(Newser)
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Sen. Jay Rockefeller has stepped up his efforts to find out if Rupert Murdoch's News Corp broke American laws in the British phone-hacking scandal. The West Virginia Democrat, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, has asked Lord Leveson, head of the British inquiry into the scandal, to turn over any evidence that News Corp or News International employees broke US laws by bribing foreign officials or tapping phones in the US, reports the Washington Post.
"In a democratic society, members of the media have the freedom to aggressively probe their government's activities and expose wrongdoing. But, like all other citizens, they also have a duty to obey the law," Rockefeller wrote in a letter to Leveson. "Evidence that is already in the public record clearly shows that for many years, News International had a widespread, institutional disregard for these laws." The committee the senator chairs has the power to set up official hearings into the scandal.
