If the civilian phone hacking scandal involving Rupert Murdoch's News International editors and reporters is any indication of the state of offensive information warfare today, the capabilities of the U.S. Cyber Command, co-located with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade, Maryland, are likely light-years ahead of those of Murdoch's media empire. It is the built-in software and hardware trap doors, engineered by NSA and placed into most of the commercial computer and communication systems in use today, that allows corporate entities like Murdoch's News International and News Corporation to take advantage of security vulnerabilities to hack into the emails and voice mails of those considered political enemies of the neo-conservative cause, a movement that is championed worldwide by the likes of Murdoch.
Murdoch and his minions have managed to set back for decades the notion of privacy. It was Murdoch's news entities, including Fox News and his tabloids in the United Kingdom and United States that were at the forefront of claiming a "new normalcy" after the 9/11 attacks ten years ago. The propaganda of fear coincided with the government's of George W. Bush and Tony Blair ushering into law draconian measures that put every citizen and resident of the United States and United Kingdom under suspicion as a potential "terrorist." In return, Murdoch's friends in law enforcement and intelligence in Washington and London were obliged to thank Murdoch by affording his journalists almost unfettered access to sensitive law enforcement information, including that which was obtained from wiretapping. Wiretapping and other electronic surveillance became much easier under the Bush and Blair governments due to the virtual abrogation of checks and balances on government snooping power by the courts.
The fact that the London Metropolitan Police had a cozy relationship with Murdoch's media entities should come as no surprise, considering the fact that it was Murdoch's Sky News that helped hype the fear angle after the July 7, 2005 London transit attacks, with the British police benefiting as a result. Other networks, including the BBC, had no choice but to follow Murdoch's lead, just as CNN and MS-NBC followed Fox News's almost hysterical post-9/11 fear frenzy by announcing "breaking news" on everything from terrorist scuba divers coming ashore, to bombs placed inside cows, and exploding ball point pens.
The fake fear of terrorism promoted by Murdoch and his ilk saw U.S. and British law enforcement reap huge budgets and enhanced authority. There have been reports that Fox News headquarters in New York consisted of an intelligence-gathering operation that was at least on par with that of Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid in London. Former Fox News Fox News executive Dan Cooper has charged the network with maintaining a "Brain Room" at its New York headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas that permitted Fox employees to view transcripts of private phone calls and hack into computer systems. Although there is a major investigation of Murdoch's spying activities in the United Kingdom, which involved phone hacking of everyone from then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown to members of the royal family, there has been no similar calls for an investigation of Murdoch's surveillance activities in the United States. It was never been adequately explained how sensitive law enforcement surveillance information on then-New York Governor Elliot Spitzer was leaked to the media, but the existence of the "Brain Room," that engaged in spying and counter-intelligence, should call into question the links between Murdoch's American enterprises and the police, FBI, and U.S. intelligence agencies, including the NSA, which broadcasts Fox News into its National and Regional Security Operations Centers (NSOC/RSOCs) on a 24 x 7 basis.
It is precisely the weak security that NSA has pressed commercial vendors to introduce into their cell phones, e-mail systems, and operating systems that permits a sophisticated operation like that of Murdoch to penetrate security holes. The CIA's venture capital firm, IN-Q-TEL, showers start-up high-technology firms with generous seed capital but the Faustian deal requires the firms to comply with U.S. intelligence requests to spike their products with back doors and other espionage add-ons and "Trojan horse" capabilities.
Fox News's hiring of top-level officials of the Bush administration, including Bush press secretary Dana Perino and top Bush political adviser Karl Rove, himself no stranger to breaking the law to gain access to sensitive information, is suspicious and mirrors the close relationship between Murdoch's London papers and key figures in the Labor government of Blair and the Conservative government of David Cameron.
Pentagon doctrine has made no secret of its goals in projecting power through manipulation of the media: its terminology has ranged from "influence operations" and "offensive information warfare" to the more standard "perception management" and "psychological warfare operations." The government is barred by law from operating its own media network to propagandize the American people, but there is nothing stopping the government from using surrogates like Fox News or other networks to carry out its propaganda mission. Murdoch stepped up to the plate with its Hollywood-style reporting on the lead-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, complete with sound-track music that is usually only heard with blockbuster thriller movies. Government-encouraged propagandizing through the public-owned broadcast frequencies, while egregious in itself, pales in comparison to a network having access to government wiretap and other surveillance information. Raw intelligence, without the proper analysis and vetting, if released to unauthorized parties, can spell the end of careers and destroy personal lives.
The lessons of Colombia, where intelligence agencies were caught sharing surveillance information with politicians and paramilitary terrorist groups, should serve as examples for what can ultimately occur when the barriers between intelligence and law enforcement agencies and unauthorized consumers of intelligence break down.
Although the FBI has stated that it is investigating Murdoch's surveillance operations in the United States, the bureau's investigation will likely be put on the back shelf, as the investigation of the London Metropolitan Police falters, especially after the riots in London and the police contention that it needs for resources and respect to deal with recurrences. The London riots and looting has been a win-win for the British police and Murdoch's news operations.
There is another aspect of Murdoch's operations, not the news coverage but the sports coverage, that requires a thorough examination. The National Football League, which has exclusive coverage deals with Fox Sports, supposedly has strict rules about the frequencies used by coaches and assistant coaches to call plays to the radio helmets of quarterbacks. The only others with access to the frequencies are the replay officials, who work for the NFL's oversight committee. Considering Murdoch's communication surveillance activities, the possibility that Fox Sports may have access to the plays in advance would be a God-send for the sports betting industry, which has a platonic relationship with those like Fox Sports, who cover the games.
Government spy agencies like the CIA and NSA have made no secret of their utter disdain for the U.S. Constitution and the individual rights of American citizens. However, if these agencies have entered into alliances with the Murdochs of the world to selectively release damaging information on public and private figures for purely political reasons, the future of democracy in America may be dead-on-arrival. Murdoch's staff in London had no problem with hacking into the confidential health records of Prime Minister Brown's four-year old son, Fraser, which sets a very low benchmark for Murdoch's ethics as a media tycoon. It is well-known that neither the CIA nor NSA have any ethics, so if they are teamed up with a thoroughly unethical media operation like that of Murdoch's, the future for the press, individual rights and liberties, and democracy are truly dim.
