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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."
Why does this always seem to be asked as an either-or question? Judging from experience, all too often, the two seem to go hand-in-hand.
And I agree with the other OP's here, lying and incompetent go hand in hand, apparently she's both. I mean, I give her credit for fighting off breast cancer and melanoma, that's impressive, but her running of the HP board, uh, isn't.
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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.
Kind of ironic that if someone commits a crime, we as a society take it upon ourselves to then commit what would normally be considered a great crime unto them.
That's not ironic. We as a society regularly accord the government rights and duties that are denied to an individual - if we didn't, there would be little point of having a government. I think we can all agree that kidnapping someone and keeping them in your basement is bad, but nobody should be surprised when we punish the perpetrator by essentially doing the same thing to him.
Well, she did something that a lot of people with a lot of power have historically done. She assumed the moral high ground. In our society, it's illegal to murder people. Well, unless you're in Texas or Virginia where they appearantly take it upon themselves to murder someone as a penalty of justice. Kind of ironic that if someone commits a crime, we as a society take it upon ourselves to then commit what would normally be considered a great crime unto them.
Uh, without going into a dive into the morality of the death penalty, you do realize that it isn't just a few people in power who are enforcing it, but rather the democratically-established laws of the government? There is in fact a difference between the chair of the board of some company "assuming the high ground" and the voters of a nation writing laws. Sure, just because it is law doesn't make it right, but the people of a nation have a far greater moral authority than individuals acting in their own capacity or as heads of businesses.
If the phone records had been retrieved under warrant as part of a criminal investigation (into something other than exercise-of-free-speech) nobody would be complaining about it - this is a normal function of government. The issue is that some private citizen decided to exercise power in violation of the law in order to make money.
Now, the morality of capital punishment is obviously a controversial one, but you can't equate the actions of government endorsed by the voters with the actions of a lone person. It doesn't make it right, but the fact is that the voters of the states you mention do in fact support capital punishment - which makes your analogy flawed.
However, the crime was still committed by me, not by the non-physical entity called "my employer", so i should still be the one who takes the punishment. Obviously my employer should also not be allowed to profit from this (or there remains the option of just sacrificing people for corporate gain), but unless the perpetrators and their accomplices are held personally responsible (to the point of going to jail) then there seems little incentive not to break the law.
It seems clear in many cases (including this one) that senior management is implicated in such law breaking. Fine, so maybe someone "misinterprets" your instructions and breaks the law in your name without your knowledge, but deliberately ignoring that fact when it becomes obvious what has happened does not make you innocent. Senior management must be held accountable for this kind of crap. If its your responsiblilty to run the company, then you also have a duty to know what is going on. And if there is a strong chance you'll go to jail if you don't, then turning a blind eye might suddenly look a rather less attractive option.
Well, its an 'OR' question as opposed to a 'XOR' question...
___OR__
0 | 0 = 0
0 | 1 = 1
1 | 1 = 1
1 | 1 = 1
__XOR__
0 | 0 = 0
0 | 1 = 1
1 | 1 = 1
1 | 1 = 0
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.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Fellow shareholders,
Sadly, the board cannot be trusted with the task of cleaning it's own house, given the events that have transpired. Who knows what was said, and when? Clearly some board members are covering their tracks. This board is further damaging the HP brand. We need some serious house cleaning.
So it's time for the shareholders to do something that the board cannot do: clean itself out. Here's an idea: I say we hire a subcontractor to obtain all the phone records of all the board members and their families and friends. When we find dirt, we can wave it in front of the board members so that they will resign on their own. Otherwise we'll have to trust the board. And as you know, that's a lost cause.
Not entirely true. How do we know that we have all the details to this whole story? Perhaps everyone there watched her assume the moral high ground and gave it to her?
That they didn't stop it, and apparently thought it was acceptable, is exactly why they bear part of the responsibility.
Remember, they didn't just spy on and illegally obtain phone records of the board members, but also on at least 10 reports, and at least one father of a reporter. It's not up to the board to pardon that.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
There are plenty of questions that will be asked.
