Rupert Murdoch Looks To Buy More Stuff

It seems the hacking scandal mess has not deterred Rupert Murdoch from owning much more of the world than he already does:

The New York Times today is reporting that News Corp NWSA -0.22%. head Rupert Murdoch recently made a friendly bid to buy fellow media giant Time Warner TWX +17.07% for $80 billion. Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes reportedly rejected the deal. News Corp. confirmed that it made the offer but the companies are not in discussion right now.

Murdoch is a mogul who is not easily deterred. This probably won’t be the end of his attempts to buy the company. We’ve seen a ton of media consolidation lately with Comcast CMCSA +0.29% buying Time Warner Cable TWC -0.02% (a spin-off of Time Warner) and AT&T T +0.58% buying DirecTV. A combined News Corp. Time Warner would mean a massive combination of the people who make the content that goes down the pipes being bought and sold in the other big deals. It would cut the number of major Hollywood studios down from six to five.

None of these deals have yet been approved of by regulators in Washington concerned with anti-trust issues. But Murdoch must feel very sure that a Time Warner purchase would be approved or he wouldn’t have made the offer. According to the NYT article, under the terms of the proposed deal, Time Warner would sell off CNN since the station competes directly with News Corp’s Fox News

The Telegraph says this caps a "remarkable turnaround" for Murdoch:

Time Warner has rejected Rupert Murdoch’s $80bn takeover approach, but the octogenarian has a longstanding record of getting what he wants in the end.

It would cap a remarkable turnaround for the man and for his businesses. This time three years ago, the Murdoch media empire had just been plunged in a crisis by revelations that the News of the World had hacked into Milly Dowler’s voicemail.

The British newspaper was a tiny part of a vast global business covering television, film, books, satellite broadcasting, business data and digital media assets, but its misdeeds were grave enough the reaction to them strong enough for commentators to claim Mr Murdoch reign as the world’s top media owner was at an end.

The key decision on the road to recovery was made less than a year after the Milly Dowler scandal broke. In June 2012, News Corp announced it would split. One company, ‘new’ News Corp would be the holding company for Mr Murdoch’s publishing assets, including his British tabloids, which were still toxic at the time.

The other new company, 21st Century Fox, would safeguard the more profitable television and film assets.

It seems evil just lives on and on and on...

Direct Evidence Of Corporate Criminal Activity By News Corporation Surfaces

From The Independent:

Detectives investigating possible corporate charges against Rupert Murdoch's media empire have obtained evidence to suggest that News International paid private detectives to unlawfully access the phone records of a leading IRA mole who lives under the protection of the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Senior Scotland Yard officers are analysing an invoice originally seized from a private investigator by the Metropolitan Police in 2007. The document – which dates from the time of the discredited original phone-hacking investigation – bills News International £850 for "Scappaticci phone records".

At the time the invoice was submitted, in April 2006, a senior News of the World executive had allegedly commissioned private detectives to find Freddie Scappaticci, Britain's top agent inside the IRA who was known by the codename "Stakeknife". David Cameron's former director of communications Andy Coulson was the newspaper's editor at the time. Last week, he was convicted of conspiracy to hack mobile phones.

It is understood the explicit request to be paid for obtaining confidential phone records makes the invoice unique amongst the files held by the Metropolitan Police (Met) – and central to possible corporate charges. The request is effectively asking, in black-and-white, to be compensated for a criminal offence.

... 

Last week, Coulson was convicted of conspiracy to hack mobile phones. Five other News of the World journalists pleaded guilty to similar offences. After an eight-month trial that made headlines around the world, former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was acquitted of four charges.  

However, the conviction of such a senior figure as Coulson has raised the possibility that News International – now rebranded News UK – could face a corporate charge, which may have serious consequences for the ability of the parent company News Corp to operate in the United States. The investigation into News UK as a "corporate suspect" caused pandemonium at the upper echelons of the Murdoch media empire when they learnt of the development two years ago.

Shortly after the company was informed it was under suspicion in May 2012, executives in the US ordered that the company dramatically scale back its co-operation with the Met. A News Corp analysis of the effects of a corporate charge, produced in New York, said the consequences could "kill the corporation, and 46,000 jobs would be in jeopardy".

Lawyers for the media giant pleaded with the Met and the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute the company, saying it would not be in the "public interest" to put thousands of jobs at risk.

Gerson Zweifach, group general counsel of News Corp, flew to London for emergency talks with the Met in 2012. According to Scotland Yard, he told police: "Crappy governance is not a crime. The US authorities' reaction would put the whole business at risk, as licences would be at risk."

I remain skeptical that corporate charges will be filed against News International/News Corporation or hopeful that even if they are, Murdoch's millions won't win the day for the evildoers, as they did in the Brooks case.

But it's becoming increasingly clear that if the Brits want to file corporate charges against Murdoch in the UK, the evidence is there to do so, and with the FBI grabbing 80,000 emails from News Corporation servers last week here in the U.S., there's a good chance the DOJ could mount a criminal case against Murdoch and News Corporation here as well.

What Happens To Rupert Murdoch And News Corporation After Brooks/Coulson Verdict?

Daily News reports the upside:

A lawyer for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp pleaded with British police and prosecutors not to file corporate charges in a phone-hacking scandal, arguing it would be “apocalyptic” for the company, according to a report.

News Corp brass so feared prosecutors would hold the company liable for the phone-hacking mess, they ordered up an analysis that showed such a move would likely doom the media giant.

The consequences of a corporate charge could “kill the corporation and 46,000 jobs would be in jeopardy,” the News Corp analysis concluded, The Independent of Britain reported Wednesday.

The scandal has already cost News Corp a whopping $535 million, including financial settlements with 718 phone-hacking victims, according to figures reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in May.

Word of the turmoil inside News Corp leaked out a day after it was revealed that Scotland Yard detectives have asked to interview Murdoch “under caution” — a warning given to suspects.

On Tuesday, one of Murdoch’s former top honchos, Andy Coulson, was convicted on phone-hacking crimes that occurred under his editorship of the News of the World.

Coulson’s conviction and Murdoch’s pending grilling indicate prosecutors are pursuing corporate charges against Murdoch’s company and could prosecute the 83-year-old media baron himself.

Prosecutors could go after Murdoch under section 79 of Britain’s Regulation and Investigatory Powers Act, which holds company directors liable if evidence shows they consented or connived with the misdeeds of employees.

I'm skeptical the Brits are going to really go after either Murdoch himself or News Corp.

Murdoch paid for Brooks' legal defense in the hacking trial and he won her acquittal.

 

That's not a promising sign for further legal battles against Murdoch or News Corp.

Hoping I'm wrong, though.

