I do wish it'd be reclassed as "interception of voicemail" - because that's what it is. It's, by definition, not hacking. Nor is it by definition, phone tapping (both, particularly the former, have been used endlessly to 'sex up' this story ... a story that, frankly, doesn't require sexing up ... but that's the news media for you  ).
Anyway - it's trying to access someone's voicemail by seeing if the password hasn't been changed by the user (from, for example, 12345) - if it hasn't, they gain access that way. That's not hacking - the ones who had messages successfully read without their consent didn't bother changing their password for their voicemail, and some right bastards from the newspapers (and not just the NOTD - indeed, the Mirror is the scummiest and low-down tabloid out there) have gone fishing for gossip, tittle-tattle, and sexed-up 'copy' for their stories to feed an insatiable public need for gossip and tittle-tattle that results in plenty of cash-money ... so considering some of the piousness from some sectors of the media, they should shut the fuck up and act like proper journalists (unlike Johann Hari, for example - but that's a separate journalism scandal) and ask some bloody questions.
The first of which should have been (months, or indeed years ago) - "if the NOTW is up to this, who else is up to it, and indeed what else are they up to?" - and yet that hasn't been asked. It's 100% untrue that the NOTW is the only one guilty of voicemail interception (and other such illegal practices to get stories), and frankly it's disgusting (on top of the sheer disgust of this story itself) that all the other stones are being left unturned while this rages on. In other words - I call bullshit on the media itself - and I do hope that the dirty practices are not only stopped (at all newspapers), but that they're exposed ... ... did I mention the Daily Mirror? Guido Fawkes showed them to be the dirtiest of the lot sodding months ago ... it's amazing that professional journalists don't do the digging that the blogosphere does.
The mainstream journos are just a bunch of press release churning pointless expenses-happy, self-important wankers who believe themselves to be Woodward & Bernstein (when they're anything but). That goes for television journalists too - particularly news presenters/commentators.
/rant 
-- -------- Post added at 06:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:54 PM ----------
And another thing - I'm sick of all this 'guilty until proven innocent' garbage that the likes of Ed Milliband pushes all the time. No, in our society - as has been the case for so long now - you are innocent until proven guilty. The operative word being proven - you need proof.
Coulson was convicted of anything, there was no evidence to do so - but he was bad news nonetheless - a tainted brand, hence he went ... which reminds me, Miliband and Labour should watch their mouths and stop throwing stones about the glass house, what with having Tom Baldwin in the equivalient position in their team (another former NOTW guy). Nor can it be turned to anyone's advantage politically, because the worlds of politics and the media are so closely reliant on one another, it doesn't matter who is in power, there'll be a now-toxic-but-not-then editor of the NOTW or whatever who was hobnobbing with Prime Ministers at Christmas Parties stretching back to whenever ... they joined Dave at a party, but they also joined the Son of the Manse, and Bliar at similar shindigs ... ... so yeah - glass houses, throwing stones, etc.
So - being that a police investigation into all this is underway - surely it was stupid of Miliband to froth at the mouth (stones, glass houses, remember) ... you can't get involved in an on-going police investigation ... that's, you know, what's the concept? Oh yeah - that's how the fucking law works, you dumb shit!
Investigations have to be conducted, without outside influence, proof has to be found, trials have to be conducted - and then only then can someone possibly be convicted. Indeed, they might very well be foudn *shock horror* innocent of something. The trouble is that shit sticks and the smell lingers around the afflicted from there-on afterwards, regardless of the fact they've been proven innocent. It's something that is perpetuated by the newspaper and TV news industries, who have little regard for the rule of law and the respect of an innocent verdict ... this assumed guilt bullshit, and this guilt by association. It's pretty ridiculous, and well, it's just not cricket ... the media perpetuates it, and of course it then sinks into the populace at large. We've all been guilty of presuming someone to be guilty - just by their names being associated with something - a suggestion is made (sometimes based on literally fuck all evidence) and the mental link has been made to ruin a reputation.
Indeed it's been shown to happen time and again with high profile murder cases - you get people who are totally innocent being hounded by the press, getting presumed guilt thrust upon them, and then oh hang about, they're totally innocent afterall. Nevermind, we won't apologise to them for ruining their lives, let's go and chase this ambulance over here, or make up some horse shit over there, or what have you...
/rant #2
-- -------- Post added at 07:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:52 PM ----------
And this is worth a squizz:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehou...wont-say.thtml
Remember Operation Motorman? You may not, because little was made it at the time — and nothing like the current phone hacking furore. Yet many of the themes are identical. In 2003, a private investigator called Steve Whittamore was busted. His job was to simply to snoop out information for various newspaper groups, often using illegal methods. They'd pay him, he'd hand over the information. It really was that simple. Until, that is, the Information Commissioner got its hands on his records, which included details of some of the transactions made between him and his client journalists. By 2006, it had emerged how many journalists had been caught paying Whittamore for information, and which publications they worked for. It was by no means limited to one or two titles, but dozens. In his cover piece for The Spectator this week (available to read here), Peter Oborne writes of that case: "The truth is that very few newspapers can declare themselves entirely innocent of buying illegal information from private detectives." Writing for the Evening Standard yesterday, our former editor Matthew d'Ancona also alighted on the Whittamore scandal. "It does not excuse any of the terrible things the News of the World is presently alleged to have done," he observes, "But it does provide some perspective."
We added a pair of graphs to Peter's article, which I've pasted at the top of this post for CoffeeHousers. They reveal a striking correlation. Turns out, those papers whose journalists were most implicated in the Whittamore bust are also those who have devoted the least number of reports to the phone hacking story. A coincidence? Perhaps. But, in any case, it certainly doesn’t inspire confidence.
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Originally Posted by Rancid Carcass
I get to hear what all these super injunctions are about as well, obviously I keep it quiet though as I cant afford lawsuits on my paupers slary!
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