Coulson arrested

The former official spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron – and the former editor of the the News of the World – has been arrested. However, Andy Coulson has not been named by the Metropolitan Police statement, which refers to a "43-year-old man arrested on charges of suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications …

[Lockwood]

Do you have an appointment?

I always find it funny when you have the news stories about people having an appointment at the Police station, whereupon they get arrested.

Whilst it is nothing like as dramatic as "Metropolitan Police storm Coulson's house, Coulson arrested after Taser discharge", it certainly feels a lot more British!

The only thing missing to make it the ultimate British experience is if it were a mass arrest, and you had five suspects all in the waiting room in an orderly queue waiting for their turn to be arrested.

[BenR]

Simpsons

Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they get Homer to pay for all his parking fines by convincing him he's won a boat in the police raffle...

[L.B]

And the Simpsons was bassed on fact.

In the states a few years back they ran a few fake prize events. All the "winners" were bail jumpers and other wanted crooks, the letters all sent to the last known addresses just stated they had to be at a certain place at a specified date/time and had to bring proof of identity to collect thier new TV, VCR, Cash...

Hundreds dutifully turned up to claim prizes and were arrested.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but

Simpsons aint real.

[Mark 65]

Quaint

"The only thing missing to make it the ultimate British experience is if it were a mass arrest, and you had five suspects all in the waiting room in an orderly queue waiting for their turn to be arrested."

All drinking tea, very civilised.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure?

"All drinking tea, very civilised."

This would involve much kettling & teabagging.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite

'The only thing missing to make it the ultimate British experience is if it were a mass arrest, and you had five suspects all in the waiting room in an orderly queue waiting for their turn to be arrested.'

Alternatively the suspect tragically stumbles on to a policeman's boots and is then shot trying to escape down a long flight of stairs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Money talks.

The rest of us still get the police knocking on the door. You only get arrested by appointment if you're mates with the PM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah,

and the only reason he's being arrested at all is because of the huge public outcry, Camaron needs to drop him like a burning turd.

I suspect if his name wasnt so public, the whole thing would have been quietly dropped, like whoever was responsible for the entire the entire Phorm thing.

[JamesC]

noooooo

not true :) each and every time i've been arrested it has been by appointment. i'm not a friend of anybody!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, officer... I'm busy that day

"Sorry, absolutely chocca that day old man.

Can I get back to you with another date?

Bye for now."

Quick, grab the turbo shredder, the cops are on to us....!

[Paul Johnston]

And next?

A 43 year old woman is also arrested?

[Anonymous Coward]

But what we're really waiting for

is 'thousand year old desiccated newspaper magnate exorcised.'

[Anonymous Coward]

May I suggest a new hobby for them..

...may I suggest yatching with heavy drinking far out at sea. That's how the other bastard of fleet street disappeared.

Maybe some friendly pirates could give them a hand on the plank.

[John Smith 19]

@Mike Richards

Silence dog.

He is a cyber warrior god. A maker of earthquakes and an eater of souls.

(Well how would you explain his cockroach like powers of survival?)

[Seventh of 7th]

Prime number.

What makes you think she doesn't lie about her age as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Waiting for the #iantisec outrage

After all, isn't this just another case of hacking and then releasing the information ?

[LawLessLessLaw]

P.A.C.E.

Be on the Lulzboat, 6am, knock & raid.

Bribe police officers, interfere with murder enquiries and terrorist investigations, turn up at the station at your leisure.

[MarkieMark1]

Be Fair

Andy Coulson - Age 43, wife, 2 children, lives in South London, Tottenham Hotspur supporter, has his own wikipedia page :-)

Ryan Cleary - Age 19, background of mental instability, no wikipedia page of his own :-D

[Bumpy Cat]

Still to be arrested:

Rebecca Wade

Sir Paul Stephenson

Dick Frederico

I wonder if I could try a citizen's arrest ...

[Naughtyhorse]

you missed one

mini murdock

now that would be a story i'd pay to read

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedantic grammar nazi alert

I expect Rebekah Wade is relieved.

Pity poor old Rebecca Wade though.

[Bumpy Cat]

I thought I got it wrong ...

But then I thought "Rebekah is a pretty stupid way of spelling it, it must be Rebecca!".

