| US Senator has a go at Murdoch May 4th 2012, 17:23 http://www.secularcafe.org/usernote.php?u=2583 Quote:
Rupert Murdoch's global media empire is facing a challenge on a new front in the billowing phone-hacking scandal after a powerful US Senate committee opened direct contact with British investigators in an attempt to find out whether News Corporation has broken American laws.
Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, has written to Lord Justice Leveson, who leads the British judicial inquiry into media ethics, asking if he has uncovered any evidence relating questionable practices in the US.
"I would like to know whether any of the evidence you are reviewing suggests that these unethical and sometimes illegal business practices occurred in the United States or involved US citizens," Rockefeller writes in a letter released on Wednesday.
The development adds to the potential dangers facing News Corp, a publicly-traded company with its headquarters in New York. Rockefeller has taken a close interest in the unfolding phone-hacking saga, but it is the first time that a Senate committee member has acted in his official capacity.
Should the committee decide to press its case, it has considerable powers at its disposal. It could convene official Senate hearings into the scandal and subpoena witnesses and documents from News Corp – though as yet there is no discussion of doing so.
The commerce committee covers all means of communications in the US – including telecommunications, free-to-air broadcasting and cable TV. It also has oversight over the Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory body that has final say on the issuing of broadcast licences, including the 27 licences issued to the Fox TV network that is the jewel in Murdoch's crown...
...Rockefeller's intervention was triggered by the final report of the British parliament's culture, media and sport select committee, which concluded that Murdoch was not fit to run a major international company. It comes two weeks after Mark Lewis, a British lawyer at the forefront of the phone-hacking investigations, opened investigations into four cases of alleged phone hacking that occurred in the US...
...On the same day as the Senate commerce committee made its move, a second US senator, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, renewed his call for a US government investigation into whether News Corp broke anti-bribery and corruption laws. Lautenberg called for a robust inquiry into whether the company, by allegedly bribing public officials in he UK, had breached the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids American citizens or companies from engaging in acts of bribery abroad
| Any chance that Fox News will be affected? | |
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