Reply #5: Word that comes to mind here is Espionage by Murdoch's organization.

[leveymg]

Espionage. This was part of Murdoch's concerted attempt to blackmail Blair, Brown, Straw and others. This wasn't just about digging up embarrassing details about one politician's sick child.

MI-5 - are you still there? You guys must have picked up on this . . . if you did, but this sort of thing continued, there's a problem. If you didn't, there's another, perhaps more serious problem . . .

News International papers targeted Gordon Brown

Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account and legal file as well as his family's medical records.

There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him. That investigator also targeted another Labour MP who was the subject of hostile inquiries by the News of the World, but it is not confirmed whether News International was specifically involved in trawling police computers for information on Brown.

snip

Brown joins a long list of Labour politicians who are known to have been targeted by private investigators working for News International, including the former prime minister Tony Blair and his media adviser Alastair Campbell, the former deputy prime minister John Prescott and his political adviser Joan Hammell, Peter Mandelson as trade secretary, Jack Straw and David Blunkett as home secretaries, Tessa Jowell as media secretary and her special adviser Bill Bush, and Chris Bryant as minister for Europe.

The sheer scale of the data assault on Brown is unusual, with evidence of attempts to obtain his legal, financial, tax, medical and police records as well as to listen to his voicemail. All of these incidents are linked to media organisations. In many cases, there is evidence of a link to News International.

link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/11/phone-hacking-news-international-gordon-brown