@Brian Silver and Watercarrier: There is a handy summary of the rights of suspects under police detention by the UK group “Liberty” at:
http://www.yourrights.org.uk/#
From a quick glance, the relevant parliamentary statutes are the 1983 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) and the 2003 Criminal Justice Act (CJA). I’m guessing that Ms. Brooks’ solictors are studying PACE and CJA pretty closely now.

Another weasel heard from: WaPo editorial page, obscuring salient facts showing that much more than just News of the World was involved in the Murdoch Inc. conspiracy, warns against letting investigations of the Murdoch crime syndicate “go too far.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-let-the-response-to-news-of-the-world-go-too-far/2011/07/15/gIQAtdBnII_print.html

Why would the paper that broke Watergate now urge investigators to step lightly?

What would WaPo have to fear from a complete peeling of this particular onion?

Interruption of the right wing corporate takeover of public education, perhaps?

Is it a coincidence that the Tory-Lib Dem Education Minister met with Cameron & Murdoch Inc. (Rupert, James, Rebekah & Coulson) at the PM’s official residence over the holidays? Is WaPo’s deeply corrupt entanglement in the for-profit corporate education industry a reason for WaPo to defend the Murdoch crime syndicate?

You can follow the interlocking links to your hearts’ content. Just for example:

WaPo board (includes Don Graham, who serves on Facebook’s board, and Ronald L. Olson):

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/board.asp?ticker=WPO:US

I think that phrase “in danger of being eclipsed” by debates between senior officers and the media might imply that he feels he has been cut out of the decision-making.

What “senior officers” is he referring to? To that be in the cabinet itself? To Cameron and his deputies? Perhaps their dictating who shall be arrested prior to testimony in Commons? Interesting to speculate.

AS to this part of the main post:

Update: Brooks; spokesperson now suggests this arrest will make it harder for her to be very forthcoming with Parliament on Tuesday.

Mrs Brooks is due to appear in front of the Commons media select committee on Tuesday to answer MPs questions on the hacking scandal.

Mrs Brooks’ spokesman said her arrest would make her appearance at the committee “pretty tricky”.

I have to differ relative to the idea she could be “less than forecoming”.

In one of those “anti-crime” (really, anti-brown people) campaigns that was backed and pushed by Murdoch-type megaphones, what here in the US we would recognize as the Limbaughs of the world and their Rethug henchmen, a few years back the UK changed its law regarding post-arrest silence.

In short, in the UK you do not have the right to remain silent and have no adverse inference drawn from your silence. In the UK, if you remain silent under police interrogation, you may be presumed guilty or (a little more precisely) the fact of your silent non-denial may be placed before the finder of fact.

So, if Brooks comes before Commons and refuses to answer on the grounds she may incriminate herself, she incriminates herself.

Wonderful thing for authoritarians, the lack of a formal, written Constitution, no?

And, as I understand from a press report that ran across the wires a few days ago, since Murdoch, his son, and Brooks are all US citizens (Murdoch as a special executive dispensation by/during Reagan’s admin, so he could by WNYW Fox 5 in NYC and therefore build the Fox TV empire, ownership of TV stations then having bee limited to US citizens only), if they were not under arrest, Commons could not force their appearance to testify. They could have skipped the country.

In other words, much like the 2007-2009 edition of our Democratic congress, their Commons has subpoena power but it’s not really enforceable.

Here’s the Times’s take on the resignation of the top cop at Scotland Yard, Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/world/europe/18hacking.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

NYT treated it as just an added few grafs at the top of their story on Rebekah Brooks’s arrest.

We can still look forward to Sir Paul’s testimony on Tuesday before the home affairs committee, unless Scotland Yard decides to arrest him before then!

Um, the quote from Morgan above is the one paragraph that begins with “Apparently” and ends with “trick.” Isn’t setting up fun?

Here is the section of Sir Paul’s resignation statement that I’m not sure I can evaluate:

“Now let me turn to the reported displeasure of the prime Minister and the home secretary of the relationship with Mr. Wallis.

“The reasons for not having told them are two fold. Firstly, I repeat my earlier comments of having at the time no reason for considering the contractual relationship to be a matter of concern. Unlike Mr. Coulson, Mr. Wallis had not resigned from News of the World or, to the best of my knowledge been in any way associated with the original phone hacking investigation.

“Secondly, once Mr. Wallis’s name did become associated with Operation Weeting, I did not want to compromise the Prime Minister in any way by revealing or discussing a potential suspect who clearly had a close relationship with Mr. Coulson. I am aware of the many political exchanges in relation to Mr. Coulson’s previous employment – I believe it would have been extraordinarily clumsy of me to have exposed the Prime Minister, or by association the home secretary, to any accusation, however unfair, as a consequence of them being in possession of operational information in this regard. Similarly, the mayor. Because of the individuals involved, their positions and relationships, these were I believe unique circumstances.”

I’m sure it was just sheer coincidence that the head of Scotland Yard resigned today for no particular reason. /s

Now that I’m through snarking about his resignation, consider this:

If Sir Paul Stephenson had himself been called to testify before the Parliamentary enquiry while still head of Scotland Yard, one might reasonably have expected that as a government employee it would be mandatory that he would be required to answer all questions, and to do so truthfully.

If however, Sir Paul Stephenson were a private citizen, then he might avail himself of his right against self-incrimination and respond to any Parliamentary questions with the now common refrain “On the advice of counsel, I decline to respond”.

