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Calif. AG Files Felony Charges In HP Probe
PreacherTom writes, "Former Hewlett-Packard Chair Patricia Dunn, along with 'ethics chief' Kevin Hunsaker and others, was indicted yesterday on four felony counts by the California Attorney General. The charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy, carry a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison and $30,000 in fines. The indictments follow on the heels of an HP investigation of internal leaks that conducted "bugged" emails to C-Net reporter Dawn Kawamoto, illicitly obtained hundreds of phone numbers, and spied on HP board members." One of the indictments was for a private investigator retained by HP. The article has links to the complaints and warrants.
That's not necessarily true at all. When executives at large corporations engage in illegal activities they can have a direct effect on thousands of people- just look at the the Enron executives did to the thousands of employees and investors. Many times, the damage done to employees and the public at large is just as bad as the damage done by more hardcore criminals. If found guilty, these people should spend many years in prison and they will deserve every minute of it.
So, if they are convicted...does that mean that pretexting is no longer "possibly" illegal, but is now a felony?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Please let us hope we don't get saddled with another layer of crap like SOX did.
Yes some corporations have issues and their members break laws, but as it has been show they will pay their due under laws that existed at the time of the infraciton. Yet Congress is always willing to pander to the public by casting infrequent problems as "normal day on the job" and portray all corporations as "bogeymen". All that results is new layer upon layer of government regulation and more money spent to comply with regulations that needless duplicate existing regulations. Usually the only outcome is a whole different set of penalties which allow government agencies to throw who groups of charges at the wall in hopes something sticks.
In other words, look at rape cases. If the rape case doesn't float they turn around and charge you with a hate crime and so and so on. This is what is really happening, the government is attempting to circumvent the fact they cannot prosecute you multiple times. If they lose one way they just come back with another law and claim its wholly different.
So in the end, many businesses will needly get saddled with higher compliance costs and then pass them down to the consumer raising the costs of living for everyone.
So, at the first hints of new regulation write your Congressmen and let them know, no more crap laws, just enforce the ones they have.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I hope they get some FPMITA time. They really need to send a message to these suits who think they can do whatever they please to people.
I'd suggest that whomever slapped the parent with (-1 Troll) should have saved their mod points for a more worthy cause - defending Carly Fiorina seems a poor use of karma.
Granted, Carly Fiorina wasn't involved in the Dunn affair, but she and Patricia Dunn seem to be part of culture of corruption and greed at HP. While working in Manhattan a few years back, I saw three entire floors' worth of HP IT staff become unemployed with a stroke of Carly's pen. During this time, Fiorina was cruising around in Gulfstream jets and hobnobbing with celebrities.
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard must be spinning in their graves. Dunn and Fiorina are just two more examples of the grasping callousness and hypocrisy that have permeated the top levels of American corporations (and American government, for that matter).
be stripped of all your income and effectively be cast out on the street, or serve a few months in a penetentiary knowing that when you get out, you'll still have a home and property?
Same way every one is talking about illegal immigration, border fence and this and that. The 800 lb gorilla who is completely ignored is the employers who knowing employ illegal immigrants to cut labor costs and avoid social security taxes and workman comp.
Every one is talking about identity theft, and this and that. The 800 lb gorilla there is the credit reporting companies that steadfastly refuse to let me lock my own credit info. They lobby congress and the law winding through congress will let only the proven victims of id theft to freeze their credit reports. Sort of like people can buy locks for their barn doors only after proving that their horse is stolen.
This is going on everywhere. Dont call it pretexting. It is impersonating. Get the detectives and those who authorized this. But dont let the phone companies off the hook. They should prove that they were not criminally negligent or something. (IANAL).
Too much of lobbying by big corps. Too little protection for the common man.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The term pretexting is really, really ridiculous.
Kind of like saying that a guy who has been held for 4 years without charges is a "detainee" rather than a "prisoner", yes?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Waking up one day and finding out one's pension is gone sounds pretty violent to me.
Now multiply this by 10000.
So, who's more deserving of jailtime:
a) The guy that stole $50 at gunpoint?
b) The guy that stole 10000 pensions via accounting tricks?
It's not the violence of the crime that counts, it's the damage it has caused.
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As for the point about usefullness to society and rehabilitation, consider the following:
- Who's more ethically challenged - the well paid manager that knowingly steals the pensions of 10000 people or the junkie going through cold turkey that steals someone to pay for his next dose?
Could you really ever trust the manager which has stollen from thousands without need?
At least the junkie, if he can be freed from his adiction, can quite possibly turn into a productive member of society. The manager on the other hand has pretty much proven his lack the necessary ethics and morals the have any responsability whatesoever for anything belonging to other people.
People don't just learn the value of ethics when their punishment is being sent around giving lectures in universities - they (and all other potential white-collar thiefs watching) will just learn that crime pays.
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Sending the manager to prision is not a waste of resources because:
a) Said manager has proven unsuited to take responsability on other people's things. One cannot manage anything if one cannot be trusted not to steal it. As such this person's main abilities (management) cannot be used and beyond that he's no more than an inexperience person with a high education. As such sending him to prison wastes little value.
b) To satisfy society, a punishment must be given that matches the damage caused by the crime.
c) To avoid that other ethically challanged managers commit crimes of this dimension, it must be clear that the risk*loss factor of commiting such a crime outweights the potential gains.