U.S. FBI probes News Corp. hacking allegations

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in New York began to investigate reports that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation sought to hack the phones of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The investigation was opened Thursday morning and will try to determine whether employees of News Corp. illegally accessed the private calls, voice-mail messages, or call records of 9/11 victims or their families, the report said. The probe will also look into whether any News Corp. employees bribed or sought to bribe police officials to gain access to such records, according to people familiar with the matter. It is reported that the inquiry was prompted in part by a letter from Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, to Robert S. Mueller III, the FBI director, in which he asked that the bureau should immediately open an investigation of News Corp. The probe is the latest twist in a scandal over phone hacking in Britain by News of the World, a newspaper recently closed by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.