The director that resigned (Perkins), didn't resign because of pretexting, but because the chairman unilaterally ordered an investigation of the board of directors, and only informed the directors when the "leak" was found. As head of the Nominating and Governance committee, he was, or felt he was, the one responsible for the Governance of the board.
That the other directors didn't resign doesn't say anything about their position on the matter, especially since they did not have Perkins' unique position.
The "pretexting" allegation came after Perkins resigned, and hired counsel to investigate the investigation. Perkins informed HP counsel, and they didn't act.
Dunn's now made the dumb-ass mistake of calling this a personal issue, a power struggle between Perkins and herself. Undoubtedly it is, but that doesn't make the matter any less severe. In a power struggle, when one side strikes publicly, you have to respond to the public, not to the person.
Did the other directors let Dunn take the "High Ground"? No -- they didn't follow her advice and remove the leak. So what does that give us? One alleged leaker, Dunn with an investigation on it, and now the Directors find they've been the victims of fraud, along with a bunch of reporters and a geophysicist.
She still has a job until tomorrow. Directors are directors because they're insulated from management. Management spied on the directors, without their consent, at the unilateral behest of Patricia Dunn. Patricia Dunn tried to use the results of this espionage to alter the composition of the board of directors. Nobody contests these facts. During the investigation, someone may have "exceeded the bounds of legality" without their superiors' knowledge or authorization, but their results were used, and were used unquestionably.
You can't tolerate that in a boardroom.
It is reasonable to believe that many people would be unwilling to provide this scope of personal information to a government agency just to be employed. That said, there are some very seriously protected rights that every submitter of such information is entitled to as a citizen, with the US government liable for any unauthorized use of the sensitive information it requests and obtains in these sorts of background investigations.
Now consider the following creepy factors in play with HP's investigation:
1. Targets were not informed that they could be investigated prior to or during the events that led to the "pretext" investigation.
2. Outside personnel (a law firm and some unscrupulous PIs) were given the personal information of HP's own employees and journalists not employed by HP as well as the personal information for said journalists' family members!
3. All of this was motivated by a corporate information leak. No government secrets were involved, and the assertion that a competitive advantage was compromised (I am assuming such an assertion was made by Frau Patricia even though those exact words were not used) has, to date, not been proven.
4. We're already more than a few days along with this story and I haven't heard even one executive of another large firm defend any of the behavior of HP's board members or their soon-to-be co-defendants in this matter. Although the "pretexting" approach is not something pioneered by HP's clown college, they just seem like the largest name yet asociated with such an attack.
5. Hello, you run a major technology corporation with millions of customers and tens of millions of potential customers watching this entire story unfold. Think information security and privacy issues aren't a hot topic yet? Now they are!
6. Oh yeah, and your own employees are watching, too.
I could go on. Others here will make more and better observations than I.
I think it is my obligation as a US citizen and a technical professional (read: today's equivalent of a production-line blue-collar worker of the 60s and 70s) to express my abhorrence of HP's behavior in this matter and of the "pretexting" tactic that was used to invade the privacy of US citizens (and maybe some non-citizens too for that matter), all within the borders of the United States. I think any assertion on HP's part that this was justified is disgusting and wrong. Heads absolutely should roll and they should start from the very top.
I can't help wondering if the increasingly strident attitudes regarding the surreptitious gathering of citizens' personal information that are expressed by many people and agencies of the state and federal governments of the US has started to leach into the corporate mindset. Not that I thought that they were honest and fair before... just that they weren't so brazenly foolish as to risk discovery of illegal behavior sanctioned by highly placed management and their well-heeled legal advisors.
Needless to say, I will never work for HP, not after this. How the mighty have fallen. HP used to be one of my top future career destinations, based on their technical aptitude and their culture of innovation and excellence. That all must be long gone by now.
And I will definitely ask any future employer about their policies in this regard. At least I know where I stand with the DoD and my rights. These corporate goons, on the other hand, are making things up as they go. Bad... in the end the only ones who will win are the lawyers and raider traders.
much work on the investigations into all the ongoing scandels in washington(valarie plame, Sibel Edmunds, halliburton, etc).
Is that like a physicist past his half-life, only you haven't checked if he collapsed to his retired state yet?
