Fox News "Brain Room" and Possible Connection to Phone Hacking Scandal

Dan Cooper, a former Fox News producer, claims that Fox News has an underground bunker newsroom located at the News Corporation’s New York headquarters called the “Brain Room”. He also claims the Brain Room houses a black ops and a counter-intelligent office which can be used for phone hacking among other things. Cooper says on his blog that Roger Ailes, Fox News chairman and president, fired him after giving an anonymous interview to David Brock from New York magazine which Ailes found out about by examining both Brock’s and Cooper’s phone records by using the Brain Room.

Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview. Certainly Brock didn't tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock's telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation's New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.

Dan Cooper Blog

Fox News Channel is an integral part of the News Corporation Empire and if the claims by Cooper are true, it would be another subsidiary to be involved in phone hacking and other types of unethical journalism.

Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation, personally selected Roger Ailes to head Fox News Channel and Fox Television Stations Group.

Befitting his siege mentality, Ailes also housed his newsroom in a bunker. Reporters and producers at Fox News work in a vast, windowless expanse below street level, a gloomy space lined with video-editing suites along one wall and an endless cube farm along the other. In a separate facility on the same subterranean floor, Ailes created an in-house research unit – known at Fox News as the “brain room” – that requires special security clearance to gain access. “The brain room is where Willie Horton comes from,” says Cooper, who helped design its specs. “It’s where the evil resides.” (PAGE 9)

How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory

Fox news denies claims in this 2008 piece

A Fox News spokeswoman says there's no truth to the claim that the network has the capability to snoop through phone records. As for the part about Ailes's arm-twisting, I'm still waiting to hear back from Leibner.

Fox News Knocks Down 'Brain Room' Claim

This the current article buzzing on the web about the this incident with much more information.

A former producer with Fox News claimed in a lengthy essay gaining new traction this week that the conservative television station has a "Brain Room" in its New York headquarters, which enables employees to view private telephone records with ease. Though published years ago, the allegations have returned to relevance in the wake of the phone hacking scandals that have rocked News Corporation to its very core, threatening to topple one of the world's largest and most powerful media conglomerates.

Former Fox News Producer Claims The Network's "Brain Room" Led To Hacking

All opinions welcome I would love to hear your thoughts

Murdoch will eventually be held responsible for these intrusions of privacy. He can claim ignorance all he wants, but at the end of the day you are accountable for the employees you hire.

The dam is starting to break; I won't be surprised if other news organizations owned by Murdoch come under further scrutiny and investigation.

Watch out - he might commit suicide due to drug related problems.

This story should be very interesting to watch develop. I have still not heard clear and detailed descriptions of what was done and how. General terms and results, sure, but not the nuts and bolts. There was a case several years ago I recall seeing in USA Today for a few days at the time about cell phone records being spoofed by creative private investigators or anyone else who grasped how easy it is to be someone else on the phone. I recall the greatest frsutration being that despite the situation screaming out criminal action, no actual law had been broken aside from some little procedural things.

That is what will make watching this so interesting. How much of what was done is actually illegal and how much simply leaves people wondering why there hadn't been a law in the first place.....but finding there actually wasn't.

A brain room, and still no ground breaking news to report.

reply to post by kyledb13


I agree. There are too many major allegations about several News Corporation outlets. Rupert Murdoch will have to take the heat eventually.. There has already been a few high level resignation in the past week from these scandals

You guys can really crack someone up.

I need a huge laugh tonight... and I got it with this one.

Black Ops... oooohhhhhhh. I can just see it... The FOX News--- SEAL Team 6.

I suppose you have nothing to say about ABC having an office in the White House.. Or that the White House sends out DAILY talking points to ABC, NBC & CBS (just watch/read their headlines in the AM. Almost all the same).

Here's what I don't understand. Like with Palin... People go after Fox News.... After they have spent a great amount of time telling us the she/Fox is dumb as a bag of rocks. They aren't smart enough to be a president/Legitmate News Organization... They are a bunch of rejects from the other networks..... etc etc etc.