[ColonelClaw]

In an ideal world

Here's hoping he ends up as some 20 stone thug's prison bitch

[Helena Handcart]

Prison bitch

"Here's hoping he ends up as some 20 stone thug's prison bitch..."

...who secretly records every prolapse-induced scream and sells it to the Sun.

[Anonymous Coward]

Innocent until proven guilty

Just like other hackers.

[Jemma]

...gives a whole new meaning to...

...Gorillas in the Mist....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh...

@Helena Handcart

@ColonelClaw

Please try to grow up a bit.

[mr-tom]

Thug's bitch

New keyboard, please.

[The BigYin]

He'll get a few years...

...and released early. Then probably re-appear in a new role after a short time.

Assuming a case can even be built (I don't mean legally, I mean politically). We have a very poor record of pursuing the well-connected.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ourt only hope.

Is that this time lots of MP's who are still waiting to see if they go to jail over expences thefts, all brought to light by news papers are happy to see this lot do time first.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the punishment fit the crime

Post all of Brooks' and Coulson's private communication via any medium, to anyone,

and see how they like it...

Where are.. Anonymous, Wikileaks and Lulzsec when you need them?

[Anonymous Coward]

emails...

Radio 4 reported that the police are investigating the possible deletion of millions of News International emails so I wont hold my breath.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was us wot won^Wdid it

What, you mean like some anonymous person might have compromised the log in account of a certain James or a certain Rupert then used said account to delete a few emails over in India?

Hopefully, they took copies before deleting them, just in case.

[JP19]

I'd be a lot more excited about this story if...

the government didn't all ready want to keep records of all my communications and couldn't already 'hack' them on a whim.

If you had to choose would you rather have NotW rummaging in your inbox or the government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for clearing that up

Silly me, I didn't realise this was an either/or situation between the press and the government, that we only get to chose _one_ entity that doesn't hack into private accounts.

Fuck wit.

[Rentaguru]

and a weekend in the cells

unless he's charged today since at present old bill only has 96 hours to charge or release

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing

Well call me Susan and butter me three ways till Sunday!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun on Sunday

I can think of worse ways to get on page 3, just not many.

[Jacqui]

Odd how certain journo's

knew an arrest was planned yesterday from "sources" in the met.

First how much did these sources cost - and secondly why are the journo's and sources not being chased as publishing notice of an arrest before the event should be illegal.

The Met really has a reputation problem - killing random people, arresting people for being too tall, cooking dogs and now being caught taking massive wads of wonga for feeding info to the press.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of that is important

By Cooking dogs it helps them integrate with the Korean community in London.

[Bumpy Cat]

바보 외국인!

It's really only the Korean equivalent of countryside hicks who still eat dog ... (and North Koreans, but they also eat grass, to avoid starving).

(Not Korean, but married to one)

[Anonymous Coward]

Redshirts too

Popular amongst the Thai "Redshirts" as well. Hillbillys at best.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:Odd how certain journo's

Well obviously the journo's had found out by tapping his phone......

you don't think NOTW were the only one's doing it, do you?

[Version 1.0]

Newspapers vs Bankers

Of course, if the NotW were a Bank the police would still be "investigating" and the Government would be offering to lend them money while they weather "temporary difficulties"

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame the networks

Blame the networks for having a default PIN number on the mailbox and not suggesting people change it? I'm assuming this "hack" is to ring the Voice Mail number (ie 07973100123 on Orange), key in a mobile number and key in the default PIN and then you have access? Weren't some MP's greeting messages defaced using this years ago?

[21st Century Peon]

I think they spoofed the phone number

...so that the voicemail system thought it was the victim's own phone calling.

[Richard Taylor 2]

Not quite as simple

Up to (to least last week) caller id spoofing would get you into at least one mobile providers vmail. You just need to know the number you wish to listen to and the carrier. I assume that if you are careful and do not listen to the whole message then it will not be recorded as 'old'

[Ants Mc]

Perjury too?

Since if he is found guilty of this, it means he lied under oath at the Sheridan trial.

[pootle]

Ms Wade's address....

Friends, colleagues and canon fodder.

Well that's the first (and only important) line

[Jemma]

Canon fodder...?

ummm... I think you mean cannon fodder.

