News International Phone Hacking Scandal

This scandal breaches the human rights act, invades privacy, breaking privacy laws in which people should have the right to be left alone and have things to themselves.

This mainly involved the News of the World, but also involved other British tabloid newspapers published by News international which is a subsidiary of News Corporation. Employees of the newspaper was accused of being involved in phone hacking, police bribery and using improper stories influence in the pursuit of publishing stories.

Phone hacking investigations started in 2005 and went on till 2007, it was agreed that the papers phone hacking activities were limited to celebrities, politicians and members of the British Royal Family. However in July 2011 it was revealed that phones of a murdered schoolgirl named Milly Dowler, relatives of deceased British soldiers and victims of London Bombings were also accessed, this resulted to a public outcry against news Corporation and the owner Rupert Murdoch.

On the 6^th of July British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that a public enquiry would take place to look into it all after police investigations had finished.  On 13^th July David Cameron named Lord Justice Leveson as chairman of the inquiry, with a remit to look into phone hacking and police bribery by the News of the World while a second inquiry would look at the culture and ethics of the wider British Media.  

All the negative attention caused by this scandal eventually reached the United States which is where News Corporation is headquartered and also operates multiple media outlets. On July the 14^th The Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a probe to find out whether News corporation accessed voicemails of the victims of the 9/11 attacks and on July 15^th the US Attorney General announced an additional investigation will take place by the Department of Justice, these were to find out if the company had violated the foreign corrupt practices act.