Rupe Murdoch's Morally Bankrupt News Crews

E-mails are surfacing that show how extensively Rupert Murdoch's operators in the UK corrupted government and police officials.  News International had claimed that the voicemail hacking was a "rogue" operation.   Apparently not.

The head of the police inquiry into phone hacking, Detective Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, said police were investigating ''a network of corrupt officials'', some of whom had been placed on retainer by The Sun.

She said payments were authorised at a senior level on the paper and emails indicated journalists recognised it was illegal, ''reference being made to staff 'risking losing their pension or job', to the need for 'care' and to the need for 'cash payments'. There is also an indication of 'tradecraft', by hiding cash payments to 'sources' through making them to a friend or relative of the source.''

She said that nearly all of the payments to public officials related not to stories in the public interest but to ''salacious gossip'' and breaches of trust and privacy.

...The critical email that reveals News International was leaked information about the police inquiry into its malpractices undermines the company's initial claim that hacking was confined to a single rogue reporter.

The email was written by the head of legal affairs, Tom Crone, to the News of the World editor Andy Coulson on September 15, 2006, and was based on what Mr Crone had been told by Rebekah Wade (later Rebekah Brooks), then editor of The Sun, who had been given a police briefing.

News International is beginning to take on the appearance of a true criminal organization.   From the top down they seemed to have known what they were doing, that it was illegal, and that they should even employ 'tradecraft' techniques to conceal their activities.  They sought out and then corrupted public officials including police officials.