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?'"

Comments

Re:Only the beginning...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You watch too many movies."

You obviously have never had a heart to heart talk with someone that works in HR or a corporate investigator.

These sorts of things happen more often than most sheeple...oosp! I mean people...think. 99.99% of the time they just don't come to the surface.

Sure physical surveillance is costly, but there are large corps and services that are constantly scanning public records, private records, and running spiders on the web to mine data about their employees and the employees of their competition. Don't fool yourself. Nothing is secret any more.

X-CIA/NSA employees have to do something to earn a living once they are out :-)

P.S. And remember to always read those information release forms you sign when starting a new job.