Rupert Murdoch To Be Interviewed By Scotland Yard In Hacking Case

From the Daily News:

Scotland Yard detectives plan to interview media mogul Rupert Murdoch about a phone-hacking scandal that led to one of his former top honchos being convicted Tuesday on criminal charges.

Detectives have informed the 83-year-old Murdoch he’ll be grilled “under caution” — a warning given to suspects, according to The Guardian.

The interview is expected to take place in Britain in the near future and could include questions for Murdoch’s son, James, who was executive chairman of News International, the British newspaper reported.

Tuesday’s conviction of Andy Coulson — the disgraced ex-editor of News of the World and one-time flack for Prime Minister David Cameron — could leave Murdoch’s company vulnerable to corporate charges.

Murdoch could wind up being prosecuted under section 79 of Britain’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which holds company directors liable if evidence shows they consented or connived with the wrongdoings of employees.

Company heads can also be prosecuted for violating the act if investigators determine their negligence resulted in the misdeeds of workers.

At least 11 more trials are slated involving 20 other former journalists for News of the World and The Sun, British tabloids owned by Murdoch’s company.

Murdoch also faces a number of civil suits filed by victims whose phones were hacked. His company has already agreed to pay damages to 718 victims.

Scotland Yard detectives had planned to interview Murdoch earlier in the investigation, but a deal was struck to grill him after the trial of Coulson and other officials of News International, now called News UK.

In September, Murdoch’s former right-hand man Les Hinton was interviewed by detectives “under caution” for three hours about the phone hacking scandal

A London jury convicted Coulson of conspiring to intercept communications by eavesdropping on mobile phone voicemails. But the panel acquitted Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, of the same charge, plus bribery and preventing the course of justice.

During the eight-month trial, it was revealed that Brooks and Coulson, both 46, engaged in an extramarital affair while working at the now-defunct News of the World.

“We said long ago, and repeat today, that wrongdoing occurred, and we apologized for it,” Murdoch’s company said in a statement Tuesday.

Too bad Brooks got off in the case.

Spending some time in the big house would have knocked that smirk off her face.

Still, at least Coulson gets prison time and Rupert's got to face the cops and News Corp still has liability in the case.

News Corporation May Face Corporate Charges In U.K. Over Hacking, Bribery

This news won't help the bottom line at Joel Klein's Amplify:

Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper division could face corporate charges in relation to the Metropolitan police's phone-hacking investigation, it has been claimed in a report in the Independent.

Two "very senior figures" at News International, now renamed News UK, have been interviewed in relation to the corporate aspect of the investigation, which is also examining allegations of bribery of public officials, it has emerged.

The allegations indicate that a new line of inquiry is opening into the Murdoch empire, which has potentially serious consequences for News UK, which owns the Sun and the Times. In an attempt at damage limitation following the scandal, News Corp was separated from News UK.

Such an inquiry would mirror events in America, where the department of justice and the FBI are investigating Murdoch's US parent company, News Corp, under the Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act, which can impose severe penalties on companies that bribe foreign officials.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, one of the most vocal critics of News International when phone hacking was uncovered, said the Met had told him they were "actively investigating corporate charges and that they were in correspondence with the American authorities, the FBI".

Bryant said the law in the UK was now as tough as in the US, due to the enactment of the Bribery Act 2010: "Under the Bribery act, the body corporate can have charges laid against it if its corporate governance was so reckless as to be negligent."

The old News Corporation has been broken up into two entities - the entertainment division (21st Century Fox) and the newspaper/publishing/education division (which includes Klein's Amplify.)

Any legal fees, fines and such that come in a U.S. investigation will come out of the newspaper/publishing/education division, since that was where all the hacking and bribery activity occurred.

More than 125 people have been arrested in connection with the various News Corporation hacking/bribery/corruption cases, with more than 40 facing criminal charges.

Rupert Murdoch doesn't seem to be all that concerned with any of this - he just purchased a 5% stake in Vice.

Nonetheless, the News Corporation bribery/hacking/corruption cases bear watching.

London Police Investigate Rupert Murdoch For Conspiracy

From The Guardian:

Detectives are investigating Rupert Murdoch over comments he made in an internal meeting with journalists from the Sun that were secretly recorded.

The Metropolitan police want access to the recording as part of the Operation Elveden inquiry into corrupt payments to public officials, assistant commissioner Cressida Dick said on Tuesday.

It is understood that one of the offences being investigated by the force is conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.

Dick told MPs on the home affairs select committee: "We are seeking to obtain the tape of the meeting during which Rupert Murdoch appears to have been recorded. We will then assess the full contents of that tape."

She refused to be drawn on whether police had already obtained the full tape or whether they were seeking a court order for the media organisation to hand it over. "I am not prepared to go further," she told MPs.

The revelation comes as Murdoch was summoned to appear before the culture, media and sport select committee again over what he said in the March meeting recorded by News International journalists.

Exaro News, the website that published parts of the recording, said on Tuesday it was arranging to supply the evidence to Operation Elveden. Mark Watts, editor of Exaro News, said he was giving the police what had already been published on the website – three audio clips from the meeting.

Murdoch told the journalists that the culture of paying police officers for stories "existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely", and had existed long before Sun journalists had been arrested.

Murdoch also criticised the "incompetent" police investigation that has led to the arrest of so many of his staff.

Through a statement issued by News Corp., Murdoch said he welcomed returning to Parliament to answer their questions.

Interesting developments...

Scotland Yard Seek Tape Of Murdoch Admitting News Corporation Employees Bribed Officials

From The Guardian:

Scotland Yard detectives were on Friday attempting to track down a secret recording of Rupert Murdoch admitting to Sun journalists that payments to public officials were part of "the culture of Fleet Street".

A police officer connected to the Operation Elveden investigation into illicit payments from journalists has made a formal request to Exaro News, the investigations website that broke the story, to hand over the undercover tape.

DCI Laurence Smith told Exaro News that the police would seek a production order compelling it to disclose the recording if it did not do so voluntarily. It is understand the police have also approached Channel 4, which aired a small part of the recordings.

The development is the clearest indication yet that police in London are ready to examine Murdoch's private disclosures since the tapes emerged on Wednesday night. Murdoch is recorded saying the culture of paying police officers for stories "existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely."

Mark Watts, the editor-in-chief of Exaro News, said he had not handed any material to Scotland Yard and the force had not made clear "what they want, or why exactly they want it".

He said: "We are making public everything that we have, and I cannot see how else we can help. Like everyone else, they just need to keep logging on to Exaro. One thing is for certain, unlike News International, we will not – under any circumstances – betray confidential sources."

Although the 82-year-old media mogul did not admit knowing that any of his employees specifically paid public officials, he was recorded on two separate occasions describing the practice as part of the culture of Fleet Street.

