Something We Can Agree Needs Investigation

Is the phone-hacking scandal involving the Murdoch empire.

Mr Murdoch arrived in London yesterday, wearing a Panama hat and clutching a final copy of the News of the World, in a bid to save his crumbling organisation after the phone-hacking scandal saw the 168-year-old paper axed.

But he flew straight into another storm as it was claimed 9/11 victims may have had their mobiles tapped by News of the World reporters. And there was more bad news when it was revealed nine reporters ­allegedly at the centre of the phone scandal and claims of police corruption could face jail, along with three officers.

As you can imagine, this story has caused a firestorm of commentary from the Truthers, those self-appointed representatives of the family members. Here's a legitimate conspiracy, involving people who died on 9-11 and corrupt government officials. Surely this is a prime opportunity for the Truth Movement to coalesce around a story and push their agenda forward.

Or not. The 9-11 Blogger post on the story by Matt Naus (he of book-burning fame) has a grand total of four comments so far, three of which concern his misleading title of "9/11 Victims Phones Tapped For Details in the Days Before 9/11/01 ?" In fact, the phones were not tapped, what appears to have happened is that reporters from News of the World tried to get phone records of the victims, not nearly the same thing.

Truth Action? Inaction. No mention of this story whatsoever. 9-11 Truth News copied a Sydney Morning Herald article a week ago, with no commentary added. Jon Gold did post a paragraph about it in the comments on another copied newspaper report.

Today, Sen. Frank Lautenberg released a statement pertaining to the allegation that Fox hacked 9/11 family members’ phones. He said, “any violation of these innocent victims must be taken seriously and acted upon immediately.” I agree. Like preventing real justice and accountability for what happened. That violation should be acted upon immediately.

Of course compared to the Truthers' lack of discussion about Remember Building 7 spokesman Manny Badillo's arrest on charges of having sex with somebody under 16, the Troofers response to this news story has been relatively verbose and active.

The Crazy Canuck is Back!

Jeff Hill, whose nutty phone calls have provided us with endless amusement gets profiled in a piece on how he's calling people in the Shanksville area:

Hill called McClatchey at her real estate office on Jan. 26 and told her he'd like to order a copy of the photo. He then began questioning her about the photo, gradually asking more aggressive questions about the photo's legitimacy. But throughout the conversation, McClatchey said Hill was very nice.

And, if you're looking for evidence that he should be in the room with pads on the walls, it's here:

He said he first became interested in Sept. 11 theories when he accidentally stumbled across a Web site that claimed Building 7 of the World Trade Center fell too quickly.

Soon he became obsessed with discovering what he describes as “the turth” (sic) about Sept. 11. He said he was put on sick leave from his job at Dell Computers, where he took phone calls for technical assistance.

“Maybe they were afraid I'd start talking to the customers,” he said, which Hill said he never did.

Hill said he was sent to a doctor for psychological help. Doctors said he was “uptight” and “paranoid,” and they prescribed him “happy pills,” which he never took. He said he doesn't know what it would take to get his job back and at present he is in the process of being put on disability.