Mark Lewis, the English lawyer who has been a driving force behind phone-hacking revelations in the UK, and his American legal partner Norman Siegel, have revealed that they have been approached by at least 10 people bearing complaints relating to Murdoch's News Corporation.
The complaints relate largely to alleged hacking by News of the World journalists into phones in the US, but also extend to other News Corp holdings including Fox News.
Lewis said that he had been contacted by a number of people since he arrived in the US last weekend "raising issues against other [News Corp] titles or Fox News, not necessarily about hacking but about other untoward dark arts to obtain information that should be private." He added that the new complaints were unproven allegations.
The Guardian (who else)?
Under federal law, an individual who violates telecoms privacy for the purposes of commercial advantage can face five years in prison, or 10 years for a subsequent offence. Civil courts can also set damages measured against the profits gained by the violators.
The Department of Justice is already investigating allegations of police bribery in the UK, which would violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
I suspect they are also looking into these matters.
This is bad news for James Murdoch, who relocated to the United States from London, perhaps to put himself outside of British jurisdiction.
But it is, of course, good news for John McCain. After all, if Fox News has less money to spend, they'll give less of it to Sarah Palin, and the worst mistake of John McCain's life can slip a little further into obscurity.