Whistleblower and ex-private investigator John Ford has claimed he was used by the Sunday Times to illegally to spy on politicians \u2013 including former prime minister Tony Blair \u2013 while they were in power. Ford said his spying methods included blagging, a term for tricking sources into revealing information by pretending to be a legitimate authority.<\/p>\n
Ford claims he was contracted between 1995 and 2010, and targeted both the Labour government and members of the public. The former PI said he would go on \u201cfishing expeditions often\u201d<\/em> and there were “hundreds of telephone interceptions, hundreds of bank interceptions. I\u2019ve stolen rubbish. I\u2019m afraid the list is endless,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n Watson said he is furious over claims that people were targeted by the paper. In a video on Twitter, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s right-hand man said the Leveson Inquiry, which delved into the UK press and its relationship with those in power, appears not to have uncovered everything.<\/p>\n The inquiry found that police had been paid for information, while phones were hacked, including that of missing teenager, Milly Dowler. The move could have impacted the investigation, since a voicemail on her phone had been opened \u2013 leading officers to believe she may have been alive.<\/p>\n Watson said Labour will fight for \u201cgenuine press freedom\u201d<\/em> and the victims of phone hacking. He said: \u201cA few days ago, the Conservatives announced that they are breaking their promise to the victims of phone hacking, and ditching plans for the next stage of the Leveson Inquiry that was supposed to examine possible press criminality and collusion with the police.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThey said that the Leveson Inquiry was done, that it was comprehensive, that there was nothing more to see. Well, the BBC have just broken a remarkable story that shows that\u2019s not quite accurate.”<\/em><\/p>\n A whistleblower has claimed that Murdoch\u2019s Sunday Times was involved in criminal activity for over a decade by blagging the personal finance records of Labour cabinet ministers. And, rather than coming clean about it, they\u2019ve covered it up. It seems far from this story being over, there\u2019s much more to come.<\/p>\n \u201cYet, the government wants to close the story down. They are capitulating to the press barons and their billionaire backers \u2013 protecting them from scrutiny,\u201d<\/em> said Watson. The Sunday Times said that it \u201cstrongly rejects\u201d<\/em> claims it had hired anyone to act illegally on their behalf. A spokesperson said the paper had \u201ca strong record of investigative journalism over decades and has employed many contributors and researchers to work on stories, or parts of stories.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rupert Murdoch\u2019s news outlets were involved in more criminality than the Leveson Inquiry uncovered, it has been claimed. The Tories want to \u201cclose the story down,\u201d however, according to Labour\u2019s deputy leader Tom Watson. Whistleblower and ex-private investigator John Ford has claimed he was used by the Sunday Times to illegally to spy on politicians […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-351464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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