HACKERGATE SCANDAL GROWS IN BRITAIN

A powerful committee of the British Parliament, composed of MPs from each of Britain’s leading political parties, has decided to hold hearings on the News of the World telephone hacking scandal to determine whether telephone conversations and voicemail messages of members of Parliament were intercepted by the Sunday tabloid. The Standards and Privileges Committee is expected to call several former former reporters for the NoW who have acknowledged that hacking at the newspaper was far more extensive than previously believed and have claimed that the then-editor, Andy Coulson, was well aware of it, something that Coulson, now a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron, has denied. However, on Wednesday Paul McMullan became the sixth former reporter at the tabloid to acknowledge publicly that phone hacking was commonplace at NoW while Coulson was editor. British newspapers today (Thursday) also disclosed that Scotland Yard, which has been accused of limiting its investigation of the hacking in order to court favor with the NoW, has agreed to reopen the case and has summoned former NoW reporter Sean Hoare for an interview. Hoare last Sunday told the New York Times that Coulson had ordered him to tap phones of celebrities and politicians.