HP Witch Hunt Also Targeted Reporter's Father

theodp writes "Patriciagate gets even stranger. In a twist that indicates the extent of HP's investigation, the CA Attorney General's office said HP's investigators also targeted the personal phone records of CNET reporter Stephen Shankland's father, Thomas, a semi-retired physicist in New Mexico. The scandal prompts CNNMoney to ask Chairwoman Patricia Dunn: Are you lying or incompetent? An emergency HP Board meeting is scheduled for Sunday."

Comments

WHAT?

[Expertus]

HP's reputation has been damaged by a leaker who refused to come forward knowing this investigation was going on," she said, a person who "lied to the rest of the board, by omission and commission, about the fact that he was the source of this information for a long period of time.

Does she hear herself when she talks? HP's reputation has suffered far more from this mess than it ever could have from 'leaked information' - I don't care how sensitive it was (baring forced anal probes of random citizens). This hypocrisy will not die when she is inevitably forced out. The other members of the board that did not resign in protest bear some of the responsibility as well. The indifference of those men is as inexcusable as the action itself.

Re:WHAT?

[hey!]

By the way, this case has interesting parallels to government attempts to obtain intelligence.

Increasingly the government is turning to private contractors, not to mention foreign intelligence services, who are in theory not bound by the laws the bind the government, or who ignore the legal, ethical and political implications. You treat this whole mess as a black box into which you put questions, and get answers back; you may know very well what the methods being used are (e.g. torture), but you don't know in an official way.

Ms. Dunn is quoted in an NYT article as saying: "It wasn't implemented well. But I had no choice but to follow this violation. It fell to me to do it."

So, she is saying she had a moral duty to act on this information. But is it moral to use information that was obtained immorally, illegally, and by means you would never want to be associated with publicly?

Augustine of Hippo, in his book "City of God", tackles the problem of how a just God allows evil. His answer is philosophically interesting to ethicists, even if they are atheists. Augustine posits evil as not a thing in itself; if it were then God would have had to have created evil, or evil would have to be (as the Manicheans viewed it) somehow equal with God.

His answer was that evil was not something that is present, but something that is absent. Evil is a form of privation. How does privation come about? Because of free will, we have the ability to choose. This entails making bad or irrational choices. In particular, privation comes about because we choose a lesser good over a greater good. Personal wealth, for example is good, but the rights of others to use their property is a higher good. Stealig is choosing the lesser good over the greater. Augustine's view of sin bears close resemblance to what modern economists call "opportunity costs".

In this case, Ms. Dunn may have had a moral duty to stop the leaking of proprietary HP information. But she had a higher duty to defend the fundamental norms of behavior that protect every member of society.

Of course, it was just plain stupid to muck around with the privacy rights of rich people.

Speaking of people with a chip on their shoulder and resources to do something about it, lovers of irony take note. Thomas Perkins, the HP board member who blew the whistle on this, has hired a lawyer. Being rich, he can afford a very good lawyer, practically any lawyer he wants.

His choice: Viet D. Dinh. Mr. Dinh, you may recall, is the chief architect of the PATRIOT Act.

Re:Lying or incompetent?

[billsoxs]

I would agree. I see 'lots' (a few percent) of people in jobs for which they are not competent. Typically those people lie and cheat (and (\@#$ the boss) to stay there. This particular example however is very extreme = and reminds me of what Sony did with the root kits. I still don't trust Sony - If HP thinks that this sort of action is OK, I will now worry about what HP will do to its end products. What sort of spyware are they going to put in their printer drivers....

Nature of Big Business Today?

[Yehooti]

Where I work, in a technical field, the old HP had a long history of excellence. Our test equipment was mostly HP, and we liked it. Then it went down hill. I'm curious if the products went downhill first or the quality of their management did. I'd have to guess that management did. Sad that they are still sliding down that slope. When the masters, Hewlett and Packard, had control things were superb but once they left and the investors took over everything turned into crap. Looks to me like this is the way of great companies though. I remember what happened to Northrop, Douglas, Hughes, and other old biggies and have to wonder if when the spirit that guided them to greatness is gone, can any maintain the excellence they had once that inspiration is gone. A formerly great company like HP acting as desperately as this tends to make me think that it cannot be done.

Reputation...

[burnttoy]

HP's "reputation" was damage by leaking "the truth", more specifically I think Intel (not the general consumer) were pretty annoyed with that leak.

It seems it has further been damaged by "the truth".

They didn't learn last time. Theses boardroom idlers think they are very cosy where they are e.g. out of the eye of public scrutiny with their nice fat paycheques. Large corporations now have more (or at least as much) power and influence over the general population as governments do yet are unaccountable and unelected. Frankly, if it takes the press spanking these people daily to get them in line then the more the merrier.

Dunn should be fired immediately and, preferably, the police should determine if criminal charges can be brought against her.

I barely tolerate this sort of intrusive spying by government security agents. When private enterprise gets into spying on all and sundry I think maybe modern society should sit down, talk openly, figure out where we are going instead of fighting each other for every last dollar in a climate of escalating paranoia.

Whatever... I've just worked for 11 of the last 12 days - I'm fried.

Re:Lying or incompetent? It is an OR

[mysticgoat]

Hmm, it is interesting that someone on slashdot thinks truth tables are 'funny'.

Yep, I agree with parent: in formal english, 'or' alone is the non-exclusive OR (and an exclusive XOR is phrased as 'either ... or ...'.

That said, in sloppy english where the XOR is clearly implied by context, the word 'either' is often dropped. Thus the question: "Is she a lying blackhat or a truthful whitehat?" (But note that two possible replies are "She is neither," and "She is both"-- and either of these would be a denial that the implied XOR is an appropriate model of reality.) So a good practice when encountering the word 'or' is to see if inserting 'either' in front of the first clause can be done without changing the sense of the sentence.

Another thing: in typical english conversations, short-circuit evaluation of non-exclusive OR clauses is permitted. Thus with the original question "Is Patricia Dunn a liar or incompetent?" there is no need to explore whether she is incompetent if it is shown that she is a liar, and vice versa.

In this particular case, events have already demonstrated that Patricia Dunn has been so incompetent in handling this investigation that she now finds herself the cause of a major scandal that is damaging HP stockholders' interests. So whether she is also a liar is no longer an issue (wrt the scope of the article): since she is incompetent, she should do the only honorable thing left for her to do and fall on her sword.

When she is out shopping her resume around again, other potential employers might be concerned about whether she was also a liar as well as being incompetent. But that isn't in the scope of TFA.