Has Roger Ailes Hacked American Phones for Fox News?

[Octafish]

Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch enjoy the company at a dress-up Washington DC dinner.



Has Roger Ailes Hacked American Phones for Fox News?

Leslie Savan
The Nation
July 13, 2011

“Has Roger Ailes been keeping tabs on your phone calls?”

That’s how Portfolio.com began (1) a post back in 2008, when a former Fox News executive charged that Ailes had outfitted a highly secured “brain room” in Fox’s New York headquarters for “counterintelligence” and may have used it to hack into private phone records.

All this week people have been looking for links between the Murdoch empire’s burgeoning phone-hacking scandal in Britain and News Corp.’s sprawling political/communications juggernaut in the United States. The links so far include a former New York City cop alleging (2) that Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World offered to pay him to hack into 9/11 victims’ phone records, and a News Corp. US shareholders’ suit in Delaware already targeting the company for nepotism adding British phone hacking (3) as evidence of a corporate culture “run amuck.”

SNIP...

Dan Cooper was one of the people who helped create the Fox News channel with Roger Ailes, and was fired in 1996. In 2008, Cooper wrote (4) on his website that David Brock (now head of Media Matters) had used him as an anonymous, on-background-only source for an Ailes profile he was writing for New York magazine. Before the piece was published (5), on November 17, 1997, Cooper claims that his talent agent, Richard Leibner, told him he had received a call from Ailes, who identified Cooper as a source, and insisted that Leibner drop him as a client--or any client reels Leibner sent Fox would pile up in a corner and gather dust. Cooper continued:

“I made the connections. Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview. Certainly Brock didn’t tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock’s telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation’s New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.”

CONTINUED w/ sources and links...

http://www.thenation.com/blog/162016/has-roger-ailes-hacked-american-phones-fox-news

Gee. Who knew? Besides DU, I mean.

[malaise]

1. Please ,please, please

:popcorn:

[Octafish]

3. Mr. Chatterbox

A song came to mind:

Mr. Chatterbox

Mr. Chatterbox how long will you live?
Always to receive but never to give
Always carry news all over the place
Mr. Chatterbox you are a big disgrace
You cheek and you tounge
A go let you down
And a when them let you down
We a go batter you around
Bif, baf, boof, those are the blows you're gonna get
Mr. Talkative, I know you will regret

Mr. Chatterbox how long will you live
Always to receive but never to give
Always carry news all over the place
You cheek, cheek, cheek, and tounge, tounge, tounge
A go let you down
And a when them let you down
We a go batter you around, hey
Bif-an, baf-an, boof, those are the blows you're gonna get, hey
Mr. Talkative I know you will regret

Mr. Chatterbox how long will you live?
Always to receive but a never to give
Always carry news all over the place
Mr. Chatterbox you are a big disgrace
You cheek and tounge
A go let you down
And a when them let you down
We a go batter you around
Bif-an, baf-an, boof-an, thats the blows you gonna get
Mr. Chatterbox, I know you will regret
Ooh yeah
Mr. Chatterbox, ooh yeah
Mr. Chatterbox, ooh yeah
(Watch him) Mr. Chatterbox
(Who's-he, who's-he, who's-he, who's-he)
Mr. Chatterbox, ooh yeah

- Bob Marley

I hope a long while -- in prison.

[malaise]

8. LOL - that's a classic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5w66U7b7yI

[fascisthunter]

2. here's my Answer: YES, he did

[Hand_With_Eyes]

4. Yes

The question is, will Eric Holder have the balls to go after him?

[peekaloo]

5. That's my question, too. nt.

[Uncle Joe]

6. A mega corporation with such a rigid, ambitious and autocratic owner as Murdoch

would be a very closed system even among its' various divisions in different nations, serious dissenting political view isn't tolerated and they know who their boss is.

I can't imagine that Murdoch knew nothing about those hacking and bribing policies in Great Britain and I would be astonished if the same basic M.O. used on the other side of the pond wasn't also used here.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Aerows]

7. I'd bet my last dollar on it

Brooks was corruption at the top - she has finally resigned and has tacitly admitted to knowing about the phone hacking. She HAD to know, because there were bribes involved of as much as $10,000 a pop. You can't be the head of an organization and not know where the expenses are coming from. By that same token, Murdoch also had to know.

Corruption at the top infests the whole morality of the organization, and the top sets the tone for how the organization operates. They got a bit too reckless, and the toadies they had in government finally had so much pressure they had to act.

Now, they are going to have to be vigorous in the investigation, because there are too many sets of eyes on them. I don't see Murdoch getting out of this one. He's made too many enemies among the powerful, and he's pissed of his share holders. Political pressure, and financial pressure are going to be the end of the News Corp empire (I hope).

While I would love to see "Roger Ailes raped by Rottweilers en route to Federal Prison", I'd settle for "News Corp's FCC license pulled from the US, UK and Australia permanently, with other nations following."

[seafan]

9. Illegal wiretapping is suspect in trapping Weiner and Spitzer, imho.

I can easily imagine that rogue elements in the government are in collusion with Murdoch in illegally wiretapping their perceived political enemies.


Also brings to mind the lightning-fast "call" of the 2000 presidential election by Jeb Bush's cousin John Ellis at Fox. There was no way they were going to allow all the votes to be counted in Florida. Florida Supreme Court ruling or no Florida Supreme Court ruling.


What do the dirty outcomes of Election Night 2000, ACORN and Shirley Sherrod have in common?


Octafish,today, it looks like we are finally making some headway.


Keep on exposing these bastards.

[donheld]

10. With a man as paranoid as Ailes is I'd say no doubt about it.

[Karenina]

11. Such an honorable man would NEVER stoop so low!

:spray:

[Overseas]

12. This may explain why other networks are so soft on the constant lies pushed by Fox.

The Newscorp spying operations probably have intimidated lots of other broadcasters with their threats.

I hope the revelations continue, but then you wonder if Newscorp has so much inside info on their competition that they'll be able to keep a lid on things.

[Skidmore]

13. What a creepy picture.

[Kingofalldems]

14. Looky here:

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/roger-ailes-allegedly-caught-spying-on-newspaper-reporters_b33261