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Perl's Chip Salzenberg Sued, Home Raided
Chip continues: "The key evidence in the search warrant was so ridiculous as to be surreal: CVS logs indicating that I downloaded more than I uploaded, and that I sometimes accessed the company network from home. Apparently, for company management, the police, and a judge, working at home through a gateway the company set up for that very purpose, and refraining from editing every source file for every code change, is a sign of nefarious behavior.
My behavior in accessing the company network was entirely within my job description and in no way involved misappropriation of anything. For the more than two years that I worked at HMS, I used ssh and CVS to access company files with my laptop both from work and home, with management knowledge and approval.
What would lead management to such a sudden action? Days beforehand, I had made an internal report of unethical and apparently illegal behavior by the company: Use of open proxies for web harvesting to avoid blockage by web site operators. HMS apparently decided that working with me to address their use of open proxies was not an option.
Health Market Science is a large corporation with, compared to me, effectively infinite resources. My legal bills have topped $40K already over just two months. If HMS succeeds in tarring me with their false accusations, what's to stop your employer or client from doing the same to you, should your relationship sour?
Friends have set up GeeksUnite.net, an informational web site and Legal Defense Fund. The site includes the search warrant, my letter about open proxy abuse, and court documents.
Please contribute to my Defense Fund to fight this attack on the normal and legal work practices of millions of tech workers. Every little bit counts! If every person who visits the site contributes only ten dollars, that will make a huge difference. Only through community effort can we protect ourselves."
If his version of events is true, then wouldn't there exist whistleblower protection laws he can seek refuge under?
Any time you're going to be challenging the mental giants that are in charge, ALWAYS have a lawyer in your pocket and all your ducks in a row. And offsite backups.
Seriously, what the hell did he expect - if they can use open proxies like this, that they would play nice with him?
Retain, and have a very long chat with a very good lawyer before you threaten your bosses with police action.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
You should take your original letter to the police who raided you. Hopefully they will then prosecute your employer for filing a false police report.
2) Working for obvious scumbags is going to burn you in the end.
(Assuming his version of the story is accurate -- I realize there's another side. I also realize that both of my suggestions are frequently easier said than done.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
What did you think they were going to do, make you an SVP?
If it were me? Well, there would be a wide number of possible responses I could expect from the employer, but producing false information to police and courts to produce illegitimate legal action and have my private property unreasonably seized-- property which I may or may not ever see again once it disappears into the "evidence" system-- is not one of them.
Anyway if he had resigned how would it have helped him one iota? He'd still be facing a frivolous and expensive lawsuit and have all his stuff jacked.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
IANAL, and I know this varies by state, but this kind of retribution and harassment for filing a complaint may be very illegal, and the company may have opened themselves up to liability for it. I know reporters of sexual harassment or discrimination are protected from retribution, and it would be interesting to know what protection a whistleblower for unethical behavior has under state and federal laws.
Regardless, no one deserves this treatment for stating their beliefs the company is doing something wrong.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Yes but how is it that a judge or magistrate (I'm sure under intense pressure from the police department) will issue a search warrant without hard evidence of any illegal activity? Strongarm tactics like this are what is wrong with our judicial system today.
This is your tax dollars at work!
--
Fairfax Underground: Fairfax County and Northern Virginia message board
It's a lot easier to prove the company is acting maliciously against you if you:
1) Quit
2) Write your accusatory letter
order is important here.
Doubly true if you have to sign something styating you are retaining no confidential information when you leave.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Based on the evidence at hand there was no probable cause for the search.
:-) or a nice juicy settlement favoring the plaintiff.
If he didn't keep any of the company's information, they likely have no case.
Crossing your fingers for summary judgment, a directed verdict
Pretty scary though that the judge would authorize grabbing all your equipment with no genuine evidence of theft/misappropriation of trade secrets. There ought to be a high bar set for the kind of disruption that causes. There's no reason discovery couldn't have been allowed to proceed in a less violent manner unless he wasn't cooperating.