On one clip published by Exaro News, an unidentified Sun journalist asks him: "I'm pretty confident that the working practices that I've seen here are ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated. Would you recognise that all this predates many of our involvement here?"

Murdoch replies: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops. That's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it." Earlier in the tape, Murdoch tells the Sun journalists: "I don't know of anybody, or anything, that did anything that wasn't being done across Fleet Street and wasn't the culture."

News UK, formerly known as News International, has maintained that Murdoch "never knew of payments made by Sun staff to police before News Corporation disclosed that to UK authorities". Scotland Yard, meanwhile, said it would not give a "running commentary" on Operation Elveden.
The press law campaign group Hacked Off on Friday urged the Commons culture, media and sport select committee to recall Murdoch, and said he "may have committed contempt of parliament".

Evan Harris, the associate director of the group, wrote to the cross-party committee's chairman, John Whittingdale MP, saying: "There is a strong prima facie case that Mr Murdoch may have committed contempt of parliament by misleading your committee over his true response to the police investigations into phone hacking and bribery of public officials.

"As far as the victims of phone hacking are concerned, the appropriate course of action is for the committee to recall him at the earliest available opportunity to explain the discrepancies between the expressions of remorse he made to you and the defiant and unrepentant tone of his private remarks earlier this year."

Murdoch has squirmed out of trouble before and he may squirm out of trouble here.

We'll just have to see how far these inquiries go and what accountability Murdoch faces.

Chris Bryant, MP: Murdoch Should Be Charged With Corruption In U.S.

The Fourth of July fireworks continue for Rupert Murdoch:

A prominent Labour MP has said US authorities should press corporate corruption charges against Rupert Murdoch's global empire after he admitted in a secretly recorded meeting with staff on the Sun that payments to police were part of "the culture of Fleet Street".

Chris Bryant, who has been compensated for phone hacking by the defunct News of the World, said the latest revelations were "another reason" for the FBI to take action under the foreign corrupt practices act, which makes it an offence for American companies to pay public officials on foreign soil.

The MP for Rhondda said he had spoken to the Met police, and claimed the force had been in touch with the FBI. But he added that he believed the UK authorities were reluctant to consider bringing any corporate corruption charges in the UK because the force was "waiting for Operation Elveden [the investigation into unlawful payments made to public officials] to finish".

Meanwhile, Labour colleague Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, has written to a leading US politician, Senator John D Rockefeller, asking him to ensure the US authorities' investigations into News Corporation "are not inhibited in going to the very top".

The latest scandal over alleged payments to police erupted after Sun journalists secretly taped a 45-minute meeting in March between Murdoch and at least 24 staff who had been arrested in relation to Scotland Yard's Elveden investigation.

Although Murdoch does not admit to knowing that any of his employees specifically paid officials, he is recorded as saying the culture of paying public officials for stories "existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely." Murdoch says he first knew about the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906, which until recently made it a crime to pay police and other public officials, a few weeks before his meeting with staff. The act has since been superseded by the Bribery Act 2010.

On the recording, one unidentified member of staff interjects: "So, completely oblivious to the fact that the long-term practice of this company to pay public officials was illegal, my job description meant that as a result of that, it came directly through my particular department. You can understand how we all feel that we are effectively being made scapegoats."

The News Corporation chief executive replies: "Yeah. And one of these high-priced lawyers would say it's our fault, but that situation existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely. It was the culture of Fleet Street."

But then the media mogul appears to admit he knew it was common practice.
A Sun journalist asks him: "I'm pretty confident that the working practices that I've seen here are ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated. Would you recognise that all this predates many of our involvement here?"

Murdoch says: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops. That's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it."

Bryant believes this is enough for the US authorities to act: "American law is much tougher than UK law: you don't have to prove that a director knew it. The mere fact that a company engaged in paying public officials is enough to bring a body corporate charge … the charge can be brought because the directors did not have a governance system in place to stop it."

He said he had been told by the Met that they had been in talks with the FBI.

Mark Lewis, the lawyer representing the Dowler family and other phone-hacking victims, said Murdoch's private remarks would be held up by lawyers in the US where a number of civil claims are being prepared over phone hacking under various US acts, including the stored communications act and the wiretap act.

He said: "No doubt the FBI will be very interested in comments that suggest a senior director of a company was fully aware of payments to foreign officials. As far as the US claims are concerned, this raises further evidence of knowledge at the highest levels of News Corp of unlawful activities."

The Obama administration will never go after Murdoch, of course.

They're too busy going after whistleblowers in the U.S. government to be bothered prosecuting Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

But as more and more becomes known about how Murdoch's newspapers operated and what he knew about those operations, it's clear the evidence is there to prosecute them under FCPA.

Even if the U.S. government doesn't prosecute Murdoch and News Corporation, you can be sure the Mark Lewis and Norman Siegel will use the latest revelations in the civil cases they're bringing against News Corporation for hacking on U.S. soil.

Collusion Between Murdoch, Thatcher And The London Police: Strikerbreaker Edition

How did Rupert Murdoch and his merry hacksters at News International (the British edition of News Corporation) get so close with the London police?

It goes back to the strikebreaking war Murdoch waged with the help of Margaret Thatcher and the cops back in the eighties:

The investigation of News Corp is not, as Murdoch claims, about "paying cops for news tips": it is about systemic corruption. The deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police at the time, Sue Akers, explained early last year: "The cases we are investigating are not ones involving the odd drink, or meal, to police officers or other public officials. Instead, these are cases in which arrests have been made involving the delivery of regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money to small numbers of public officials by journalists."

One of the decisive moments consolidating Murdoch's relationship to the Metropolitan police was the use of police as armed strikebreakers in the 86-87 Wapping dispute. Margaret Thatcher herself had assured Murdoch that the police would be at his disposal, and their collusion in breaking the strike required an operation costing £14m.

As the Guardian journalist Nick Davies pointed out, this was never simply a matter of criminality. It was always about power. The networks of collusion, bribery and complicity that began to be established in the Thatcher era are beginning to be unravelled.

Murdoch has been pretty skilled at avoiding accountability for helping to set up and support these networks of collusion, bribery, and complicity.

I'm under no illusion that he won't find a way to skate accountability now.

Somebody in the comments wrote the following:

Murdoch is the classic 19th century tycoon. No ethics, no sense of responsibility, no concern for anyone outside of his family and very small circle of personal friends.

His mission has always been to become the richest and most powerful SOB possible. Part of that goal is to bring the world back to the 19th century, when government encouraged that behavior, rather than trying to control it.

That is an excellent description of Murdoch and indeed, a pretty apt description of the world he has helped to usher in.

Think the collusion between FOX and the GOP.

Think the collusion between the NY Post/Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg and Klein.