The next thing you know, they are masterminds that are able to outwit the entire world and somehow organize to the point where they are deemed some type of threat.... Make up my mind.

Reminds me of the Old Saturday Night Live skit about Reagan being an idiot yet a Mastermind. Watch it-if anything, Funnier that heck:

Well, have fun with this one... I am going on watch to make sure the FOX News Special Forces don't sneak in.

PS: I sure wish the FBI would spend at least 1/2 as much time trying to figure what happened with the ATF Fast & Furious program.

News Corp has been alleged to have hacked into the phone of both 7/7 bombing victims and 9/11 victims among others. News Corp is the 2nd biggest media conglomerate behind Disney so I believe they have to the resource to do it. An FBI investigation has started and a senate committee investigation may be launch but I think it will have little effect on future media corruption, the initial whistle blower, Sean Hoare, has already been whacked.

I am absolutely tickled that Murdoch is reported to be incredibly frustrated with the extent of the press coverage of this, his own personal minefield. Kind of like a super-vulture, who after teaching the masses how to feed on carcasses, finds himself bleeding and being eaten by his own kind.

Anyone else out there appreciate the irony?

reply to post by anon72


Black Ops was a word Dan Cooper used to describe the underground newsrooms office that he claims he help build and design for Roger Ailes head of Fox News. He doesn't go into detail about the rooms but Roger Ailes is a very powerful man and I think it would not be a stretch to think that he would have an underground situation room with one or two NSA techies.

reply to post by riv0303

He doesn't go into detail about the rooms but Roger Ailes is a very powerful man and I think it would not be a stretch

Thanks for keeping me rolling on the ground laughing.

Maybe it is a high class Johnny.. you know a toilet. Which is where this one should go. IMO.[

A stretch because he admittedly had no proof. None. It is all speculation. Like I said, he doesn't know for sure what exactly it is. He isn't sure any phone records were hacked. He suspects.

But, the MSM will gladly run with it and make all kinds of allegations... without a bit of evidence.

reply to post by anon72


Thanks for your contribution and opinions, but do you have anything to say that relates to the thread?

While this latest media abuse scandal regarding phone hacking, law enforcement bribes, intelligence gathering and now "Brain Room"s is intriguing, I feel there is a key concern that is intentionally being left out of this discussion, and I ask myself, why?

Everyone is stopping short of acknowledging and or even discussing the secret military and private death squads, hired killers, cut throats, assassins, pimps, mercenaries, and vermin of all sorts from all walks of life to include the techies, bankers, lawyers and even doctors that can and do support such covert or illegal off the books intelligence operations for money.

Focusing on such brain rooms collecting covert intelligence and black mail material so as to either benefit a media mogul, some political group or some select politician is not the worse these brain rooms could do or have done.

It is the association with "killers" we should all be asking about and it is the mysterious deaths of so many victims that have died while being declared an accident or suicide when it was potentially some group of hired insurance killers, out to support their local evil empire while getting rich in the process.

Providing 24/7 death in can with a pop top alibi whenever you need it has become something of a new upstart business model on the global basis, so this is why this matter is so key to be aware of.

Perhaps it too cerebral for the slugs? Who knows, but in my book, it makes logical sense for these existing criminal CIA media groups to have associated with hired killers capable of responding 24/7 to those petty political and corporate issues that arise from time to time and where money is no limitation to your imagination of getting the job done. Film at eleven, exclusive coverage!

Anyway, think about that for a while and ponder the media death squads and then this whole matter takes on a more sinister and evil look, because I feel such an operation would have had to have incorporated such evil capabilities to ensure critical mission success at all costs to those that pull the strings and make things happen for the ultra rich, greedy and evil bastions of society.

In closing, I would like to say in Arnie speak that "I'll be baahk".

When you connect Fox News and 911 what do you hear.
Cell phone hacking.
No.
Nose In Nose Out video is what.
Real news all the time, go get it cause they made it.