I very much doubt that anyone @ NoTW has been fraudulently modifying the history of the Great Sith War on Wookiepedia, an action likely to cause a 'crouching geek, hidden sociopath' reaction that the phrase 'canon fodder' implies...

Although, since most of their stuff is fantasist crap, I suppose I shouldnt be surprised if they were..

[John Smith 19]

@pootle

Although NI disabled FB and Twitter access to their journos desks (and blocked their key cards from accessing the floor where the fragrant Ms Wade's office suite is located) *before* she addressed the scum (or her loyal staff as she likes to refer to them in public) it seems her last speech was recorded for posterity.

By several journos present.

A copy somehow managed to find its way to at least one of the nightly news programmes in the UK.

I suspect Fox will not be covering this in depth.

[RW]

Prolapsus ani

From what I've seen in certain porn flicks, name and nature not divulged here as El Reg is a family news outlet and Le Modérateur Divine might exercise his guillotine powers , gentlemen who after great effort have attained this anatomical anomaly (aka "a rosebud") rather enjoy their acquisition. And are happy to protrude it for the admiration of like-minded compatriots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrested by Appointment

The legality of arrest by appointment seems questionable at best.

http://tinyurl.com/62bfqxl

On the wider question of phone hacking, I can't claim to be as shocked as Prescott, Tom Watson, Milliband et al. seem to want us all to be.

Nobody expects the gutter press to behave honourably, the clue is in the pejorative.

On the other hand, the faux outrage and hidden glee in the politicians who've been "found out" over the years (and now sense blood) is not exactly honouring to the memory of fallen soldiers or Milly Dowler. And that's putting it kindly.

I've never bought a copy of the NoTW, but allowed myself a quiet smile when I've seen it in the shop, with some red-faced politician on the front page. Shame they had to arse it up so very badly.

Hopefully a the principle of a free press will not be the latest casualty of this unedifying episode.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sing baby sing

Hopefully he'll feel the need to sing like a canary, since he does seem to have been hung out to dry. To justify the damage that this has done to a very large number of people, there has to be a decent payoff that offers some lasting benefits to media standards, accountability and democracy. A severe clipping of the Murdoch empire's wings would be a good start, and seeing those responsible for creating and maintaining the environment in which this flourished in the dock would ice the cake nicely.

We're always told the big bucks are for taking big responsibilities. It would be good to see that taken to it's logical conclusion for a change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Caller ID Spoofing....

Is absolutely trivial IF you have a ISDN phone line.

But every call goes to any exchange (Or PABX) with ANI information too - and that's NOT spoofable or withholdable. Quite why the systems would work on the (unreliable) CLID field is an interesting question of competency.

(Endusers aren't supposed to see ANI information but I'm pretty sure lots of companies take the information and link it to the customer. When I owned an ISP it came through on the terminating modem equipment and proved useful to trace down users of stolen passwords)

[John Smith 19]

If Wade went Rupe would be looking for a new redhead

Sadly the complete lack of moral scruple called for is beyond any candidate I can think of.

[Anonymous Coward]

If Wade/Brooks goes

then James Murdoch is next in the firing line, and that can't be allowed to happen, can it. Though it already looks like it might be hard to avoid.

House of Commons, 12 July: Home Affairs Select Committee continues its "phone hacking" investigations.

Witnesses on this week's schedule include:

12:00 Andy Hayman (former Metroploditan anti-terrorism and special projects officer responsible for the 2006 hacking "inquiry", now a Murdoch employee)

12:30 DAC Sue Akers (Met officer responsible for current hacking inquiry)

Stay tuned for full coverage on Sky TV?

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/news/110705-hacking/

ps

yes I do know it's not really hacking

pps

see also

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2013055/News-World-Andy-Hayman-criticised-acting-stop-News-World-tracks-earlier.html

[Anonymous Coward]

No further proof...

it's all about who your mates are... Anyone else huckled on a Friday would have a nice weekend in the cells before being bailed by the beak on Monday afternoon if they were lucky.

[John Smith 19]

If this were Reservoir Dogs

Is Andy Coulson Mr Orange or Mr White?

I think we know who Joe, Nice Guy Eddie and Vince are.