http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009...h-papers-phone -hacking

Rupert Murdoch's News Group News*papers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public *figures to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009...h-newspapers-p hone-hacking

Among those whose privacy apparently was illegally violated when British Telecom was conned into handing over their addresses and/or ex-directory numbers are Nigella Lawson (four times); Patsy Kensit; Jude Law and Sadie Frost; Lisa Snowdon (three times); Anne Robinson and her former partner; Carol Caplin; Lenny Henry; Vanessa Feltz; Lord Mountbatten's grandson; and witnesses to the murder of Jill Dando, thus potentially interfering with the course of a live police inquiry.


When the actress Charlotte Coleman died after an asthma attack, the News of the World paid for BT to be conned into handing over the itemised Friends and Family list from her bereaved parents' phone bill. When the TV presenter Linda Barker moved house, they hired Whittamore to get her new home address from the supposedly confidential social security database.

(for full stories follow the links )

Seems like the Guardian are gunning for Cameron's spin doctor. Think they're all hoping it's gonna be like the expenses thing except I really don't think media land will be wanting too many questions about illegally obtained material - they're all at it aren't they?

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The Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, and the former Newcastle United manager Alan Shearer are among those whose private telephone messages were recorded by a private investigator working for the News of the World, according to sources familiar with the police investigation.

Both men are said to have left messages on the mobile phone of Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, who sued the newspaper last year.

Others from the world of football whose messages were collected from Taylor's phone are believed to include a detective inspector who was investigating an alleged crime involving a Premier League player; journalists from other newspapers, including the News of the World's sister paper, the Sun; and two lawyers who specialise in working with footballers.

Messages that were intercepted are said to have referred to the Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger; medical bills incurred by the former England player Paul Gascoigne; the former England midfielder Jamie Redknapp; and a prominent Premier League player who had a cocaine problem.

Alex Ferguson and Alan Shearer calls were hacked | Media | The Guardian

you know as well as i do that the worst culprits are the sun and the mirror.... those RAGS ( Iwon't call them news papers ) destro lives in their effort to increase sales and they don't care who they destroy.