Timeline of Events
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Case Caption: Health Market Science, Inc. v Charles H. Salzenberg, Jr..
Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Case Number: 05-11918
Timeline of Events in Case
June 21, 2005
Intervener's Too Late? - DA Gives Away Computers Early. Company Already Imaging.
June 20, 2005
Emergency Stays Filed by All Parties - In an Attempt to Keep Property from falling into the Wrong Hands
June 17, 2005
Judge Awards Personal Property to Company - Admits to NOT Reading Salzenberg's Opposition.
June 16, 2005
Company Runs Interference - Files Motion to Intercept Released Computers Contrary to the May 2, Order and the "Return of Property" laws.
June 6, 2005
DA Drops Criminal Investigation - Annouces Return of the Seized Property to Salzenberg.
May 2, 2005
Company Agrees Not to Enforce Exparte Orders - Property to be Returned to Salzenberg unless another motion is filed.
April 26, 2005
Company files Exparte - Receives orders to intercept equipment from police to start imaging.
April 25, 2005
Salzenberg receives back dated letter from company "accepting his resignation"
April 21, 2005
Salenberg's Property Seized within hours of police report made by CEO.
April 20, 2005
Salzenberg and CEO exchange emails and faxes in an attempt to negotiate a face to face conversation. CEO finally gives the OK to Salzenberg bringing an attorney with him.
April 19, 2005
Salzenberg sends compliance letter to CEO. Salzenberg also sends follow up message to COO that he has "not resigned". CEO immediately locks Salzenberg out of company email and network.
April 18, 2005
Another employee leaves company after voicing compliance issues.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I think you should check into SLAPP protection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAPP
Heres the little secret, Judges do not like to read long legal briefs, if someone makes a case and references some case law, they might just get the warrent, action or restraining order.
Its a messed up country where the legal system is in a horrible state by lazy judges/commissioners that have to actually think the about the case. Whats worse, some are voted into office...
I think a legion of slashdot readers blasting these contact details and sending trollish e-mails will only worsen this guy's situation: "Then he got his legion of goons to come to his defence, causing massive problems with our e-mail infrastructure and bringing our website to a crawl, before this had even got to court." That cannot be good.
I would advise any slashdot readers considering trolling this e-mail address to think carefully about the implications their messages might have on this guy, and refrain from contacting HMS unless they have something worthwhile and appropriate to contribute.
Chip complained internally. That's allowed. That's ethical. He was giving his employers a chance to sort out a problem. The open proxy scam might have been in contravention of company policy.
Unlikely with hindsight, I'll grant.
OK, I'm missing your point, I know. I don't even disagree with your advice. All I'm saying is let's watch the terminology. A lot of people will thing "Whistleblower, pah! He had it coming!" when nothing is further from the truth. He got into this mess because he gave his employers the benefit of the doubt.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
They got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and immediately attempted a smear campaign to draw attention away from themselves.
Further, on nothing more than the company's say-so, they got a search and seizure warrant from a judge who was obviously unfit for service by the very fact of his signing it. Actual investigation and evidence is required usually for this kind of thing and it seems to be a case of "he-said, got the warrant, screw what the other guy said" sort of thing. Having been the victim of this myself, I am not surprised. Saddened that it continues, but not surprised. People who love increasing the powers of the state for their political aims can just as quickly be the nail getting pounded down by that same state.
What is so shocking is that they think they will get away with it. All that are needed are logs from servers harvested by this scumbag outfit despite their attempts at a polite no through robots.txt, etc., and it will become a landslide against them with the first lawsuit for the intrusion.
If I had any money, I'd send some.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Very good point. I'd give you my last mod point, but I've already posted here. I too encourage those who reply to show restraint.
I sent a short email (50 words or so) using the contact page that basically said "The guy was trying to help. Leave him alone." My point was to let them know people support Chip, not to aggravate them.
