March 19, 2024

Precautions at New York Post as Tabloid Inquiry Expands

An e-mail to Post journalists on Friday afternoon said News Corporation lawyers had ordered them not to discard anything that relates to any unauthorized access of personal data or payments to government officials.

The directive was the clearest sign yet that the company’s lawyers believe the scope of two early-stage investigations in the United States — one into whether journalists working for the company sought access to phone records of 9/11 victims and another into whether payments to the British police by News Corporation employees violated American law — could broaden.

News Corporation officials did not comment on the matter. But the notice raised the possibility that the firm either has received a subpoena for such documents, or has been notified by prosecutors that a subpoena is coming, legal specialists said.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that such a subpoena was being drafted, and it has been anticipated since July 15, when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. acknowledged that the Justice Department had opened an investigation into whether American laws were violated.

The notice appears to be limited to The Post. The Wall Street Journal, which News Corporation purchased in 2007, did not receive similar instructions.

The Post’s editor, Col Allan, told employees that the instructions were being made out of an abundance of caution, not because any illegal acts had been uncovered at The Post.

“As we watched the news in the U.K. over the last few weeks, we knew that as a News Corporation tabloid, we would be looked at more closely. So this is not unexpected,” he wrote. “I am sorry for any inconvenience.”

Officials familiar with the investigation, who declined to be identified discussing department inquiries, said that the Justice Department’s criminal division is examining whether any of the suspected bribes in Britain made by reporters from News Corporation tabloids violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York is examining whether there were any voice mail intrusions on United States soil.

The Justice Department has declined to comment about the status of the proposed subpoena. Under department rules, such a move would have to be personally approved by Mr. Holder because of the delicacy involved in demanding information about news-gathering from a press outlet, which is protected by the First Amendment.

The American investigation faces steep hurdles, including a five-year statute of limitations for bringing charges. The dates of the suspected abuses remain unclear.

Officials familiar with the British investigation have said that there is evidence suggesting that News Corporation reporters may have paid £130,000 to law enforcement officers over a four- to five-year period, and Scotland Yard raided the office of News Corporation’s News of the World newspaper in August 2006 in connection with the allegations. If that raid brought a halt to any illegal activities, then the statute of limitations in the United States may be about to expire.

Legal specialists said, however, that prosecutors may have asked a court to stop the clock on the statute of limitations on the grounds that investigators have asked for assistance from Scotland Yard. If so, then offenses from July 2006 could be prosecuted later.

Tracy Schmaler, a department spokeswoman, said she could not comment about a continuing investigation.

Jeremy W. Peters reported from New York, and Charlie Savage from Washington.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/world/30post.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Murdochs Deny That They Knew of Illegal Acts

In two hours of intense questioning broken only by a bizarre incident in which Mr. Murdoch was accosted with what appeared to be a foil pie plate filled with shaving cream, both he and his son James declared repeatedly that they had been shocked to discover something that has become increasingly apparent: that phone hacking and other illegal behavior were endemic at their News of the World tabloid, which is now defunct.

Even so, the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks, a former editor at the paper who resigned from the News Corporation on Friday, only to be arrested on Sunday on suspicion of phone hacking and bribing the police, apologized again and again for the failures at their company.

“I would just like to say one sentence,” Rupert Murdoch said, breaking at one point into a long answer by his son, the News Corporation’s deputy chief operating officer. “This is the most humble day of my life.”

But his humility did not extend to declaring that he was at fault or that he should step down from his company.

“I feel that people I trusted — I don’t know who, on what level — have let me down, and I think they have behaved disgracefully, and it’s for them to pay,” he said. “And I think, frankly, that I’m the best person to see it through.”

While the elder Mr. Murdoch has long had the reputation of being a hands-on manager, pressing for and savoring the scoops scored by the newspapers he had always felt were the soul of his media empire, he said in his testimony that in the case of The News of the World, he had no knowledge of the specifics of what was going on.

He did not know, for example, that his company had paid confidential out-of-court settlements of £600,000 and £1 million to two victims of phone hacking. Nor, he said, did he know that the company was paying the legal fees of Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator under contract to The News of the World who was convicted in 2007 of hacking into the phones of staff members of the royal family.

James Murdoch said he had not known about paying Mr. Mulcaire’s legal fees either, and was “as surprised as you are that some of these arrangements had been made.”

The Murdochs shut down the tabloid last week in a futile effort to contain a crisis that has also claimed the careers of two high-ranking police officers and two top News Corporation officials, caused the company to withdraw a much-wanted $12 billion takeover bid of a broadcasting company, and led to the arrests of 10 former News of the World editors and reporters.

The hearings (Ms. Brooks appeared separately) provided a gripping spectacle of executives who once commanded unassailable political power enduring sustained questioning from lawmakers enjoying a newfound confidence.

There was Rupert Murdoch, looking every bit his age, appearing at times to lose his concentration and sometimes taking so long to answer questions that he seemed not to have heard them at all. There was James Murdoch, his 38-year-old heir apparent, sharp, engaged and seeming alarmed at the prospect that his father would lose his way, quick to leap in when the elder Mr. Murdoch wavered or appeared uncertain.

Mr. Murdoch’s glamorous wife, Wendi Murdoch, 42, sat directly behind her husband in the visitors’ section of the hearing room. At one point, a man suddenly rose from his seat and advanced on Rupert Murdoch, striking him with what appeared to be a pie tin filled with shaving cream, or possibly custard. That caused Mrs. Murdoch to rise from her chair and slug the attacker with a swift right swing.

The committee chairman, John Whittingdale, a Consevative member of Parliament, hastily declared a short recess.

The attacker was later identified in British news reports as Jonathan May-Bowles, a stand-up comedian. According to The Guardian, he was sending Twitter messages about the incident. “It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat,” the attacker apparently wrote, in a homage to “A Tale of Two Cities,” just before unleashing the foam.

He was escorted from the building in handcuffs.

Alan Cowell, Ravi Somaiya and Graham Bowley contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/world/europe/20hacking.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Workers Reject Union at Target Store

A spokeswoman for Target said early Saturday morning that 137 workers had voted against joining the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, while 85 workers voted for it.

In a statement, the union’s president, Bruce W. Both, said that the workers at the Valley Stream store endured a “campaign of threats, intimidation and illegal acts by Target management,” and that the union would contest the results.

“Target did everything they could to deny these workers a chance at the American dream,” he said. “However, the workers’ pursuit of a better life and the ability to house and feed their families is proving more powerful. These workers are not backing down from this fight. They are demanding another election. They are demanding a fair election. They are demanding justice and they are prepared to fight for it.” 

In the days before the vote, union officials said a victory would be a coup that would create momentum for organizing drives at retail stores not just in New York, but in other states. Target executives repeatedly told the store’s 250 hourly employees that no union was needed and that the union would make work rules more rigid and make it harder for Target to compete.

During the organizing drive, pro-union workers said the main issues included low wages and work assignments that often totaled just 10 or 20 hours a week — not enough, they said, to support themselves or their children.

In meetings and fliers, Target officials told employees that a union could not guarantee better pay or benefits and only wanted their dues. In a move that worried numerous workers, the company said there were no guarantees that the store would remain open if the workers unionized.

The union filed a complaint with the labor board last month asserting that Target had unlawfully prohibited employees from wearing pro-union buttons and from discussing working conditions on online sites. It also said Target had unlawfully threatened employees with dismissal if they spoke about the union and had threatened to close the store if it unionized.

Target officials said that they carefully complied with labor laws during their campaign against the union.

Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a7dfb53adc71fbb73e6b7483a4ceb4fe