Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News television channel had a “black ops” department that may have illegally hacked private telephone records, a former executive for the station has alleged.
Dan Cooper, who helped launch Fox News as managing editor in 1996, said that a so-called “brain room” carried out “counter intelligence” on the channel’s enemies from its New York headquarters, and that he was threatened after it found out he spoke to a reporter.
Another former senior executive told The Telegraph that the channel ran a Soviet-style spying network on staff, reading their emails and making them “feel they were being watched”.
‘Fair and balanced’ … Controversial Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. A former executive claims hacking may have occurred at the network. Photo: YouTube
The channel, which has come under pressure amid allegations that outlets owned by Mr Murdoch may have attempted to hack the voicemail messages of 9/11 victims, firmly denies all the allegations.
Mr Cooper, who left Fox News soon after its launch, provided a quote for a 1997 article about Roger Ailes, Fox News’s president, by journalist David Brock in New York magazine.
The quote was not going to be attributed to him, but he alleges that, before the article was published, Mr Cooper’s agent received a telephone call from Mr Ailes threatening to withdraw Fox’s business from all his clients.
“There are only two possible ways Ailes found out,” Mr Cooper said.
“Either Brock told him or they got hold of Brock’s phone records and saw I spoke to him.”
He first alleged that the records were obtained by researchers in the “brain room” in 2005 in an article on his website about the launch of the channel.
“Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News,” he wrote.
“I knew it also housed a counter intelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.”
Mr Cooper yesterday said he helped to design the high-security unit. “It was staffed by 15 researchers and had a guard at the door. No one working there would engage in conversation.”
Mr Cooper said he was “willing to consider the possibility” that Mr Brock named him, but added: “I assume he operates under journalistic ethics and protected a confidential source. Brock told me at the time that Ailes told him he would never work again if he wrote the article.”
Mr Brock now runs Media Matters, a Left-leaning American media watchdog. A spokesman for the group said: “He declines to comment.”
Another former Fox News senior executive, who did not wish to be named, said staff were forced to operate under conditions reminiscent of “Russia at the height of the Soviet era”.
“There is a paranoid atmosphere and they feel they are being watched,” the former executive said.
“I have no doubt they are spying on emails to ensure no one is leaking to outside media.
“There is a unit of spies that reports up to the boss about who was talking to whom. A lot of people are scared that they’re going to get sidelined or even that they’re going to get killed.”
A Fox News spokesman said: “Each of these allegations is completely false. Dan Cooper was terminated six weeks after the launch of the Fox News Channel in 1996 and has peddled these lies for the past 15 years.”
The FBI is investigating allegations that journalists on a British newspaper may have tried to have 9/11 victims’ phones hacked.
Both former Fox News executives said they thought Mr Ailes would never have let his reporters do likewise.
BOSTON (AP) — A former employee of a website content delivery company has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of foreign economic espionage for providing company trade secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
Elliot Doxer, 42, will admit to providing trade secrets from Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies Inc. over an 18-month period to the agent, whom he believed was an Israeli spy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts said in a statement. A plea hearing is scheduled for Aug. 29.
Doxer’s attorney, Thomas J. Butters, did not return messages left after business hours Thursday.
Doxer, of Brookline, worked in Akamai’s finance department at the time he committed the alleged offenses. Prosecutors said he sent an email to the Israeli consulate in June 2006 and offered to provide any information he had access to in order to help that country in exchange for $3,000.
Doxer said his main goal was “to help our homeland and our war against our enemies,” prosecutors said.
Israeli officials contacted U.S. authorities about the offer. An FBI agent went undercover and posed as an Israeli agent in September 2007, and arranged to use a “dead drop” location to exchange information with Doxer to avoid detection. From then until March 2009, Doxer visited the drop location at least 62 times and provided an extensive list of Akamai’s customers and employees, including their full contact information, and contract details, according to prosecutors.
He also allegedly described Akamai’s physical and computer security systems and said he could travel to Israel and support special operations in his local area if needed.
Akamai previously said that it had cooperated with the FBI. The firm also noted that there is no evidence that Doxer actually gave information to a foreign government.
Authorities arrested Doxer in August and charged him with one count of wire fraud. That charge will be dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
The espionage charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a three-year term of supervised release and a $500,000 fine.
A recent Laptop magazine poll showed 55 percent of parents admitted to monitoring their children on social network sites like Facebook. The term “spying” was used; are parents overprotective and nosy or are they safeguarding their kids?
Poll results said 41 percent of parents check their children’s status updates, 39 percent check their children’s wall posts and 15 percent have sent friend requests (4 percent were rejected). Another 13 percent say that they have used friends’ accounts to check up on their children.
What does Facebook say about children’s accounts? Thirteen is the minimum user age. Parents who allow underage kids to use Facebook are lying for them. Many kids get Facebook accounts without parental knowledge or permission. Facebook bans 20,000 underage users every day.