No, that's not how it's supposed to work. As an employee, loyal to the company, you are supposed to have internal recourse available to bring illegal activity to the attention of your seniors, and all the way up the chain if you direct supervisor won't listen. You are not supposed to have to go to the police, since a company should be capable of cleaning up its own act. Going to the police means that the normal channels of reporting issues have failed.
Everything I wrote there is how it works in ethical companies, meaning companies whose executives have laid out specific plans for remaining on the right side of the law. I don't care if you think that "most companies aren't like that". What that would mean is that "most companies deserve liquidation". If you can't at least have a plan for handling your own breaches of the law, and avoiding them in the future, then the company is not run in an ethical manner. Go ask someone with an MBA what kind of ethics class they had to take to get it. A company that doesn't have a plan for reporting issues about itself is derelict in its duties. All claims of impropriety leveled at such companies, including Chip's, have extra weight once they reach court.
Yeah, it'll be a while before they reach court.
If his complaints are true, then I sure as hell don't want to have anything to do with those companies. See? That's the reason that (ethical) companies need internal reporting mechanisms. If the CEO of an ethical company got wind of this behavior through internal channels, then they could correct it before I ever heard of it, and they wouldn't lose me as a customer, distributor, or business partner. That's what internal channels are for: protecting the company from itself.
Anyway, it's obvious from this that Chip's company doesn't have good internal reporting mechanisms. And that necessarily gives that company a strike against them to begin with. Or it should. We'll have to wait and see if it really does.
Playing pornographics games during the day is evil! Play at night!
Where did his letter say that? I just read the entire thing and do not recall any threat to disclose source code. He simply said that he looked at the source code, which as a Senior Programmer, he was authorized and verified that some of the claims he made in his internal letter were valid (ie; code doesn't use robots.txt, code culls current list of open relays from online databases, etc).
He said he could not work on an project he felt was violating the law.
As far as the company perspective, I have not seen it so I cannot comment. Personally, his internal memo was much too details for most executives to understand. He should have layed out his concerns at a high level. Actually, he should have first contacted the press and law enforcement.
honestly, people- if your company's financial success is built on illegal behavior, and the guy who owns the majority of the company set it up to be that way, why would you think he's going to change anything just because you were bright enough to notice? The best you could hope for is that, when you try to blackmail him into splitting the profit with you, it's not just cheaper to have you killed.
Picture this: Vince Coll walks into Dutch Shultz's office.
I can understand why Chip had the moral problems that he did, but he sure picked a naive way to try and resolve them. There IS a federal whistleblower statute, so if he went to the Feds with his first letter he would have been legally protected from retaliatory action from his employer... but keeping your job after you've turned them in doesn't do you any good if the company's only revenue stream depends on illegal activities.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
Threats? Where do you arm chair lawyers get this crap? He brought this to the attention of management through a memo and stated he would have nothing to do with it and report it to the authorities if it didn't stop. That is a threat? Next time someone does something illegal and you know about it, don't say a word. Then when that person gets caught you tell the authorities that you knew what the person was doing all the time but you didn't think it was any of their business. Then let you know what happens.
Somebody is trying to tell untruths here. Salzenberg is not a spammer and he did not find out the company's harvesting procedures until he was employed there for a while. Stop telling lies to confuse people. Read the letter.
Uhmmm.
They were running through open proxies in order to avoid blocks set up to block their IP. They also were scanning for such proxies.
So, no they weren't planting trojans all over the place, they were just borrowing everyone else's machines (a jerky thing to do) to get past blocks set up to stop them from being jerks.
Then, when someone called them on it, they resorted to mafioso tactics to make life hard for that guy. To show him who's boss.
I've always been kind of hesitant to try something like this myself because I get the feeling that once I got my "gotcha" moment and saved my job, the rest of my days working there would be tainted by my having done this. I just get the feeling that I'd be treated poorly and the management would probably be searching hard for a way to get me fired cleanly. Did you have to put up with much crap after doing this? Maybe you have to weigh the pros and cons before doing this kind of thing.
