In response to a chorus of calls for a congressional investigation into News Corp.’s activities, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called Tuesday for the “appropriate agencies” to look into whether the media company has engaged in illegal activities in the United States.



Unauthorized voicemail access allegations against News Corp.-owned News of the World raise “serious questions about whether the company has broken U.S. law, and I encourage the appropriate agencies to investigate to ensure that Americans have not had their privacy violated,” the Senator said in a statement. “I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe.”



Rockefeller is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which yesterday was sent a letter by the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asking for an investigation into News Corp. after a report about hackings into Sept. 11 victims surfaced in the British press.

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of CREW, called Rockefeller's remarks "heartening" but hopes Congress goes further.

"There is no reason to cede all investigative efforts to the executive branch. Just as the British Parliament has held hearings and heard testimony from News Corp executives, so too could Congress," Sloan wrote in an email to POLITICO.



News Corp. declined to comment on the senator's statement.



Earlier Tuesday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said his regulators are currently staying out of the scandal investigation, telling reporters "there is obviously a process going on in the UK, and that is not a process we expect to get involved in or interfere with."



This post has been updated.