Funny how that works.

And btw EW, your Twitter page still refers to your location back on FDL rather than here.

prostratedragon @ 5:59 pm

Yesterday, I posted about Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law,Matthew Freud. Perhaps his association with Piers Morgan may explain the velvet glove approach. Per Wiki:

Matthew Freud
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Matthew Freud (born 2 November 1963) is head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm in the United Kingdom.

His great-grandfather is Sigmund Freud and he is doubly related to the ‘father’ of public relations, Edward Bernays, whose father was Sigmund Freud’s brother-in-law (the brother of Sigmund Freud’s wife) and whose mother was Sigmund Freud’s sister.

Freud Communications is currently the eighth largest public relations company in the UK, with around 150 employees. Landmark campaigns include the London 2012 Olympics, Product (RED), Nike, Pepsi, The Opening of Atlantis The Palm and UNHCR’s Gimme Shelter.[1] Adam Curtis in his documentary Century of the Self describes Matthew Freud as a star in the “new culture of public relations and marketing in politics, business and journalism” which rose in the Clinton-Blair years.[2] PRWeek says that Freud is “the most influential PR professional in the UK”.[3]
In May 2005, in partnership with Piers Morgan, he acquired ownership of the Press Gazette, a media trade publication, and its ‘cash cow’ the British Press Awards, in a deal worth £1million.[5][6] Many major newspapers have boycotted the event citing an apparent conflict of interest as one of the reasons.[7][8] In addition to owning a publication, Freud is married to Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch.

NOTE: Murdoch hired a different firm,Edelman, to manage the PR over this hacking scandal in the UK,

The idea that Sir Paul is leaving “with his integrity intact”, as he claims, could only have been dreamt up by a Murdochian worker bee. His reputation is deservedly in tatters.

We are likely to hear many refrains of the “Who could have known?” variety, couched in passive, actorless prose that suggests negligence or incompetence, not malice aforethought. The former leads to ribbing and disdain, the latter to loss of pensions, connections and jail time.

Innocent until proven guilty is the rule, though one would not know that if one’s only source of “information” were the Murdoch media. It’s also the rule that the truth is unlikely to be the first thing that flows from a stream of events that provoke career-ending choices from people in power with a great deal more to lose than their jobs.

No doubt, Rupert is in full on damage control here, but it would pay to remember that his files are probably more extensive than J. Edgar’s and that Australia is home to some of the world’s deadliest animals.

Earl ,I thought you had posted Manchurian worker bees in your post upthread. On second thought….

Even if these scandals – as with Fukushima, they are multiple scandals using the same name – bring down the Cameron government, I suspect that will be only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

This is just one ‘big boom!’ after another, event-wise.
Stephenson points out that he couldn’t very well spill all the beans to the PM, now could he? Certainly not -given that the PM’s right hand guy (Coulson) happened to be the former editor of the organization being investigated… pot to kettle: stop calling me sooty, ’cause I know where some bodies are buried.

Looks like a few worms must be turning.

And the cops kept Rebekah Brooks for 12 hours.
Well, she had plenty of time to ‘tittle tattle’ in 12 hours, though I’d be completely shocked if she said a word to help out the cops.

This whole thing is just amazing.
Every new drip makes it appear that corporate spying was at the core of News Corp’s modus operandi. And hiring criminals to do it is the icing on the cake.

It’s not prudent to gloat, but schadenfreude is getting the best of me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/david-cameron-paul-stephenson-hacking

EoH @8:52, I would be more hopeless about fundamental change myself, but Britain has changed so much even the past decade; the demographics of Britain are really quite diverse.

Before the May 2010 elections, no one gave the Lib Dems a chance, really. Clegg came on as a huge surprise and that election seemed to be a sign that people were so fed up with Labour and Tories that many were finally willing to take a chance with the Lib Dems. Cameron’s always been on thin ice.

Milliband and Clegg are now starting to talk about how outdated the UK media rules are — they go back to a completely different era; before WiFi, mobiles, Internet.

Inertia always has it’s own heavy weight, but the more that drips out, the more thuggish and surveillance-obsessed News Corp appears. And Clegg and Milliband can’t condone a private corporation hacking police phones — the sinister nature of this thing is already tipping off the charts, and it sure looks to get even worse.

Financial Times had a very interesting article about the corporate structure of News Corp, and how the different categories of stock (A, B) enabled the Murdock family to concentrate power within the organization. So in addition to looking at media policies, the Brits may need to take a good look at restructuring the financial framework allowed for media companies.

And if they start looking into News Corp’s tax haven usage, then combine that with phone hacking the PM’s phone, and the phones of the cops charged with investigating News Corp (to say nothing of murdered young girls and deceased military), well… this could get eye-popping.

Just to underscore how bad this is for Cameron, he didn’t even meet with the BBC last year, if I’m reading the guardian.uk correctly (!). He had Rebekah over for Boxing Day, of all days. But didn’t find time to meet with the Beeb all year. Whoops…
Just one more intriguing little detail.

Wow. That NYT piece is stunning. Thanks for the link.

This is the thing about “absolute power”…when it crumbles, it crumbles “absolutely”.

I “heard” (don’t recall the source) that Brooks was questioned for 9 hours but NOT charged.

This would probably mean that any claim of the “Right of Silence” that she might have made tomorrow in her testimony wouldn’t apply.

Can someone else confirm this fact and inference? Thx.