For Rupert Murdoch, it is all about collusion and systematic corruption mean to enrich and empower himself and his coterie.

Some Fourth Of July Fireworks For Rupert Murdoch

The hacking scandal appears to be a problem for Rupert Murdoch once again.

Not only is his "news" News Corporation having to deal with one and possibly more cases of hacking on U.S. soil that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars in court costs and fees, but now there's a tape out that suggests Rupert Murdoch called for internal management to begin covering up the scandal after they had started cooperating with police:

Labour MP Tom Watson has called on Rupert Murdoch to be questioned by police after a covert recording emerged of him appearing to regret the level of help News Corporation gave to the investigation into alleged wrongdoing at its newspapers.

The News Corporation boss describes payments to police and public officials as "the culture of Fleet Street" in a secret recording made during a meeting with staff from the Sun newspaper this March.

In a transcript of the recording, which was obtained by the investigative website ExaroNews and aired by Channel 4 news on Wednesday evening, he appears to regret the extent of News Corporation's internal management and standards committee's (MSC) co-operation with the police.

After a Sun journalist at the meeting appears in the recording to query the MSC handing over documents to the police, Murdoch is heard saying: "… it was a mistake, I think. But, in that atmosphere, at that time, we said, 'Look, we are an open book, we will show you everything'. And the lawyers just got rich going through millions of emails.

"All I can say is, for the last several months, we have told, the MSC has told, and [**** ****], who's a terrific lawyer, has told the police, has said, 'No, no, no – get a court order. Deal with that.'"

Journalists told Murdoch that they felt like scapegoats and he says: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops: that's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it."

Watson told the Guardian: "I think we need to hear from [Metropolitan police comissioner] Bernard Hogan-Howe when the MSC stopped co-operating with the police inquiry."

In one particularly revealing part of the recording, Murdoch makes reference to those who might succeed him as the head of the media empire. A journalist asks what would happen if the 82-year-old Murdoch was no longer around to give them his support. "The decision would be – well, it will either be with my son, Lachlan, or with Robert Thomson [Murdoch's chief executive at News Corp]. And you don't have any worries about either of them," he tells the meeting.

During the tape, Murdoch accuses the Metropolitan police of incompetence and brands the criminal investigations into journalists as a "disgrace", saying: "The idea that the cops then started coming after you, kick you out of bed, and your families, at six in the morning, is unbelievable."

Watson told Channel 4 News: "What he seems to be saying there is that they stopped co-operating with the police before the Sun staff started to rebel. And what I would like to know is what are they sitting on that they've not given the police. And I'm sure that this transcript and this audiotape should be in the hands of the police tomorrow because I hope that they're going to be interviewing Rupert Murdoch about what he did know about criminality in his organisation."

Roy Greenslade says the tape was leaked by someone on the Sun staff because they're pissed at Murdoch for throwing them under the bus in the scandal:

As for Murdoch, he could be under no illusion about the underlying hostility from staff who felt they were paying the price for doing what was expected of them.

One told me: "We did as we were bid. No-one thought they were doing wrong. There was no training of any kind. No office lawyer raised any question." That genuine feeling of being hung out to dry is shared by almost every one of the arrested journalists.

In the tape Murdoch admits that the culture of bribery the staff engaged in at The Sun and the News of the World had been around at the papers for a long time:

He talks of the News of the World in personal terms: "We got caught with dirty hands, I guess" before launching into a further attack on the police: "The cops are totally incompetent … It's just disgraceful what they're doing … It's the biggest inquiry ever, over next-to-nothing."

A crucial section follows when one of the journalists, who had been with The Sun for under 10 years, points out that the paper's "working practices… were ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated."

Murdoch replies in what will surely be seen as a crucial statement about The Sun's culture and his acceptance of it:

"We're talking about payments for news tips from cops: that's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it."

In my opinion, this offers the journalists a crucial plank of mitigation for their actions. It is also a reminder of the occasion in 2003 when the former Sun editor, Rebekah Brooks, told a Commons select committee that the paper had paid the police for information.
Murdoch continues: "I would have thought 100% … at least 90% of payments were made at the instigation of cops saying, 'I've got a good story here. It's worth 500 quid' or something. And you would say, 'No, it's not' … And they'd say, 'Well, we'll ring the Mirror…' It was the culture of Fleet Street."

In the end, this tape confirms that Rupert Murdoch, the man at the top, was responsible for the culture of bribery and corruption at his newspapers:

But the real significance of the tape is that it reveals the true, unexpurgated Rupert Murdoch. As I have said often since the hacking scandal first broke, as the man at the top I believe he has been responsible for the journalistic culture at Wapping. This tape appears to prove my point.

It is time to bring Rupert Murdoch down to the police station and interview him over the tape contents.

We'll see if they actually do that.

Joel Klein Diverts Attention From Disappointing News Corp Education Division Debut With Education Speech

According to Gotham Schools, former NYC Schools Chancellor and current News Corporation executive Joel Klein gave a speech defending Bloomberg's education policies and attacking mayoral candidates who aren't fully on board with that agenda.

Not mentioned in the Gotham Schools story is that yesterday was the debut of the "new" News Corporation, with Joel Klein at the helm of the for-profit education technology division that is now paired with the newspapers and the publishing house, Harper Collins.

The much more profitable entertainment business in the old News Corporation has been spun off into a company known as 21st Century Fox.

Here is how Reuters reported on that story:

(Reuters) - Wall Street rewarded Rupert Murdoch's move to create a separate entertainment company, giving 21st Century Fox one of the richest valuations in the media sector on its first day of trading.
 
Investors had waited for Murdoch to split News Corp, giving its cable, movie and equity stakes in pay-TV assets their own spotlight away from the publishing division.

The move is part of larger trend among media companies that are shedding print properties. Tribune announced on Monday it will acquire a stable of TV stations making it one of the largest local TV broadcasters while it seeks a possible sale of its newspapers.

21st Century Fox, which includes the Fox cable network, already has one of the highest valuations among its media peers based on 2013 price to earnings multiple. At 20.7 times, it is higher than Walt Disney, Viacom and Time Warner, and ranks second only to Discovery according to estimates from UBS analyst John Janedis.

Shares in the new 21st Century Fox entertainment operation gained over 2 percent on Monday, or $1.1 billion dollars in market value, from its opening price. Its market capitalization is about $68 billion, reflecting Monday's gain.

"By divesting its less attractive legacy business, Fox has become a pure-play entertainment company with fantastic assets in its cable channels," Gabelli & Co analyst Brett Harriss said.

In contrast, shares of the new News Corp, which includes publishing assets like The Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins, and an education division, lost 3 percent, or half a billion, from their opening price. News Corp has a current market value of about $8.5 billion.

