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The phone-hacking scandal
电话窃听丑闻

The lowest low
卑之何以堪

Jul 7th 2011 | from the print edition From The Economist print edition

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

电话窃听事件不仅仅危及《世界新闻报》的安危，它也威胁到鲁珀特·默多克，整个新闻界，警界及政界的未来。

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.

截止本周为止，被《世界新闻报》非法窃听电话信息的受害者大多数都为名人，皇室成员等，他们因身份特殊，享受特权，不会得到多少同情。对于《世界新闻报》来说，这将有力的缓和公众舆论所施加的压力，可在法庭上就行不通了。但是，现在公众也不会施以谅解了。传媒大亨默多克的新闻国际旗下的英国新闻出版单位——星期日报是英国最畅销的报纸。他们哗众取宠的丑恶行为看来更杂乱无章，罪大恶极。目前，受到谴责与世界新闻报同流合污的人物网正在进一步扩大。

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.

女学生米莉·道勒于2002年3月在英国萨里郡被谋杀，年仅13岁。对米莉的窃听使整个事件大为不同。2011年7月14号英国《卫报》披露《世界新闻报》雇佣私家侦探格伦·穆尔凯尔在米莉失踪几天后窃听她的手机语音邮箱。当米莉邮箱内存已满时，他删去了部分邮件以便使新的邮件能顺利进入语音邮箱。这一行为给她的家人造成了米莉仍然活着的假象。伦敦2005年“7.7”恐怖爆炸案死者的亲属，以及在伊拉克和阿富汗牺牲的士兵家人的电话可能也被窃听。同样，2002年在剑桥郡被杀害的两个女孩的家人也成为了窃听的对象。在这一愈演愈烈的长篇荒唐闹剧中演员休·格兰特也奇怪的客串了一把。今年4月《世界新闻报》的一位前记者也对他进行了“秘密的采访”。 工党议员汤姆·沃森7月6日在国会对《世界新闻报》提出一项更为严厉的指控：新闻国际雇人以已知罪犯的身份干预谋杀案件的调查。新闻国际表示不理解这项指控用意何在。