Salzenberg was working for a company that started using some seriously shady practices. He did the legally appropriate thing, and brought it to the attention of upper management/officers. They went ballistic and pulled the plug on him insteas of the illegal activity. (what says that they already knew of the illegal activities?).
They then called the cops on hime and got them to sieze his compuers on the flimsiest of evidence.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
...they lead me to lean towards thinking he did nothing wrong. But I don't know. And I'm not dishing up my cash until I do.
The purpose of a legal defense is not to exonerate the guilty. It is to ensure a fair trial. Whether you believe he is guilty or innocent, or whether you don't know, makes no difference. He has the right to a fair trial. At present in the United States, that means having a lot of money to pay a competent lawyer.
TTFN
For, who the good fortune to be able to vote AGAINST someone who would issue a warrant for the seizure of computer equipment based on the affadavit of someone who couldn't even use a word processor to edit the request (see for yourself! It's obviously copied from a drug-related case, with the drug parts CROSSED OUT), without any actual basis of suspicion other than one man's un-sworn complaint against another, the issuing judge is the Honorable Jeremy Blackburn. Remember that when his term is up. Unfortunately, I think his district is in Chester County (where the property was seized), not in Montgomery County (where Salzenberg works, and where I live), so I don't think I get to vote for him.
You're not real clued in to how criminal investigations work, huh?
When the police find something "suspicious", you don't just say "oh, I have this perfectly plausible excuse which sounds highly improbable to technical incompetents like you" and walk away. Trust me, I know. I had to jump through some pretty ridiculous hoops with a detective once just to prove that it was not, in fact, uncommon for a brand-spanking new hard drive to appear "wiped".
The justice system is a misnomer. It's not a "justice" system, it's a "legal" system. Justice would imply that all parties are acting in an informed, responsible, and full-capacity manner, which is probably the sickest joke one could make about our incompetent, bungling court system.
Chip Salzenberg is fucked. You would be fucked if you tried to right off your little hidden system with that excuse, and you'd probably get charged for trying to interfere with the investigation and giving false information to the police if you used it.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
If you have to put yourself up for election, you will be deciding cases with a view to what potential voters -- really, just people mobilised by issue organisations, given how uninterested the average member of public is about voting --might think. This is either playing to mob mentality, or playing to vested interest groups. Either way is a recipe for bad judging.
The whole point of judicial independence is that judges will only feel free to take courageous decisions, and to avoid knuckling under to the government in power at the time, in particular, if their jobs are secure. That is, they can't be fired, and they can't have their pay reduced so much that they have to quit. Having to be re-elected to office is very much a serious job insecurity.
I would hate to have any of my legal rights determined by a judge with an eye on the opinion polls, the lobbysists and the millions of dollars in the bank accounts of sleazy, smoke-filled backroom operators itching to replace them if they decide cases in a way of which they disapprove.
I know plenty of judges in a number of countries, and have been employed by one at a court. Invariably they are horrified by the system of election of judges. Basically: they cannot see how many elected judges would feel comfortable taking an unpopular decision. Unpopular decisions being ones that (i) are against the prevailing mob mentality at the time and (ii) invariably turn out to be correct when viewed after the event, when passion and emotion has cooled, and what is left is the objective facts.
We've seen what playing to voters does to politicians. Why inflict it upon the judges too -- who are usually the ones who have to keep the politicians in check?
Additional comment:
Note that outsourcing is the same kind of corruption as is thoroughly discussed in the book about corporate corruption mentioned above. Programmers in India can produce good work, that's not the issue.
The issue is that the corrupt corporate manager wants to put a distance between himself and managing programming. Managing programming is time-consuming and requires serious concern and considerable technical knowledge and teamwork. If the programming department remains inside the company, the corrupt manager will be responsible. If the programming is outsourced, a level of deniability is introduced.
That extra level of bureaucracy and distance has four results: