Biggest arrest yet in phone hacking scandal

Rebekah Brooks (photo courtesy the Associated Press)

Rebekah Brooks, former editor of News of the World and CEO of News International until she resigned last week, has been arrested.

Prior to her resignation, Brooks headed the British wing of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire. The relationship was never chilly, not even after word broke that under her directive some 4,000 (and counting) people had their phones and voicemails hacked by News of the World, Britain’s largest tabloid which ceased operations after 168 years in operation due to the scandal. That closing, in fact, was done in large part in an attempt to protect Brooks from further scrutiny.

Brooks arrest isn’t the end of the investigation, and it’s likely that as much as people try to poo-poo it, Murdoch himself is going to be called into account. Brooks was his protege and the two were very close. Murdoch not having knowledge of the practice is impossible, particularly since many in the media and government had known for years that it was standard practice at the paper.

Last week it was reported that the FBI was investigating concerns that victims of the September 11th attacks were also victims of the UK’s phone hacking policy.

Outrageously, Murdoch’s American wing of his news/media empire is trying to spin him and the former paper as victims in the affair and asking why they’re getting so much flack in a “media pile-on” while Citibank and the Pentagon were also hacked into in the last year.

I’m going to let that sit for a minute and assure you that, yes, you read it correctly. Fox News wants you to think that the VICTIMS of hacking, including the United States government, are in the same boat as the PERPETRATORS.

See the video below. I’ll let the ridiculousness speak for itself, except to say that the insinuation that “99%” of the current staff at News of the World that lost their jobs certainly were NOT innocent. There are and have been investigations and arrests related to phone hacking and police bribery that occurred as late as last year, and that’s only what’s been released publicly. The outrage here isn’t just that it happened so long ago, but that it continued for so long.

For a bonus giggle, check out the end where their expert urges us to move on to matters of greater importance. Then check out what they immediately segue to.