Even at 13, a child is vulnerable on social networks. Unless a profile is set to private, anyone can send a friend request to and interact with another Facebook user, regardless of age. Groups can be set to allow only users 18 or older to access, but many don’t use that function. Ultimately, most all Facebook applications and activities are available to kids at age 13.
Does parental monitoring constitute spying, or just common sense? Given that a parent is responsible for a child until age 18, it can’t be called spying to check up on children. By definition, spying (tracking, stalking) would only apply to adults monitoring other adults or children not in their care.
Are parents who monitor their child’s Facebook accounts overprotective or just protective? Most kids love social network sites. They may post things on their profiles that they won’t (but should) tell their parents. Kids don’t necessarily avoid telling parents because they are afraid of parental reaction. Children have an innate sense of what parents would approve of, and what they wouldn’t. This gut instinct may indicate that what the child is doing online isn’t safe or healthy.
A child may say that what he posts is none of his parents’ business, but he can’t know what information his parents need to know to keep him safe. Kids aren’t always the best just of what or who is safe and what or who isn’t.
Several months ago, our daughter was caught chatting with an 19-year-old online. She is 13. She acted embarrassed when we confronted her, but she protested his innocence and repeated how nice he seemed. We explained that it wasn’t appropriate for a 19-year-old to interact with a 13-year-old. It had nothing to do with this particular person, it was about unsafe habits.
The concern I have with the Laptop study responses are the parents who said they’ve used subterfuge to monitor kids. Kids generally understand and appreciate parental concern. They don’t like dishonesty.
Here are parenting guidelines social networks like Facebook. Set clear boundaries and expectations. Mark the account private. Know her friends. Tell her that you will monitor her and why. Idle curiosity is not a good reason. Monitor in a caring, non-threatening way. Don’t expect her to fail. Expect the best but watch for problems.
If you don’t trust your child, ask yourself why not? Has she demonstrated lack of judgment or are you being reactionary? Keep the lines of communication open. If you don’t like her social network behavior, close the account; don’t sneak.
I expect my daughter to list me under “family” on Facebook. She is only allowed to “friend” adults who are relatives and family friends. I don’t read everything she posts, but she knows that I am aware and that I care.
Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben writes from 22 years parenting four children and 25 years teaching K-8,adult and special needs.
The New Zealand Police and SIS must make public their assessment of whether Mossad agents have been operating in New Zealand, and whether security has been compromised, Green Party Police spokesperson Keith Locke said today.
The normally secretive New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has given details to the media of suspicious activity before and after the Christchurch earthquake involving Israeli citizens.
“We need to know why a young Israeli, Benyamin Mizrahi, killed in the Christchurch earthquake, was carrying five or more passports, and whether he was assessed to be a Mossad agent,” said Mr Locke.
“It is important for us to know if any of the Israelis in Christchurch were travelling on false passports, or had them in their possession. Following the Mossad assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last year, there is an international police effort to stop Israeli agents obtaining false passports.
“It would be inexcusable, after two Mossad agents were imprisoned for passport fraud in 2004 for Mossad agents to once again be present here with false documentation.
“We also need more information as to why the SIS thought the Police computer may have been compromised,” said Mr Locke.
“The Prime Minister is wrong when he says it is not in the public’s interest to be told.
“As in any public report, the Police and SIS are entitled to withhold operational details, but we need to know what conclusions they have reached.”
BOSTON
– A former employee of a website content delivery company has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of foreign economic espionage for providing company trade secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
Elliot Doxer, 42, will admit to providing trade secrets from Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies Inc. over an 18-month period to the agent, whom he believed was an Israeli spy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts said in a statement. A plea hearing is scheduled for Aug. 29.
Doxer’s attorney, Thomas J. Butters, did not return messages left after business hours Thursday.
Doxer, of Brookline, worked in Akamai’s finance department at the time he committed the alleged offenses. Prosecutors said he sent an email to the Israeli consulate in June 2006 and offered to provide any information he had access to in order to help that country in exchange for $3,000.
Doxer said his main goal was “to help our homeland and our war against our enemies,” prosecutors said.
Israeli officials contacted U.S. authorities about the offer. An FBI agent went undercover and posed as an Israeli agent in September 2007, and arranged to use a “dead drop” location to exchange information with Doxer to avoid detection. From then until March 2009, Doxer visited the drop location at least 62 times and provided an extensive list of Akamai’s customers and employees, including their full contact information, and contract details, according to prosecutors.
He also allegedly described Akamai’s physical and computer security systems and said he could travel to Israel and support special operations in his local area if needed.
Akamai previously said that it had cooperated with the FBI. The firm also noted that there is no evidence that Doxer actually gave information to a foreign government.
Authorities arrested Doxer in August and charged him with one count of wire fraud. That charge will be dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
The espionage charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a three-year term of supervised release and a $500,000 fine.
