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9/11 families, Holder discuss hacking

Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at an event in Washington May 16, 2011.UPI/Roger L. Wollenberg
Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at an event in Washington May 16, 2011.UPI/Roger L. Wollenberg | License Photo

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Family members of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States asked Attorney General Eric Holder to expand a phone-hacking investigation.

The FBI has been investigating a claim made in a British newspaper that someone working on behalf of the defunct News of the World tried to hack the phones of victims of the terror attacks.

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The families met with Holder Wednesday in Washington and offered to provide their cellphone numbers if it would help in the investigation, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The families urged the attorney general to broaden the inquiry to investigate whether anyone tried to hack into the victims' e-mail accounts or computers.

The phone-hacking scandal began with revelations that News of the World arranged to illegally access the phone messages of British royalty and others, including crime victims. The paper's parent company, media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which also owns the Journal, shuttered News of the World in July. British police made more than a dozen arrests.

"I was very encouraged today," said Jim Riches, whose firefighter son died at the World Trade Center in New York. "Eric Holder said this was disgusting if anyone had done that."

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Norman Siegel, a lawyer for the families, asked that the FBI examine post-attack news reports for suspicious private information to see if it may have been obtained by hacking, the New York Daily News reported.

Siegel said the possibility of hacking "is a very serious and substantial allegation," ABC News reported.

"Hopefully the allegations turn out to be not true," Siegel said. "The 9/11 families have had too many tragedies already."

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