior.  It's just a little too far fetched for me.

[Leafsnail]

George Webley seems to be an unbelievably minor whistleblower.  I mean, he didn't actually work on any NotW project - he just made a relatively tiny allegation against a Sky News programme in the 1990s (which I don't think anyone really knew about until after his death).  I mean... if you're gonna murder your critics, why go for the small ones and not, say, Nick Davies (the investigative journalist with almost complete responsibility for destroying the NotW).

[RF]

Meh, I don't think that News corp is stupid enough to do something like that.
Possible Benefit: Scare other people into not whistle blowing? (and that's only if they believe news corp did it).
Possible Repercussions if caught: Huge, to the extent that News Corp would have SERIOUS problems, it might not destroy the company, but most of/all of its international holdings would be sold off, and its stock would drop by a crazy amount.

Sure, maybe News Corp might do something if they had something to gain, but I don't believe it would be done simply out of revenge.

The same reason they've closed down News of the World? Destruction of evidence. News of the World was closed down as "legal" way of destroying as many records as humanly possible, therefore getting rid of possible papertrails.

And before you all start saying how this is silly and too big a loophole etc, let me give you an example of what "cowboy" (unlicensed and untrained) tradesmen do: They close up shop if someone catches them as a phony tradesman and then start up a new business with a new name but in the exact same business. They're not liable for the old company's issues (such as debts, people requiring work finished etc) and so carry on merrily, usually repeating this every once in awhile.

I think his theory is that NewsCorp has nothing to do with any deaths, but rather that it was the work of (dun dun dun) the Metropolitan Police.  Police bribery and corruption is also a big part of this event, and the chief resigned almost immediately despite no personal implication, and they (as the law enforcement) would have the means and wherewithal to kill people, rig the official findings, and lock away the case.

I for one think that whatever the fairly street-level foibles of the Met Police already on the table, there wouldn't be nearly enough endemic, absolutely cold corruption of enough officers to do something like that, right at the moment that the world is watching them for bad behavior.  It's just a little too far fetched for me.

Not so certain of that. After what's happened in the past with police corruption in regards to unnecessary brutality and (at times) deaths of innocents, it's not certain how far they'd sink.

[Africa]

This just blowed up again. Some people from NewsCorp are saying James Murdoch had seen some evidence of hacking which he told Parliament he hadn't seen. This is getting realer and realer by the day.

[Aqizzar]

Thought this story was dead and gone, didn't you?  Well, it was.  Everyone involved managed to get tighted-lipped enough that there was effectively nothing to say about what was happening at NewsCorp of Britain, except for a couple days ago, when an assistant editor was arrested.  Big deal, right.

Except that today, a new piece of evidence in the hacking case.  More than four years ago, Clive Goodman - an editor at News of the World at the time, now arrested - wrote a letter to the paper's Human Resources department contesting his abrupt termination.  The letter was just found and published, wherein he complains that hacking (nor his criminal record) could not have been proper cause for termination, since everyone was doing it apparently.  That publish has the names blanked out, but people are certainly acting like it says something important, and Murdoch will be going back to Parliament soon.

[Africa]

I love watching this thing blow up more and more.

[lemon10]

Thought this story was dead and gone, didn't you?  Well, it was.  Everyone involved managed to get tighted-lipped enough that there was effectively nothing to say about what was happening at NewsCorp of Britain, except for a couple days ago, when an assistant editor was arrested.  Big deal, right.

Except that today, a new piece of evidence in the hacking case.  More than four years ago, Clive Goodman - an editor at News of the World at the time, now arrested - wrote a letter to the paper's Human Resources department contesting his abrupt termination.  The letter was just found and published, wherein he complains that hacking (nor his criminal record) could not have been proper cause for termination, since everyone was doing it apparently.  That publish has the names blanked out, but people are certainly acting like it says something important, and Murdoch will be going back to Parliament soon.

Dangnabit, everytime I hear some awesome news and am like "as soon as I get home out of the car I'm going to post a update/start a thread on B12, you beat me by hours (given that I was going to post at three but checked and you already posted).

On topic though, watching this happen to newscorp is pretty fun.

[nenjin]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/08/17/uk.phone.hacking/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

It's nice to see that people in power get off the hook just as easily over in Britain as they do over here. Stephenson actually has the balls to sound "put upon" by all these investigations. "I regret that British criminal investigators felt it necessary to spend resources on investigating me. I'm glad that formal charges have been dropped in the phone hacking investigation against me, but I regret that people still feel it necessary to investigate my possible misuse of my office to hire a relative of someone directly involved in the phone hacking scandal to a high level position."

At best I think middle level people are going to take the fall for this one. Everyone else from Murdoch to British officials are going to either get exonerated or if they can, will resign to save face and go home will all their benefits intact.