*Otherwise you'd have to imagine that Rupert Murdoch invented the practice, which doesn't seem very plausible.
*Perfidious Albion, into "surveillance marketing" way ahead of the curve.
*One has to wonder how many lives were surreptitiously ruined by this practice. I mean, they weren't doing it just for the amusement potential.
"The investigators broke the law to obtain sensitive information, including mobile phone records, bank statements and details of witnesses under police protection.
"Soca was analysing intelligence from mostly Scotland Yard investigations that had also failed to prosecute the offenders for the most serious offences – and completely ignored the blue-chip clients who may have profited from their crimes.
"The report – which showed the practices went far wider than the newspaper industry – was dismissed by Lord Justice Leveson, who considered it fell outside the narrow terms of reference for his inquiry into the media.
"One of five police investigations reviewed by Soca found private detectives listening in to targets’ phone calls in real time. During another police inquiry, the Soca report said officers found a document entitled “The Blagger’s Manual”, which outlined methods of accessing personal information by calling companies, banks, HM Revenue and Customs, councils, utility providers and the NHS.
"Illegal practices identified by Soca investigators went well beyond the relatively simple crime of voicemail hacking and also included police corruption, computer hacking and perverting the course of justice.
"Meanwhile, in an extraordinary joint admission on the Soca website, Mr Pearce and Commander Neil Basu of the Metropolitan Police admit the agency sat for years on evidence of criminality, until it was finally forced to act in May 2011 by former British Army intelligence officer Ian Hurst whose computer was allegedly hacked by corrupt private investigators..."
