Murdoch whistleblower found dead—not being treated as suspicious by police

The Guardian reports (h/t Marcy Wheeler and Keith Olbermann):

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.

Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home.

Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a statement: ... "The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

We're obviously not in a novel — in most novels, justice is done. On the one hand, there are those "drink and drug problems." And on the other, well, you guess.

And on the third hand, if this really is foul play, it's the most inept timing of a murder in modern media history; guys, there is no "Monday morning news dump."

The whole story makes great reading. There's a nice run-down of Hoare's history with the Murdoch gang, and also as a whistle-blower. The writers also describe "pinging" — the "police technology" used to locate people using their mobile signals by triangulating with cell phone towers, in "exchange for payments to police officers."

Hoare gave further details about the use of "pinging" to the Guardian last week. He described how reporters would ask a news desk executive to obtain the location of a target: "Within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the news desk would come back and say 'right that's where they are.'"

He said: "You'd just go to the news desk and they'd just come back to you. You don't ask any questions. You'd consider it a job done. The chain of command is one of absolute discipline and that's why I never bought into it, like with Andy [Coulson] saying he wasn't aware of it and all that. That's bollocks."

Your national security state at work, folks. That's not snark. Once the apparatus is built, it's for sale. Good thing only a small number of people have most of the money; otherwise, the corruption of police surveillance would be too widespread.

We'll be watching this. It has potential, but so far, that's all.

UPDATE: More on "pinging" and police corruption from the New York Times (buried at the end of a related story):

A former show-business reporter for The News of the World, Sean Hoare, who was fired in 2005, said that when he worked there, pinging cost the paper nearly $500 on each occasion. He first found out how the practice worked, he said, when he was scrambling to find someone and was told that one of the news desk editors, Greg Miskiw, could help. Mr. Miskiw asked for the person’s cellphone number, and returned later with information showing the person’s precise location in Scotland, Mr. Hoare said. Mr. Miskiw, who faces questioning by police on a separate matter, did not return calls for comment.

A former Scotland Yard officer said the individual who provided the information could have been one of a small group entitled to authorize pinging requests, or a lower-level officer who duped his superiors into thinking that the request was related to a criminal case. Mr. Hoare said the fact that it was a police officer was clear from his exchange with Mr. Miskiw.

“I thought it was remarkable and asked him how he did it, and he said, ‘It’s the Old Bill, isn’t it?’ ” he recalled, noting that the term is common slang in Britain for the police. “At that point, you don’t ask questions,” he said.

I'm not sure what UK police have to live on these days, but $500 seems cheap to me. The Times goes on to say that Hoare's account of the practice was corroborated.

GP