Despite questionable reporting, 9/11-victim hacking allegations generate frenzy

Were the phone accounts of 9/11 victims or their families hacked by unscrupulous British journalists? The U.S. government this week mobilized its law-enforcement machinery to find out.

It may be chasing a mirage.

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• Rupert Murdoch is back to his swashbuckling self
• Scandal sullies famed Scotland Yard
• 9/11-victim hacking allegations generate frenzy
• PHOTOS: Phone hacking scandal escalates

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• Opinion: Larry Flynt: Rupert Murdoch went too far
• Timeline of the phone hacking scandal

Timeline

News of the World scandal

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Concerns that reporters affiliated with Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct British newspaper, the News of the World, pried into the phones of terrorism victims ran through Washington this week in the wake of a news report carried by another British paper, the Daily Mirror.

Six members of Congress, including three from the New York-New Jersey area, expressed shock and outrage. The FBI, prompted by the lawmakers, confirmed that it has begun to investigate the allegation.

But the Mirror’s story — the only one thus far to assert that the British hacking involved 9/11 victims — remains unsubstantiated and uncorroborated, and it has been reported exclusively by a British tabloid famous for sensational journalism.

No official in the United Kingdom or United States has confirmed the paper’s assertion that “9/11 victims may have had their mobiles tapped by News of the World reporters.” No media organization has turned up evidence to support that claim independently since the story broke late Monday.

The report appears to be based on a shaky foundation. The Mirror names no specific sources in its reporting, and it relies on a single anonymous second-hand source for its account.

The story also appears to undercut its central premise — that phones may have been hacked.

The anonymous source is quoted later in the story saying that the information about hacking came from a former New York City police officer (also unidentified), who said he was approached by News of the World reporters seeking phone records of victims and their relatives. The News reporters were particularly interested in obtaining phone records belonging to British victims, according to the Mirror.

In any case, the paper said, no hacking took place.

“The [former policeman] said he had to turn the job down,” the Mirror quoted its source as saying. “He knew how insensitive such research would be, and how bad it would look.”

Within a day of publication, the Mirror story ignited a firestorm in Washington.

Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) were the first to call for an investigation, asking Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro to look into Murdoch’s News Corp., which is bas ed in New York.

Rockefeller and Boxer said they were concerned about reports that police officials in Britain had been bribed by Murdoch’s reporters there to get information, potentially a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. News Corp. is a U.S.-based company, so it is covered by that act, which makes it illegal for employees of U.S. companies to bribe foreign officials.

The senators also said, “Additionally, there are troubling reports that News Corporation may have illegally accessed phone records of victims of the 9/11 attacks, and the Senators urged authorities to investigate whether any United States citizens had their privacy violated by this alleged hacking.”