"News Corp is largely seen as ink on paper, and the perception is that the good assets, so to speak, went to Fox," said Gabelli & Co analyst Barry Lucas.

In addition to being seen as the "less valuable" assets from the old News Corporation, the "new" News Corporation education/print division is facing potential lawsuits in the United States related to phone hacking.

Norman Siegel has already filed one for Eunice Huthart, a stunt double for Angelina Jolie, who says she was hacked by News Corporation journalists working for the now closed News of the World and The Sun while on U.S. soil.

According to The Guardian, Siegel said at a press conference that "There are a bunch of people, the majority from England but some from here, who want to bring claims."


The Guardian article goes on to say that:

This is the first time that News Corp, parent company of News International, which controls the UK newspapers, has been named as a defendant in a case. It comes as the Justice Department continues to investigate News Corp under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), used to pursue US companies accused of bribing foreign officials.

Siegel has also worked with the relatives of 9/11 victims who were also reportedly hacked by News Corp employees. Siegel said it was his understanding that a FBI investigation into those allegations was ongoing.

With News Corporation now split into two entities, court fees, fines and settlements related to both British and U.S. hacking claims will come of out Klein's education technology/newspaper division.

 The Associated Press reports that:

News Corp. has spent $388 million in settlements, legal fees and other costs associated with ongoing investigations in the U.K. since the hacking scandal came to light in 2011.

It's not a mistake that just as the "new" News Corporation is debuting on Wall Street by losing 3 percent (half a billion dollars in valuation from its opening price) and is facing a new American front in the hacking scandal that could cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars, Klein is giving a speech touting his education "legacy" when he was NYC chancellor and attacking mayoral candidates who aren't on board with that legacy 100%.

They're looking to divert attention from the poor reception Wall Street gave to the education technology/newspaper division yesterday and the problems they're facing over future hacking claims that put the company's health very much in doubt.

Fall-Out From Spying Scandal

Mayor Mike's company takes a hit:

A number of Wall Street firms are hoping to cut back on at least some of the popular features offered by Bloomberg LP — moves that could crimp the data distributor’s bottom line.

The firms, Citigroup, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and at least one other, are making the move after The Post broke the news that Bloomberg reporters had access to some proprietary client information.

They are looking to pull back on features such as chat and instant messaging in favor of their own more secure, proprietary services.

Barclays is considering creating its own Bloomberg-like products, such as messaging, sources tell The Post.

A Barclays spokesman wasn’t able to comment.


One major bulge-bracket New York-based bank, which declined to be identified because its plans are in the formative stage, also is exploring creating similar features for its staffers.

The moves by the banks are aimed at lowering the $20,000-a-year per terminal rental fee — or, in some cases, cut the number of terminals they rent.

Citigroup plans on rolling out both an instant messaging and an internal newsfeed known as CitiFX Wire for its foreign exchange traders and clients.

Citi’s wire service is internally created but also aggregates some news through an agreement with Dow Jones, a person familiar with the situation told The Post.

Both Dow Jones and The Post are owned by News Corp.

Depending on how well the product is received, the bank might roll it out more broadly and be able to offer it to new staff members instead of turning to Bloomberg.

Citi hopes it can introduce the products to new employees or those who don’t have Bloomberg terminals, a source familiar with the situation said.

A Citi spokesman said that the bank’s plans, in the works for the past two years, aren’t related to Bloomberg’s recent SpyGate.

Criminal banks and Wall Street firms moving their scummy business from one company engaged in spying and hacking owned by an oligarch (Bloomberg) to another company engaged in spying and hacking owned by an oligarch (Murdoch).   Well, at the very least Mayor Mikey will lose some money from this.   That means less money for his PAC to throw around post-City Hall.

Bloomberg Reporters Were Trained To Spy On Bloomberg Terminal Subscribers

More and more criminal by the day:

Reporters at Bloomberg News were trained to use a function on the company’s financial data terminals that allowed them to view subscribers’ contact information and, in some cases, monitor login activity in order to advance news coverage, more than half a dozen former employees said. 

More than 315,000 Bloomberg subscribers worldwide use the terminals for instant market news, trading information and communication. Reporters at Bloomberg News, a separate division from the terminal business, were nonetheless told to use the terminals to get an edge in the competitive world of financial journalism where every second counts, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the company’s strict nondisclosure agreements. 

The company acknowledged that at least one reporter had gained access to information on Goldman Sachs after the bank complained to the company last month. On Sunday, Ty Trippet, a Bloomberg spokesman, said that “reporters would not have been trained to improperly use any client data.”

Matthew Winkler, editor in chief of Bloomberg News, underscored that the practice was at one time commonplace. In an editorial published on Bloomberg View late Sunday night, he said the practice of allowing reporters access to limited subscriber information dated back to the inception of the news arm of the giant financial information company founded by Michael R. Bloomberg. 

...

Bloomberg reporters also are accused of monitoring JPMorgan Chase executives’ login information last summer, when the bank suffered a multibillion-dollar trading loss, according to people briefed on the situation. The bank never formally complained to Bloomberg representatives about the practice.

The Federal Reserve and Treasury Department are also investigating whether reporters tracked employees. Bloomberg terminals sit in the highest echelons of power — including central banks, rival news organizations, Congress and even the Vatican. 

...

 

Bloomberg executives have not denied that they knew some reporters turned to the terminals to monitor when subscribers, who are mostly traders and finance executives, had logged on. On less frequent occasions, reporters also monitored chats between those subscribers and customer service representatives. Reporters could not see a subscriber’s specific securities, trades or which news articles they had read. 

Mr. Winkler did not expand on who may have been affected. He said the practices were a legacy left over from when reporters were considered part of the sales operation. Nearly 85 percent of the company’s $7.9 billion in 2012 revenue came from its terminal business. 

The news operation was assembled in the 1990s primarily as a way to sell more terminals. Reporters regularly accompanied sales representatives to sell subscribers on the wonders of the terminal, the desktop computers that provide a constant stream of headlines and data and sit upon many traders’ desks. 

The company has said the close relationship between journalists and the sales team meant there was a reason to allow reporters access to limited subscriber data to help with customer service and to customize news to subscribers’ needs. 

I have no doubt the Little Mayor and his company of criminals will get away with this.

That's what happens to companies as powerful as Bloomberg LP and people as power as Michael Bloomberg.

But it's becoming clear that everybody at Bloomberg knew this was happening - including Mike Bloomberg.

It would be nice if reporters would ask him about this pointedly at his next presser and not stop asking him until he answers.

Bloomberg News Reporters Spied On Bernanke And Geithner Through Bloomberg Terminals

Reporters at Bloomberg News channeling the hacks in the Nixon administration:

Both the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury Department are examining the extent to which Bloomberg-terminal usage by top officials might have been tracked by Bloomberg journalists, CNBC has learned.

