Boardroom Spying Debacle at HP

theodp writes "As word spread that HP was dumping Board member George Keyworth for press leaks, Newsweek broke the bigger story: HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn was so obsessed with finding the leaker that she authorized a team of independent electronic-security experts to spy on the phone records of calls made from HP Directors' home and private cell phones. Not only that, phone records were obtained via pretexting, the controversial practice of obtaining information under false pretenses. After Dunn laid out the surveillance scheme for the Board last May, HP Director Tom Perkins quit on the spot, characterizing Dunn's actions as illegal and unethical. HP is also coming under fire for playing dumb to the SEC about the reasons behind Perkins' resignation. Perkins, who helped launch HP's computer division in the 60's, has asked the FTC, FCC and the Justice Department to investigate."

Comments

Smoking Gun

[treeves]

. . . has documents here: Hewlett-Packard Targeted Board In Leak Probe

Re:How did she do that?

[eclipz]

They did not actually tap the phones. According to TFA:

It was classic data-mining: Dunn's consultants weren't actually listening in on the calls--all they had to do was look for a pattern of contacts.

They did obtain the records under false pretenses though, which is illegal.

Re:Which *MAY* be illegal.

[DragonWriter]

There's no law that makes it a crime to get someone to give you information (unless it's banking information).

In California, where HP is headquartered, it is a crime to obtain labor through "fraudulent representation or pretense" is guilty just as if they had stolen services with similar value (California Penal Code 532). By representing themselves as the customers of the phone company whose records were requested, they obtained the labor of customer service staff under false pretense.

It is likewise criminal, in California, to willfully obtain "personal identifying information" (including, among many other thingsother things, name, address, telephone number, place of employment, or social security number) of another and then use that information for any unlawful purpose, including "to obtain, or attempt to obtain, credit, goods, services, or medical information" (Penal Code 530.5, emphasis added), without the consent of the person whose information was used. Here, they used several pieces of personal information concerning the directors targetted to obtain services from people with whom those directors did business, and did so without the directors consent.

So to say there is no law which makes it illegal to use someone else's personal information to enable yourself to impersonate that person to get someone to give you information is, well, not exactly true, even outside of banking information.