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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."
Dunn sounds like a melodramatic sociopath bent on her own power trip. It's bad enough to hire outside inspectors to track down a leaker, and to resort to snooping on personal call records, which is truly dirty pool. But once she had her proof, why not confront that director personally, rather than pull a stunt like this in front of the full board? Had she confronted this guy directly, he may have resigned quietly. Instead, she's now thrown the spotlight on her disregard for personal ethics or the respect of her colleagues.
That said, it's pathetic how easy it was for these investigators to get personal phone records on these accounts. You'd think there would be some standards in place, such as only sending the information to addresses already tied to the account, or something. I'm no security expert, but this looks pretty shoddy.
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Because doing that gets you labeled as an appeaser and a traitor, which gets old and boring pretty fucking quick. Much more fun (for everyone!) to call him a goat-licking fuckhead.
you just turn him into a martyr
Stop teasing me.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Look, as an ex-military, ex-Republican (since 2003, yes I voted for the retard in 2000) guy I'm here to tell ya: Bush is a fuckup. You can spin it anyway you want, but you do not use the NSA to spy on US citizens. You do not intercept domestic phone calls without warrants. He's set a nice example for everybody there. To hell with privacy and the law. There's your tie-in.
And I just can't resist even though it's non-sequitur: You don't start wars on questionable intelligence.
You Bush apologists crack me up. A damned blowjob does not equal a half trillion dollar war. Don't even get me started on "I didn't inhale" as opposed to the lack of response to the cocaine accusation.
The man is an asshole, as are Rumsfeld and Ashcroft. And guess what? The Republican party as a whole (including the Republican "centrists" of which I once counted myself) are going to pay over the next election or two.
Martyr? Maybe in the eyes of the Pat Robertson double-digit IQ brigade, but anybody with a moderate level of critical reasoning ability is going to see him as one of the worst presidents in this country's history.
For many years we have been told that, if women were in positions of power, they would behave differently than men. This assertion was based solely on the premise that women are somehow fundamentally different than men, and that this difference would ensure that female executives and politicians would be somehow "better" then males.
This has proven not to be the case, as evidenced by the behavior of various corporate and political women in power. While true that the Cynthia McKinney's and Carly Fiorina's of the world are not the rule, they do lead to questions of whether women are so fundamentally different after all.
Is Hillary Clinton somehow better than the other senators simply because she is a woman? Is she exempt from being accused of being an opportunistic carpetbagger, merely because she has a set of tits? That is what some would have us believe.
If I can call Sen. Stevens a bastard, I can call Sen. Clinton a bitch.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
...is Tom Perkins's ethical behavior. I only hope that when I get to be a director, I would have the cajones to resign rather than to serve under or carry out orders from a boss with a history of such behavior. Well, that and the handwriting on the wall (SEC investigation) might have helped influence his decision. But what a way to go!
In my mind this is symptomatic of the corporate life in the higher echelons. Basically, these people at the top don't have te requisite life experience, or call it wisdom, or even common sense, to act like adults. Corporate life to these people is nothing more than a replay of high school. They're scheming, pulling pranks, cheating, and generally making stuff up as they go along.
It's not that there aren't established procedures and rules (and laws) of how to monitor employees (even board members). It's that this Ms. Dunn can't be bothered to look it up. Or even ask human resources. Making stuff up as you go along is what passes for "innovative", "bold", "leadership.
She's cut from the same jib as, say, those Enron guys. These are people who see life as a game, and yes, they're winning, if you keep score the way they do. Morally, as human beings, they're of course pieces of shit.
It's not surprising the rest of the board members stayed on board. They're used to treating people like children, and they've not fully grown up themselves, so this sort of irresponsible prank seems logical to them. They're the business equivalents of Bill O'Reilly - great ratings, but ultimately they're just spewing hot air, and their oversimplified black-and-white world is so disconnected from the real world, they wouldn't know it if it bit them in the ass.
But there you have it. Apparently the Chairwoman at HP is willing to go to great, and illegal lengths, to run the company. Will the shareholders say "hey, wait, maybe having someone at the top who's willing to commit felonies isn't such a great idea"? Only time will tell..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
OK, then, how do you think the:
has affected impressions of what is and is not acceptable behavior in the boardrooms of America? Who outside the administration is responsible for those things happening?
The real problem is that so many deeply disturbing things are happening at once that it's becoming impossible to keep track.