Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Coulson got hundreds of thousands of pounds from News Int. while working for Cameron
Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World who has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in phone hacking and bribing the police, received several hundred thousand pounds from News International after starting work as the Conservative Party's Director of Communications in July 2007.
These payments were part of his severance package, under what is known as a "compromise agreement". According to sources, Mr Coulson's contractual leaving pay was given to him in instalments until the end of 2007 - which means he continued to be financially linked to News International for several months of his tenure as David Cameron's main media adviser.
The disclosure that Mr Coulson maintained a financial relationship with News International after moving into a sensitive role in the Tory Party will be controversial.
According to a senior member of the government, Tory Party managers at the time say they were not aware Mr Coulson was receiving these payments from News International while employed by the Conservative Party.
As I understand it, after Mr Coulson resigned from News International on 26 January 2007, News International said it would pay him his full entitlement under his two-year contract as editor of the News of the World - although the money would be paid in instalments.
I am told that Mr Coulson also continued to receive his News International work benefits, such as healthcare, for three years, and he kept his company car.
Mr Coulson was appointed as the Conservative Party's Director of Communications on 31 May 2007 and took up the post in July of that year. He was reportedly paid £275,000 a year by the Conservative Party.
News International is the UK arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. For decades, leaders of the Tory and Labour parties have battled to win the support of Mr Murdoch's influential newspapers, including the Sun and the Times.
The Tories and Labour have both had to respond to criticisms that they became unhealthily close to Mr Murdoch and his senior executives, including Mr Coulson's predecessor as editor of the News of the World, Rebecca Brooks, who went on to become chief executive of News International - and who has also been arrested on suspicion of involvement in phone hacking and making illegal payments to police officers.
Some will question whether Mr Coulson could give impartial advice on media issues to Mr Cameron when in opposition, given that he retained financial ties to News International.
Mr Coulson's supporters would dispute that his impartiality had been compromised.
When the newspaper's then royal editor, Clive Goodman, was convicted of phone hacking in January 2007 and was imprisoned, Mr Coulson resigned from News International.
Mr Coulson denied any knowledge of the phone hacking but said he felt obliged to quit because the hacking had taken place while he was editor of the News of the World.
A letter written by Mr Goodman in March 2007, disclosed last week by the Culture Media and Sport Committee, claims that phone hacking was routinely discussed in the News of the World's editorial conference, although it does not explicitly say that Mr Coulson knew about hacking.
In May 2010, after the Tories formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, Mr Coulson became Director of Communications for the government. In January of this year, he resigned from that post, following disclosures that criminal activity at the News of the World may have been more widespread than News International had been saying.
Mr Coulson was arrested in July.
David Cameron has had to defend his recruitment of Mr Coulson, following claims he ignored warnings that phone hacking went wider than Mr Coulson had claimed.
A spokesman for News International said: "News International consistently does not comment on the financial arrangements of any individual."
Mr Coulson did not return calls.
Robert Peston @'BBC'
Tinariwen - Tassili (2011 - Albumstream)
Imidiwan Ma Tenam (Feat. Nels Cline)
Asuf D Alwa
Tenere Taqhim Tossam (Feat. Tunde Adebimpe & Kyp Malone)
Ya Messinagh
Walla Illa
Tameyawt
Imidiwan Win Sahara
Tamiditin Tan Ufrawan
Tiliaden Osamnat
Djeredjere
Iswegh Attay
UK release date: 29 August 2011
Review
Free Live Album Download
From The Sahara to NYC
ALBUMSTREAM
Monday, 22 August 2011
ChasLicc Chas Licciardelli
BREAKING: Gaddafi captured for ninth time today, after being killed six times.
...and here's what #qanda guest Daniel Pipes wrote about the tragic bushfires here in Victoria in 2009!
Critics label Australia's cybercrime bill 'invasion of privacy'
The new cybercrime bill, introduced in June by Attorney-General Robert McClelland, lays out legislative changes that will let Australia accede to an international cyber law convention, touted by the United States as an important bulwark in the fight against cybercrime.
However, critics of the bill - which will also create provisions that allow foreign agencies such as the FBI to request data retention - say it goes too far and will be a significant invasion of privacy and civil liberties.
Many of those submissions included concerns about the extended reach the bill would provide to law enforcement and security agencies, and that there were no legal restrictions regarding how data was used by foreign nations once it was handed over.
''We are [concerned that] there appears to be no way of guaranteeing or enforcing limitations that are supposedly placed on overseas law enforcement agencies,'' spokesman for the Australian Privacy Foundation, Nigel Waters, told the committee during a public hearing earlier this month.
Australia was, per capita, home to more data interception than almost anywhere else in the world, he said, making the concerns about this bill particularly important.
There was some recognition of that concern yesterday, with the joint select committee on cyber safety recommending 13 changes that it said would clarify and tighten conditions under which agencies could access information.
''We want to ensure powers are available to fight cyber crime and that the public has confidence in the scheme,'' the committee chairman, Labor senator Catryna Bilyk, said.
She rejected claims, however, that the bill would allow wholesale retention of people's private data. ''It is not a data retention scheme and it does not allow foreign countries to demand access to private communications, as has been alleged,'' she said.
Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam applauded the committee's report, which he said was ''highly critical'' of the draft bill.
''We all want to see enhanced collaboration by law enforcement agencies fighting serious crime, but the proposed law goes well beyond the already controversial European convention on which it is based and could encroach on civil liberties,'' Senator Ludlam said yesterday.
He also criticised the speed with which the bill had travelled through Parliament, saying ''a disturbing pattern of behaviour'' had emerged, with the Attorney-General's Department fast-tracking several national security bills through the parliamentary process. That reduced scrutiny of legislation that could affect civil liberties, he said.
Online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia said it was keen to see functional and appropriate legislation to combat cybercrime but it was not going to welcome laws that limit civil rights and unnecessarily increase surveillance on Australian citizens, particularly by other countries.
"There are a number of provisions in [the bill] that go well beyond the [European] Convention, into areas such as collection and retention of material on Australians that can potentially be used by third states to undertake legal action against Australians where no Australian law has been broken," said EFA spokesman Stephen Collins.
David Vaile, executive director of the UNSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, said many of the concerns about the bill raised by himself and others had been left "unaddressed or unresolved" by the committee, which he said made minor suggestions for tweaking the Bill.
The Attorney-General, Mr McClelland, welcomed the report.
Dylan Welch and Asher Moses @'The Vine'
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