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  1. Media Law
January 3, 2012

‘Email hacking could be worse than phone-hacking’

By Dominic Ponsford

Tom Watson MP has called on the Met Police to expand its investigation into allegations of Fleet Street email hacking following a report by the Independent that Gordon Brown’s email account was targeted.

According to The Independent, police believe Brown’s emails may have been illegally accessed when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

According to the paper, police working on Operation Tuleta are looking at evidence from around 20 computers which suggest that hundreds may have had their emails hacked by journalists.

And it reports that itis possible several national newspapers commissioned private investigators to access computers.

Former cabinet minister Peter Hain is said to have been told by police that his computers may have been hacked during the period that he was Northern Ireland secretary, from 2005 to 2007.

Tom Watson MP is quoted in today’s Independent: “These new revelations could be more damaging to our democracy than the phone-hacking scandal. It seems bizarre that the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, would only have such a small team investigating such serious allegations that go to the heart of the political system.”

Around eight police officers are said to be working on the Operation Tuleta Met Police investigation into Fleet Street computer hacking, around 120 are believed to be involved in the Operation Weeting voicemail hacking probe.

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