all sorts of, we call them blags, to get information out of people. >> reporter: did you at some pointsing lines here? >> very much so. but there was no -- there was no concept of, you must stop now. you had to get the story at all costs. >> reporter: we are now learning that more than 4,000 people, celebrities, politicians, victims of crime and tragedy, were targeted by "the news of the world." that reporters were bribing police officers for scoops and stealing to get its store you ares. are we talking about potential criminal charges here? >> oh, yeah. definitely. >> reporter: and tonight, we are hearing that those criminal charges are imminent. a former editor of "the news of the world" is expected to be arrested tomorrow. others will l llow. media critic peter obourn says while officials knew about what was going on, no one would take on murdoch. >> he had the ability to destroy their careers. >> reporter: but instead, he has destroyed one of the oldest newspapers in the world, and a country's faith in news reporting. i'm jeffrey kofman for she's the mr. clean magic eraser bath scr

. ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e ♪ hotwire.com >>> first it was hacking, and now it's something called blagging, word that british police are widening their investigations into possible activity by journalists into several newspapers, not just rupert murdoch's disgraced "news of the world." what is bla fwchlt ging, and how do these newspapers do it? it's recklessly or deceitfully getting personal information without that person knowing. i don't know why we need a special term for it, but apparently we do. they did this by hiring private investigators. the daily news hired one investigator 552 times. dan, let me ask you something. up front, the impression that the murdoch empire would want you to have, yeah, expand the investigation because everybody does this. >> that's what "the wall street journal" editorial said a few days ago, sort of this notion, why are we the only ones being looked at? this has been happening for years on fleet street. boy, if the investigation is now expanding into other papers, news corp. and murdoch have got to be thrilled. they've got to be saying, well, finally, it's not

or is there wider culture of hacking and blagging of which your paper was part? >> i did not see that evidence. you will have seen that, out of all media groups in the country, news international has been the one openly to welcome prime minister's public inquiry. the fact is, i am not in a position to comment often all other newspaper groups. like i said at the beginning, things went badly wrong at the "news of the world." we are doing our best to sort it out. i accept that it is not at the speed with which this wee committee would have wished, but we are trying to put them right. on operation motorman, it is important that there was a select committee inquiry into it. it is rorlly right that the code of conduct of journalists and the ethics of journalism are in constant review. if there is ain constant review of conduct of ethics, the freedoms that this press enjoys, which i believe in very strongly, are at risk. >> one final question. your previous letters to the committee when you refused to attend placed great emphasis on your being willing to attend as part

brown's phone, as they had done with other people "the news of the world" but also tried to access by blagging, trying to be other people, access information on his accounts. perhaps the worst part of this story, john, is that they somehow gained gleaned information about the health of his kid. his son has cystic fibrosis. we believe that gordon brown only found out about this after a journalist rang him to talk to him about his son. >> blink and you might miss something in this scandal. thank you. >>> today tony blair told our wolf blitzer he doesn't think he's been hacked and mr. blair says he's surprised people here in the united states are so scandalized by the story. >> i'm quite surprised how shocked you guys are over here. >> we're pretty shocked. >> yeah. and maybe we just -- >> i'm shocked that you are not shocked. >> you know, i lived with it. for 50 years. >> should we be shocked? with us now the president and editor of "hhollywoodlife.com. and nile gardner. now that you're an expert, tep help us put that into context. it's pretty shocking when you find that bank accounts have been

as is something the british called blagging, impersonating someone to gain confidential data. >> their best tool is the phone because people will say all kinds of things and give up all kinds of information. if your tone is correct, if your demeanor is proper, if you sound like you deserve the information, you won. >> reporter: the reality? once information exists in digital form on the internationinternet or phones, experts say it's game over. anyone who knows what they are doing, can figure out how to get it. kyra, in some cases, reporters allegedly hacked information themselves but they also relied heavily it seems on private investigators who were able to get confidential information, able to get it from both phone companies, but also government databases. the public buys it up. they have a role in this too. if they don't buy it, people don't report it. >> deb, thanks. >>> a new op-ed says hold on. it performs a valuable service and we will talk to the guy who wrote it next. >>> a young man with cerebral palsy. he can't walk, he can't talk but he has found his voice in a very speci

times newspaper, and that's a very respected sunday newspaper here in the uk, tried to, and i quote, blag information from his banks, his accounts and indeed tried to get information on one of his children. that child has cystic fibrosis. and we're told the only reason the browns knew about this was somebody from the newspaper rang them to say we believe your child has cystic fibrosis. there's a lot going on. "news international said please don't do any more reporting on this and any information you have, wherever it's coming from, they say, please let them have that information because there's an ongoing investigation. this is a story that's only raising his head now about gordon brown. >> he like so many other british politicians were scared by retaliation by these tabloids and media empire, if you will. >> of. >> and that is the great unanswered question. who was scared of whom at this point. many people in the uk will suggest that rupert murdoch and his ceo at news international, former editor of "news of the world" they really wielded so much power that politicians both of the former

this could be something called blagging which is impersonating somebody to try to get personal informationand also according to the information commission, corruption. this would be mean payouts basically to get that sort of information illegally. the details are still coming in. it does seem this investigation is expanding significantly. >> some of this -- as we talked about, has been either years or perhaps months in the making. is it being accelerated and widened because of all of the publicity surrounding the news international scandal? >> most certainly. there is a lot of public demand and public scrutiny now on the place to find out how far the british tabloids went in getting the kinds of scoops that they are famous for. and there's always been a lot of talk that perhaps it is not just one newspaper but, in fact, industrywide, from the information commission seems to suggest it is not just one paper. but across the industry. >> thank you very much. we will check back in with you later. >>> let's go to nasa. chris ferguson, commander of space shuttle "atlantis" is speaking now at ken