I've heard the Minda Riley story, told almost the exactly same way, too many times in the past 9 years to think that it's false. Sure, there might be some overexaggerations, but there's too much stuff that's lining up. Completely fabricated stories tend to fall apart after a few tellings. Just because her father may or may not have been part of the Machine doesn't mean she was, or wanted anything to do with it. His involvement wasn't the issue.
Since when is "The Guardian" "left-wing hooey"?
Some of the articles I've read in it sympathize with conservatives, others with liberals. This was simply a commentary on the peculiarities of something that is foreign to the overwhelming majority of the world--the Southern Greek System. I wasn't offended by it at all.
The problem doesn't lie solely with Lexis-Nexis, it's search engines of the sort all over the world. Lexis-Nexis is most often used in academic settings, and it's not a tool of radicalism. Like any source of information, it can be manipulated by people on both sides of the coin.