【電話竊聽丑聞,卑之何以堪】The phone-hacking scandal

The phone-hacking saga jeopardises more than merely the News of the World: it threatens Rupert Murdoch, the press as a whole, the police and politicians

電話竊聽事件不僅僅危及《世界新聞報》的安危，它也威脅到魯珀特·默多克，整個新聞界，警界及政界的未來。

UNTIL this week, the victims in the scandal over the illegal hacking of mobile-phone messages by the News of the World seemed mostly to be celebrities, royals and others too privileged to command much sympathy. For the tabloid, that was a useful mitigation in the court of public opinion, if not in law. No longer. The sordid antics of Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday paper—owned by News International, Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper outfit—look more promiscuous and more gravely criminal. And the circle of blame and taint is widening.

截止本周為止，被《世界新聞報》非法竊聽電話信息的受害者大多數都為名人，皇室成員等，他們因身份特殊，享受特權，不會得到多少同情。對于《世界新聞報》來說，這將有力的緩和公眾輿論所施加的壓力，可在法庭上就行不通了。但是，現在公眾也不會施以諒解了。傳媒大亨默多克的新聞國際旗下的英國新聞出版單位——星期日報是英國最暢銷的報紙。他們嘩眾取寵的丑惡行為看來更雜亂無章，罪大惡極。目前，受到譴責與世界新聞報同流合污的人物網正在進一步擴大。

The big difference is Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old schoolgirl who was murdered in Surrey in March 2002. On July 4th the Guardian reported allegations that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working with News of the World journalists, hacked into Dowler’s voice-mail in the days after her disappearance, removing some messages to free up space when her account became full. The effect was to make her family think she might still be alive. The relatives of people killed in the terrorist attacks in London of July 2005, and of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, might also have been targeted. Ditto the families of two girls murdered in Cambridgeshire in 2002: in a bizarre cameo in what is an increasingly baroque saga, the actor Hugh Grant made that link in April, in a covertly recorded interview with a former journalist. Tom Watson, a Labour MP, made an even more serious charge in Parliament on July 6th: that News International paid people to interfere in a murder case “on behalf of known criminals”. The firm says it doesn’t understand that accusation.

女學生米莉·道勒于2002年3月在英國薩里郡被謀殺，年僅13歲。對米莉的竊聽使整個事件大為不同。2011年7月14號英國《衛報》披露《世界新聞報》雇傭私家偵探格倫·穆爾凱爾在米莉失蹤幾天后竊聽她的手機語音郵箱。當米莉郵箱內存已滿時，他刪去了部分郵件以便使新的郵件能順利進入語音郵箱。這一行為給她的家人造成了米莉仍然活著的假象。倫敦2005年“7.7”恐怖爆炸案死者的親屬，以及在伊拉克和阿富汗犧牲的士兵家人的電話可能也被竊聽。同樣，2002年在劍橋郡被殺害的兩個女孩的家人也成為了竊聽的對象。在這一愈演愈烈的長篇荒唐鬧劇中演員休·格蘭特也奇怪的客串了一把。今年4月《世界新聞報》的一位前記者也對他進行了“秘密的采訪”。 工黨議員湯姆·沃森7月6日在國會對《世界新聞報》提出一項更為嚴厲的指控：新聞國際雇人以已知罪犯的身份干預謀殺案件的調查。新聞國際表示不理解這項指控用意何在。