A Fed spokesperson told CNBC that the central bank is looking into the situation and has been in touch with Bloomberg to learn more. A source said the Treasury Department is taking similar action.

Meanwhile, CNBC has learned from a former Bloomberg employee that he accessed usage information of the company's data terminals of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

The information appeared to concern general functions used by the officials and the frequency with which those functions — such as looking at a bond, equity markets or news — were accessed. The source said all Bloomberg journalists who knew of this capability of the terminal would have had access to the usage information of the officials.

The issue of Bloomberg journalists' access to individual data from the terminals was revealed in recent days when a reporter called a Goldman Sachs Group employee inquiring about a partner's employment status and noting the partner had not logged on to the terminal lately. The incident prompted a complaint from Goldman and led Bloomberg to terminate the ability of reporters to monitor subscribers.

In a statement on its website, Bloomberg said, "Having recognized this mistake, we took immediate action. Last month we changed our policy so that all reporters only have access to the same customer-relationship data available to our clients."

The former Bloomberg employee who worked in the editorial section recalled calling up the information on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner "just for fun" and displaying the information to new recruits "to show how powerful" the Bloomberg terminals were.

The former employee said he recalled seeing the functions used by the Fed Chairman and Treasury Secretary and the number of times those functions had been used. The person did not recall which specific functions he saw, but said it would have been at a broad level.

For example, he said it would likely have been information that the official accessed a page such as global equity indexes, though not which markets specifically. He said it also could have included information that the user looked up bond spreads, but the information would not have shown what specific bonds were searched by the user.

Still, with thousands of functions, the information could apparently get quite specific. And knowing how often a user looked up individual information and how often the user was logged in could provide valuable information.

A JP Morgan Chase source told CNBC that, "Multiple Bloomberg reporters very openly were using terminal login data to determine when traders were suspended and/or let go — during the London Whale situation, as well as during other rounds of layoffs."

A Quartz story (www.qz.com) said Bloomberg employees had accessed a transcript of a call of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to the company's help desk. The story said the information was not used in any editorial pieces written by journalists.

Did The Little Mayor know about this when he was still running the day-to-day operations of Bloomberg LP?

Did The Little Mayor know about this activity once he left the day-to-day operations at Bloomberg to somebody else and started running the city?

What does The Little Mayor think now that the word "Bloombergian" has some of the same associations as "Nixonian"?

Bloomberg LP/Bloomberg News Data Breach Story And InBloom

There's an inBloom connnection to this Bloomberg LP/Bloomberg News data breach/spying story that I'm going to get to in a moment.

First the latest on the Bloomberg LP/Bloomberg News data breach/spying story from The Guardian:

The financial services news group Bloomberg was facing questions on Friday about how reporters used information about clients gleaned from its widely-used terminals.

The New York Post reported that journalists at Bloomberg had been caught using the financial news service's $20,000-a-year terminals to "spy" on Goldman Sachs bankers.

The Guardian also understands that JP Morgan also has concerns about how Bloomberg used information from its terminals while pursuing stories about Bruno Iksil, the trader known as the London Whale, who was blamed for massive losses at the bank last year.

Bloomberg said it had blocked journalists' access to client data within 24 hours of receiving a complaint from Goldman.

The concerns raised by Goldman could be a major headache for Bloomberg, which makes most of its money from renting the terminals to traders. It now faces complaints from other Wall Street banks that believe they too were spied upon by reporters in a breach of confidentiality.

The Post said that a Bloomberg reporter asked a Goldman executive if a partner was still with the firm, saying that he had not logged into his terminal for some time.

More than 300,000 of the world's most influential people in finance including top bankers, treasury officials and hedge fund managers have access to a Bloomberg terminal. Almost all users are identified by name and their terminals are often highly tailored to give them access to the financial information they need. Access to the types of information those users are looking up would give a reporter invaluable insight.

"Limited customer relationship data has long been available to our journalists, and has never included clients' security-level data, position data, trading data or messages," Bloomberg said in a statement. Bloomberg has now blocked journalists from accessing that data.

In a memo to staff Friday, Bloomberg chief executive Daniel Doctorof
said it had been a "mistake" to allow reporters to have access to
"limited customer relationship management data". "Since our founding
more than 30 years ago, the proper safeguarding of customer data has
been a central tenet of Bloomberg's culture," he wrote.

He said the company had appointed Bloomberg executive Steve Ross to
the new role of client data compliance officer, to review how clients'
data is handled. "Client trust is our highest priority and the
cornerstone of our business, and we are deeply committed to ensuring
the complete integrity and confidentiality of our clients' data in all
situations and at all times," he wrote.

Bankers said they believed the reporters had access not only to log-in information but also to whether the users had called the help desk and what information they had wanted help with. "I don't think anyone realised how much information the news desk had access to," said one Wall Street executive.
Goldman confirmed that it had recently confronted Bloomberg executives after it emerged reporters could determine which of its employees had logged into Bloomberg's terminals and how many times they had used particular functions.

"We brought this matter to the attention of the news organisation, and senior management at the company assured us that they were taking immediate measures to address the problem," a Goldman spokesman said. He declined to comment on specific incidents.
Bank sources told the Post that in one incident a Bloomberg reporter asked a bank executive whether a Goldman partner had left the firm, noting that he had not logged into his Bloomberg terminal in some time.

Former Bloomberg staff, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the company's culture as "porous". In early years Bloomberg reporters would assist on the help desk and even go on client pitches. "They didn't grow up in a culture where you walled off information," said one former insider. "I don't think it's a deliberate policy, I just think that it was something no one was really concerned about."

But Wall Street executives said the company had been far too big for too long to allow its past to be an excuse for what they see as a clear breach of confidentiality. Bank executives were not keen to talk on the record while they continue to discuss the issue with Bloomberg. "Every terminal comes with a boiler-plate contract that clearly talks about confidentiality. They know they are collecting extremely sensitive and private information," said one banker. "Privacy is privacy. The fact that an organisation can, at the very least, monitor the whereabouts of our staff is clearly a concern," said another.

Okay, so here we have this large conglomerate called Bloomberg with lots of separate entities within that conglomerate.

The news entity is not supposed to have access to the data that is being collected by the financial services entity.

But somehow they are given that access and use it without the knowledge of the company's clients to their advantage.

Now let's think about another large conglomerate called News Corporation.

As part of a deal with a bunch of states, News Corporation, along with the Gates Foundation, is going to develop a data storehouse for the confidential information of students all over NY State.

News Corporation will have a for-profit education entity that will be separate from this data storehouse entity called inBloom Inc. and the data will not be shared between the two.

But can you imagine how employees from one part of the News Corporation conglomerate, say the for-profit education part, magically get access to the data from the part that helps out with the data storehouse?

