HP Spying Incident Included Journalists

rufey writes "It is now being reported that the HP boardroom spying incident that occurred earlier this year also involved obtaining phone records of journalists from at least two news outlets. Journalists from CNET and the Wall Street Journal had their phone records obtained through a method called 'pretexting' to see who, if any, of the HP board members the journalists may have been in contact with."

Comments

Lying by Any Other Name...

[edward.virtually@pob]

Pretext is to lie as campaign contribution is to bribe.

Re:Lying by Any Other Name...

[ShaunC]

Thank you, and bless you for being FP. You're absolutely right, and it's unfortunate that this issue is being glossed over in most of the stories I've seen.

Suppose I were to call HP and pretend to be Dawn Kawamoto (the fact that I'd have to suck down some helium first notwithstanding), and they handed over records of her purchase information to me. If such a situation came to light, I would be facing criminal liability. Some DA would be stringing me up on charges of fraud, HP would be lauding the DA for rooting out privacy violations within their company, and the media would jump on the story, pandering another "identity theft" case to their drooling consumers. Yet when the tables are turned, and one of HP's hired guns is committing the dirty deed, suddenly the euphemism "pretexting" comes into play, and it's only maybe sort of sometimes legal and occasionally not, and it's only even remotely possibly bad because a journalist got caught in the fray.

What. The. Fuck. I've heard the "pretexting" nonsense a couple of times in the past, but it's never been so widespread and massively reported. Doublespeak at its finest. Everyone knows what fraud is, but to say HP's goons were involved in fraud might be a Liability To The Network, so the talking heads start blathering on about "pretexting" as if it's A-OK.

I really wish that this had happened to someone with a bit more influence. It's not that I'd have any less sympathy for Ms. Kawamoto, and it's not that I wish any ill will upon Declan McCullagh, but if he'd been the C|Net reporter who'd been "pretexted," this would have been a much bigger story, and it might actually go somewhere. As it stands, I fear that this will be yet another in a long string of corporate fuckups to go unpunished, that Ms. Kawamoto will never see any sort of restitution, and that a month from now, the business world will have entirely forgotten.

Long live our corporate overlords - they learned this shit from the government, after all, so it must be okay.

Re:Lying by Any Other Name...

[HermMunster]

The AG in CA has already declared that laws were broken. Who to prosecute and for exactly what is still outstanding. My feeling is that Patricia Dunn will be fired. The board member who leaked the information will actually be re-elected the first time around but not the 2nd time (years later). Perkins will stay away for some time and maybe in 3-5 years he'll go back.

The AG will bat around the idea that Patricia Dunn should be held criminally liable, but those campaign contributions will kick in. The private investigators will take the fall. HP will be fined but it won't impact them in any way.

That money will go to the city/state which will then be used for more decadent art and show palaces for the rich.

Essentially, the typical.

The only thing that could alter this is if the journalist that are potentially offended by this are to take government to task. They won't because they don't know how to persevere.

From all that I read, aside from one website that had photo copies of the letters from Perkins, I don't see any large media educating the American public about it sufficiently to cause the type of outcry this story deserves.

Check out PJ's coverage at Groklaw

[rjamestaylor]

Be sure to follow Groklaw's coverage of the HP scandal.

This hits privacy and First Amendment issues to their core.

This is a legal matter and PJ has had her own share of similar hijinx in relation to her reporting on the SCO debacle.

Can we dispense with the "pretexting" BS . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . and call this practice what it really is, identity fraud.

Pretexting Ease

[loteck]

Why is it so difficult for phone companies to secure my personal records? How hard is it to simply lock down an email and mailing address and tell people that they can only receive their account info at those addresses?

It's just basic account privacy measures. Un-***ing-believable.

Some HP Officials May Go to Prison

[reporter]

For another view of this story, check out the story by "The Washington Post".

"The Washington Post" reports, " California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said yesterday that 'people in high positions" at Hewlett-Packard "could be involved in illegal activity.' 'Do we think a crime occurred?' Lockyer said. 'Yes.' But he said the attorney general's office was still trying to figure out 'who did what, when.' "

According to a report by the "San Francisco Chronicle", Patricia Dunn (the chair of the HP board of directors) ordered the execution of the criminal act.

Give Lockyer's position on this matter, the attorney general will certainly pursue a criminal case against Dunn. She may spend some time in prison since the issue at hand is a criminal matter, not a civil one.

Re:Nonsense...

[rjamestaylor]

SCO digs into PJ's personal life in an attempt to intimidate her coverage of their public actions. That's pretty damn well related.

Re:This just isn't right.

[HermMunster]

Police can't hire private citizens to do those tasks that the laws prohibit law-enforcement from performing. If they do they become agents of the police and are subject to the same laws. This is longstanding in case law. If anything the question, for me, would be whether this makes those third parties agents of HP, and thus makes HP liable, and whether Patricia Dunn can be held criminally liable for their criminal acts.

Hell, Martha Stewart simply lied and went to jail. Patricia Dunn sanctioned these criminal acts. Even if her involvement was implicit she's still criminally liable because she knew they would not be able to gain access to this information without resorting to criminal activities.

She is a criminal now employed by the corporate foundations. Forever we'll remember HP as a criminal organization instead of the company that was founded for the employees.