Slashdot Mirror
Reporter's Story — How HP Kept Tabs On Me
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "An outside lawyer working for H-P, John Schultz, yesterday told Wall Street Journal reporter Pui-Wing Tam how H-P's investigators collected information on her for a year, scoping out her trash and compiling a dossier on her phone calls. From Tam's article about her time spent, unwittingly, under surveillance: 'H-P's agents had my photo and reviewed videotaped footage of me, said Mr. Schultz, of the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. They conducted "surveillance" by looking for me at certain events to see if I would show up to meet an H-P director. (I didn't.) They also carried out "pre-trash inspections" at my suburban home early this year, Mr. Schultz said. ... But what was surprising were the questions Mr. Schultz left unanswered: How did H-P's agents get my phone numbers in the first place? When did they review videotaped footage of me? Did their gumshoes park their cars outside my house at night? And what the heck is pre-trash inspection?'"
The /. summary fails to mention the fact that the whole reason this person was being "snooped" upon is because HP was trying to figure out who was leaking information to the press.
This is true, but what affect does that really have on the fact that the privacy of this person was violated because of some maniacal CEO felt slighted.
If the people that did this (including the private investigators) don't rot in jail, we need to worry about our own privacy... not only would it be OK for the government to violate our privacy, but that would open the doors to corporations doing the same thing.
IMHO this is just as disconcerting, if not more so than what AT&T and the NSA are doing...
Your claim that one of your news sources is Slashdot, but you haven't heard the background for this story?
Interesting.
Do not anger the worm.
I find that shredded documents make excellent tinder for the fireplace..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Pretrash inspections" of her home could include (in increasing order of invasion): 1) digging through the trash can before hauling it out to the curb, 2) rifling the mailbox, and 3) breaking and entering. Short of crawling into her bed, I think that about covers it.
Luke, help me take this mask off
> Maybe we need an "Association of Principled Technologists".
Seek and ye shall find
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
You mean other than every journalist who has refused to give up a source when ordered by a judge? Or the journalists who publish classified information?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Certain Cities, and even a few States passed a law against dumpster diving. Which is what HP did. Most people are not aware of this law, or even if this law covers their hometown. They did this to keep people from rummaging through your trash collecting papers to commit identity theft against you. Wonder if there was such law where this lady lived?
I think what he is saying is that privacy is not a law. There are laws to protect you from some invasions of things like medical records. But the laws broken to obtain such information is not "invasion of privacy" but things like treaspassing, theft, and fraud...That's my take on it anyway.
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