Or how the reporters from the news part get access to the data, just the way the reporters from Bloomberg News got access to the Bloomberg LP data?

I bet you can.

If Bloomberg News can get confidential info and data on Bloomberg LP's clients' terminals, you can bet Murdoch's hackers and data breachers are going to be able to get their hands on the student data and use it to their advantage too.

The blueprint for this is contained in this Bloomberg LP/Bloomberg News data breach/spying incident.

Mark down the day - May 10, 2013.

We got a glimpse of the future at inBloom Inc.

Amplify Increases Losses

Via Leonie:

When pressed on the increased losses at Amplify, News Corp.'s digital education business, Carey pointed to the massive potential in the space. "Education is one of the few businesses that's been left out of the digital revolution," Carey said. "It's ripe for disruption."

News Corp is set to split next month:

The proposed split should happen “near the end” of the fiscal year that runs through June, Murdoch said. Total costs for the spinoff reached $53 million through the end of March, almost half of it coming in the most recent quarter.

“I am more confident than ever of the long-term value the separation will unlock for the company and its shareholders,” Murdoch said in the statement.

The plan to divide News Corp. creates a new company, 21st Century Fox, that will own the 20th Century Fox film studio and the Fox pay-TV and broadcast networks as well as Fox Sports 1, the cable sports channel that will compete with Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN.

The parent company of the Wall Street Journal and the Sun newspaper will retain the News Corp. name.

And the publishing division - which will contain Joel Klein's for profit education division, Amplify, will start behind the 8 ball:

The publishing division, which will include News Corp.’s Australian TV assets after the split, cited a drop in advertising at the company’s Australian newspapers for the profit decline.

 

Publishing will start with $2.6 billion in cash and no debt, the company said in March. The division lost $2.1 billion in fiscal 2012 because of restructuring, falling sales and the costs of a U.K. hacking scandal.

...

 

Murdoch appointed Robert Thomson, the Wall Street Journal’s editor, as CEO of the new publishing company, which also includes the New York Post, HarperCollins books, and the Amplify education division run by board member Joel Klein.

Murdoch, 82, who will remain chairman at both companies after the split, hasn’t yet proposed full board slates at either of them.

In the nine months ended March 31, News Corp. spent $165 million related to investigations in the U.K., down from $167 million in the year-earlier period. Last month, News Corp.’s directors agreed to a $139 million settlement of investors’ claims that they turned a blind eye to illegal conduct at the media company, including phone hacking by employees. The money will ultimately be recovered through insurance that covers News Corp.’s board.

News Corp. journalists are accused of hacking mobile-phone messages of more than 600 people, including U.S. actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, soccer player Wayne Rooney and murdered British schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

 There will be more hacking claims they will have to deal with in the near future as well, as a whole new line of hacking allegations was revealed recently.

Between the newspapers bleeding cash, the for profit education division losing money and additional costs related to the hacking scandal on the horizon, good luck keeping this part of the company afloat - especially after Rupert.

Another Murdoch News Corp. Employee Arrested On Bribery Charges

This arrest is related to the News Corporation hacking/bribery scandal in Britain, not the News Corporation bribery investigation in China:

Geoff Webster, the deputy editor of the Sun, has been charged over alleged criminal offences relating to payments of £8,000 to two public officials.

Webster was charged on Wednesday with two counts of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office during 2010 and 2011.

"The first offence relates to allegations that Mr Webster, between July 2010 and August 2011, authorised payments totalling £6,500 for information supplied by a public official to one of his journalists," the Crown Prosecution Service said.

"The second offence relates to an allegation that in November 2010, Mr Webster authorised a payment of £1,500 for information provided by an unknown public official."

Alison Levitt QC, principal legal adviser to the director of public prosecutions, said the decisions arose from Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan police's investigation into allegations of unlawful provision of information to journalists by public officials.

"We have concluded, following a careful review of the evidence, that Geoff Webster, who at the time of the alleged offending was deputy editor of the Sun newspaper, should be charged with two offences of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office, contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977," she said.

...

 Webster was arrested in February last year, along with four other Sun employees. One of that group, chief reporter John Kay, has already been charged. The CPS said it was making no further immediate announcements on charging decisions in the remaining three cases.

In addition, Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper apologized publicly to an MP for hacking into her phone and text messages after someone stole her cell phone in 2010:

Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid paper, the Sun, has apologized to a politician for accessing information on a mobile phone that had been stolen from her, the BBC reports.
Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh's phone was stolen from her car in October 2010. 

British police later told her that the Sun had been accessing her text messages from around this date.

In London's High Court today, the Sun, part of Murdoch's News International group of newspapers, apologized for accessing the private information, and agreed to pay McDonagh "very substantial damages".

Exactly who stole the phone has not been revealed, though the Sun has not accepted any responsibility for that crime. There had been earlier reports that the phone was handed in to the paper by "a member of the public." 

...  

This latest news is just the newest development in accusations of phone hacking and other unsavory practices by Murdoch's U.K. journalists. Murdoch's best-selling U.K. newspaper, the News of the World, was shut down after serious accusations about phone hacking came to light in 2011.

While the Sun was largely able to escape accusations about phone hacking, these new allegations could prove difficult for Murdoch's British newspapers to shake. Today a lawyer for phone hacking victims told the High Court that there were potentially "hundreds" of new victims.

Aren't you glad that NYSED Commissioner John King, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and some others in power in Albany think handing over confidential student information, data and files to Rupert Murdoch's company is just swell?

I mean, how could a company that has seen nearly a hundred employees arrested on hacking, bribery, conspiracy and/or cover-up charges related to hacking and bribery on three different continents (Europe, Australia, and Asia) do anything wrong with all that information?

Murdoch Hit With 600 New Hacking Allegations - NYSED Still Handing Over Confidential Student Data To inBloom Inc.

From The Guardian:

Detectives are examining an estimated 600 fresh allegations of phone-hacking incidents at Rupert Murdoch's now closed News of the World on the back of fresh evidence obtained by the Metropolitan police from a suspect turned supergrass.

Further details are expected to emerge on Monday morning at the high court during a hearing relating to the existing litigation by hacking victims against Murdoch's News International (NI) – hours before MPs are due to vote on joint Labour and Liberal Democrat amendments that would introduce a backstop law to stiffen regulation of the press.

Sources say Scotland Yard detectives believe they can identify as many as 600 new incidents after obtaining the phone records of an insider who is now being lined up as a crown witness. As a result of the new information, the force's Operation Weeting is revisitng the timetable for concluding its investigation, which had been due to be completed with the conclusion of trials this year. Police now expect their work to continue into 2015.

