Sky News admits to hacking

[Dartzap]

Email hacking that is

Sky News admits 'canoe man' John Darwin email hack

Sky News has said it illegally hacked emails belonging to members of the public on two separate occasions.
The broadcaster said it hacked emails from John Darwin, who faked his own death in a canoe, and his wife Anne.

A spokesman for Sky News said police "absolutely knew" the emails - which it passed to officers working on the Darwin case - were obtained by hacking.
Sky News said the action was in the public interest and amounted to "responsible journalism".

The second email hacking incident Sky disclosed targeted the accounts of a suspected paedophile and his wife.
The broadcaster released a statement which said: "Sky News is committed to the highest editorial standards.

"Like other news organisations, we are acutely aware of the tensions that can arise between the law and responsible investigative journalism.
"We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest."

The statement went on: "We do not take such decisions lightly or frequently.

"They require finely balanced judgement based on individual circumstances and must always be subjected to the proper editorial controls."
John Darwin was reported missing in a canoe in the North Sea in March 2002.

His wife Anne collected more than £500,000 in life insurance payouts while he hid in their marital home, allowing their two sons to think he was dead.
The pair were found guilty of the deception in 2008.

In the run-up to the trial former Sky News managing editor Simon Cole agreed North of England correspondent Gerard Tubb could hack into Darwins' Yahoo! email account.

A Sky source now has told the BBC that Mr Cole will be leaving the company in the coming weeks.
On his Twitter feed, Mr Cole later wrote: "I've been planning for some time to retire from Sky News after 17 years. This is unrelated to the Darwin story. There is no linkage. Fact."

Mr Tubb uncovered messages which cast doubt on Mrs Darwin's claim during her criminal trial that her "domineering" husband forced her to go through with the fraud plan.

Sky News said it supplied material it had gathered to Cleveland police which was "pivotal" to the court case.
A Cleveland Police spokeswoman said: "Cleveland Police has conducted an initial review into these matters and can confirm that enquiries are ongoing into how the emails were obtained."

The Crown Prosecution Service said police inquiries were ongoing. "This remains an investigative matter... but, as with any case, we will provide advice to the police if required," a spokesperson said.

It is illegal to hack into emails under the Computer Misuse Act.

Tom Watson MP, a vocal critic of Rupert Murdoch journalists during the phone hacking scandal, said of the latest development: "There are many questions that need answering.

"The chair of BSkyB needs to say something on this and reassure viewers this has not been going on more widely."

He continued: "There are cases where the public is best served with journalists breaking the law.
"But it has to be done in extremis and I am not sure whether it was in these two cases. It is too early to know."

But Peter Preston, a former editor of The Guardian newspaper, said: "I think it's pretty clear there are [public interest defences for hacking the Darwins' emails].

"I don't see this as a story in the News of the World type at all. "Nobody is saying there was not some real crookery here that the police weren't properly informed of."

He added: "It is when you get into the more seedy areas of stories, which don't have any public merit at all, the difficulties start."
Sky News is part of BSkyB, which is 39% owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

BBC Home Affairs Correspondent Matt Prodger said: "It's extremely sensitive, because Sky News is a subsidiary of BSkyB, which is currently under investigation by Ofcom to see whether it is fit and proper to continue holding a broadcasting licence.
"So it is a real blow to yet another part of the Murdoch empire."

Dont think this will be the last case to be found, personally.

[Zaune]

There's already talk of Ofcom withdrawing their license to broadcast after Panorama turned up evidence that they had a hand in ITV Digital's encryption being cracked. With these revelations on top of that, I think they might actually do it.

EDIT: For those of you who can see it, here's the programme in question.

[Chirios]

Aaaand absolutely no one in the world was surprised.

[Alkaloid]

I've got this funny little feeling that in Britain at leas, News may well be fucked. Murdoch has spent years bragging about how he is the person that chooses Prime Ministers and making pollies in general kiss his arse or be reamed by his network, and I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few are doing everything they can to get him out of the way. Or I'm just far too optimistic.

[Zaune]

I've got this funny little feeling that in Britain at least, News may well be fucked. Murdoch has spent years bragging about how he is the person that chooses Prime Ministers and making pollies in general kiss his arse or be reamed by his network, and I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few are doing everything they can to get him out of the way. Or I'm just far too optimistic.

Oh, you'd better believe people are trying to get rid of him! He's got away with a lot worse than the phone hacking -the Sun has all but openly tried to organise lynch mobs- because his empire mostly picked on easy targets; travellers, coloured people, left-wingers and people on welfare. But power must have gone to his head, because he's not only openly bragging about the fact that he can make any current or future British Prime Minister his bitch with a single command, he's also chosen to prove it by shifting allegiances every time it looks as if he might be on the losing side.

In fact, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, it might be better for the man's life-expectancy if he doesn't wriggle out of this one.

[HMS Conqueror]

I certainly hope that we can finally end all the lynch mobs Murdoch keeps sending against left wingers. They are a terrible hassle on the way to the supermarket.

he's not only openly bragging about the fact that he can make any current or future British Prime Minister his bitch with a single command, he's also chosen to prove it by shifting allegiances every time it looks as if he might be on the losing side.

Have you considered that he might more likely be bullshitting about his own influence, and simply piles in behind whoever is going to win anyway in exchange for favours? Why else would this right-wing vampire have spent most of the last two decades propping up the Labour Party?

[Zaune]

Have you considered that he might more likely be bullshitting about his own influence, and simply piles in behind whoever is going to win anyway in exchange for favours? Why else would this right-wing vampire have spent most of the last two decades propping up the Labour Party?

I'll grant you that it's difficult to prove cause and effect in these things, but put it like this. How much time does the run of the mill secondary school history curriculum spend on things like primary versus secondary sources, filtering out bias and generally evaluating the trustworthiness of a source of information? Ten years ago we didn't really start tackling those techniques systematically until A-Levels, and if I hadn't picked History as a subject I would have left school without a lot of skill points in Detect Bullshit.