Yes, let's get into a semantics argument. "or" as it is used in English means "xor" while "and/or" means "or". Now you know.
Are you being treated for your Asperger's?
I would like to submit an application for the position of CEO of your company. I have no experience or qualifications, but honestly how can I be any worse than Carly Fiorina or Patricia Dunn. I promise that in my time as CEO I will line my own pockets with cash from the company's coffers, "Change the company's direction and focus" several times to make it seem that I am really doing something positive for the company, and maybe even pull some sort of shady shit to make the stock price go up a little bit. I can assure you HP, I am the man for the job. If you are really stuck on the whole female executive thing (Chairwoman is not a word), I know some doctors who could totally make it happen.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
The recent NYT/ IHT article gives a different and more detailed account of the current HP mess.
From Leak, inquiry and resignation rock a boardroom
By Damon Darlin [Miguel Helft contributing] The New York Times / September 7, 2006
Reprinted in the International Herald Tribune
>>
[....]
After Hurd succeeded Fiorina, the leaks stopped.
But in January, an article appeared on the technology news Web site CNET about a management meeting. The report described the company's strategy in dealing with the chip makers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, as well as possible acquisitions. It struck a nerve among the top executives not only because strategy was revealed but because leaks could open the company up to charges of securities violations because of selective disclosure of information.
Dunn, who had been named chairwoman after Fiorina's ouster, wanted to restore the trust among the board members - a trust that had been tested as the company went through three years of infighting, beginning with a proxy fight over its acquisition of Compaq Computer. Perkins, according to a top company executive, was as enthusiastic as Dunn was to catch the leaker.
[....]
Dunn, the former head of Barclay Global Investors, ordered a further investigation in January. But this time, it was turned over to the company's office of general counsel, which turned to a consulting firm with "substantial experience in conducting internal investigations," as the company described it. Hewlett-Packard has refused to name the firm, but said it had used it before.
According to a Hewlett-Packard filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, the consulting firm then subcontracted the work to another group of investigators to obtain information about phone calls between Hewlett-Packard directors and outsiders.
When the investigators were done, the results were presented to the full board, which includes Hurd. The evidence pointed to George A. Keyworth II, the board's longest-serving member, with 20 years' service. H.P. said that Keyworth admitted being the source of the leak and that the board, after discussion, asked him to resign. He refused.
At that point, Perkins announced his own resignation. Both Perkins's representatives and company officials say Perkins accused Dunn of betraying him. According to Perkins's spokesman, it was because Dunn had agreed to handle the matter privately and quietly. But Viet D. Dinh, Perkins's lawyer on this matter, also said that Perkins was upset with the extent of the investigation. He was the sole member to object.
[....]
Perkins's resignation was reported by Hewlett-Packard, which gave no cause. Perkins took nearly a month off, spending most of the time on his yacht.
[From an earlier section of the article: " Perkins, who was briefly married to the best-selling author Danielle Steel and recently wrote a racy novel titled "Sex and the Single Zillionaire," did not respond to requests for comment. A representative said Perkins was in the Mediterranean on his new $100 million 287-foot yacht, the Maltese Falcon, and did not want to be disturbed." 8~D]
When he returned to Silicon Valley in June, he pressed the company to amend its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to reflect the reason for his resignation - a request it rebuffed until Wednesday - and agitated for H.P. to investigate its methods. The Wilson Sonsini firm was asked by a board committee to do the job.
What Perkins did not know at the time - indeed, H.P. said no one on the board did - was that the leak investigators had used a form of subterfuge known as "pretexting," or false pretenses, to obtain the directors' official phone records. That was revealed in an e-mail response when Perkins directly asked Larry W. Sonsini, the chairman of Wilson Sonsini, about the investigative methods.
The Wilson Sonsini investigation concluded that the use of pr
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.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
I love how the media hates it when someone else obtains information under "false pretenses" or illegally and yet they do it all the time and call it tough journalism. They'll pretend they're children to trap child predators (I'm not defending child predators...), they take classified information from informants, I expect they do some of the same things that happened during this investigation.
That doesn't make HP right, but the media is certainly hypocritical.