The 600 new potential litigants fall into three groups: new victims; others who sued over hacking but signed agreements with NI allowing them to sue the company again; and a third group who signed agreements potentially barring them from suing again. The indications are that there may be "some hundreds of new legal actions" from the first two groups.
...

Last month there was a fresh wave of arrests of former NoW executives, believed to have been prompted by the new evidence. Three men and three women were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept telephone communications between 2005 and 2006.

Information from the same supergrass also led to the arrests on Thursday of the former editor of the Sunday Mirror, Tina Weaver, and three other former colleagues who were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to hack phones. On Friday, Richard Wallace, former editor of the Daily Mirror and Weaver's partner, was interviewed by police under caution as the crisis at the Mirror Group spread.

Scotland Yard said Wallace was not arrested. So far eight former NoW staff, including former editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, face charges in relation to allegations of conspiring to hack phones.

New York and six other states are going to give a "non-profit" run in part by Rupert Murdoch called inBloom Inc. confidential student data and records- including grades, test scores, medical records, discipline issues and more:

(Reuters) - An education technology conference this week in Austin, Texas, will clang with bells and whistles as startups eagerly show off their latest wares.

But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.

In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.

Local education officials retain legal control over their students' information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services.

...


The database is a joint project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided most of the funding, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and school officials from several states. Amplify Education, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, built the infrastructure over the past 18 months. When it was ready, the Gates Foundation turned the database over to a newly created nonprofit, inBloom Inc, which will run it.

States and school districts can choose whether they want to input their student records into the system; the service is free for now, though inBloom officials say they will likely start to charge fees in 2015. So far, seven states - Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Massachusetts - have committed to enter data from select school districts. Louisiana and New York will be entering nearly all student records statewide.

Parents are alarmed by this move by states to share their children's confidential data with the edu-entrepreneurs and for-profit education companies via inBloom. 

One group - Class Size Matters - held a press conference this week to call attention to the issue:

As reported in Reuters, a company called inBloom Inc. is collecting the most private, sensitive, and personally identifiable student data from New York and other states,  storing it on a vulnerable “data cloud” and making it available to commercial vendors:

 “In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.

As the article makes clear, this company plans to share this information “with private companies selling educational products and services.  Entrepreneurs can't wait.”   We learned from a press release that one of these for-profit companies that the state has signed up to use this data is called Escholar. 

The operating system for inBloom is being built by Wireless, now renamed Amplify, a subsidiary of NewsCorp owned by Rupert Murdoch and run by Joel Klein.   I was quoted about Amplify’s new tablet on NPR four days ago.

Thousands of parents have emailed the State Education Department and DOE to protest this arrangement; hundreds have sent opt-out letters without response.  One parent was told by a staffer at SED that they were too busy collecting and transmitting the data to inBloom to respond to parent concerns. My question is this:  if this is really for the benefit of public schoolchildren, why do they refuse to notify their parents or ask for their consent?

Some City Council members joined with parents to get the state to put a stop to doing business with inBloom Inc.

Unfortunately the state is going forward with this sharing of confidential data.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver wrote parents a letter expressing the state had put into place security measures to make sure the data will not be misused:

 

“The data system is to provide information to teachers to improve instruction, as well as provide access to students and parents to facilitate instruction and learning,” Silver wrote in his letter. “However, SED does not intend to allow personally identifiable student records to be used for commercial purposes.”

The hacking scandals at News Corporation newspapers continue to grow - why does Sheldon Silver or anybody else in state government, the NYSED or the Regents think it's safe to hand over confidential student data and records to a company that has hacked into hundreds of people's phones, emails, and computers in order to use that information against them or against others? 

As reported last month, there is now a second front in the News Corporation hacking scandal completely unrelated to the hacking crimes News Corporation settled last year.

 

There have even been allegations that News Corporation employees hacked into people here on United States soil, though so far no Murdoch employee at the NY Post, the Wall Street Journal or FOX News has been implicated in the scandal for activity they engaged in while working at those Murdoch entities.

But with civil cases still to be filed by people hacked here on U.S. soil by Murdoch employees, it is quite possible that we learn NY Post or Journal or FOX employees also engaged in criminal activity like phone or computer hacking or conspiracy to cover up such crimes.

This is especially easy to believe, given how so many of Murdoch employees moved from his British papers to his U.S. papers - including his former right hand man, Les Hinton, who became publisher of the Wall Street Journal after Murdoch bought the paper.

Hinton has since resigned after being implicated in the scandal.

In all, over 100 people - many Murdoch employees or former Murdoch employees - have been arrested on hacking charges, conspiracy charges, bribery charges, or suspicion of privacy intrusion.

According the The Guardian report, police investigations of News Corporation hacking, bribery and other crimes are going to go well into 2015.

It seems insane to me that the governor, the assembly, the state senate, the NYSED and the Regents all think it's safe to hand over confidential student data and records to a "nonprofit" database created by a company owned by Rupert Murdoch and his merry band of hacking criminals.

And yet, that is what we have.

What will it take for Andrew Cuomo, Shelly Silver, Merryl Tisch, John King and others to see that inBloom Inc. needs to be shut down and that the confidential student data and records need to be protected from the edu-entrepreneurs and other vultures - especially ones working for or with the criminal News Corporation?

Murdoch/Klein Hire Duncan Press Flunky

Leonie:

Rupert Murdoch’s empire expands; now Duncan’s former flack/press secretary now working for Murdoch and Joel Klein at Amplify.  He left US Ed Gov in November.

See reference in Edweek to his twitter debate w/ Diane below, in which Hamilton supported the notion of edu-entrepreneurs vs. teachers in improving education.  I guess he chose which camp to join.

http://shar.es/YBxWK

Ah yes - the Duncan/Obama education team seems to be feeding both Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst wingnut group and Rupert Murdoch's for-profit education company.

Just in case anybody thinks working for Murdoch is not a big deal, let me remind you that a second front in the hacking case was opened last week when six current and former Murdoch employees were arrested in a whole new hacking investigation.

So many Murdoch employees have been arrested in the scandal that you may be having a difficult time keeping track of the players.

I know I am.

Fortunately for us, UK Progressive has a handy chart with a list of all the arrests and all the crimes allegedly committed.

Here's the chart:

Let me also remind you that for a while there, Joel Klein was running the News Corporation response to the scandal.

He has since given up that job as the scandal looking to be winding down and Murdoch's for profit education business looking to be winding up.

But with a whole new hacking investigation going on and Murdoch's newspaper/education division open to hundreds of millions of dollars in hacking claims in civil court, Klein just may have to go back to his old job of trying to staunch the damage from the hacking/corruption scandals to Murdoch's business.

Maybe former Duncan flunky Justin Hamilton can help out.

He's pretty skilled at jive already.

He'd be perfect trying to bullshit people that nothing evil happened under Rupert's tenure.