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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?'"
Does this qualify as stalking? Perhaps corporate stalking?
I read the article in the Journal this morning. What really pissed me off was the way that all the really uncomfortable details from powerpoint slides that HP had already turned over to Congress were excluded from the materials provided to Ms. Tam in person. For example, the fact that they not only pulled her phone records, but those of everyone she had been calling and taking calls from on her cellphone. This was while she was planning a sister's wedding.
If the power of corporations continues to grow unchecked, we could come upon a time when some corporations monitor their employees 24 hours a day, in there homes, at play, wherever, and to do anything outside of the company rules would mean termination. It would be in the company's best interest to do so.
Sort of like how they can do drug testing now.
1 voice in a sea of voices
heh. "The scandal, which became public last month, has spurred the departures of three executives and three H-P directors"
Departures..? What about criminal charges??!
"According to the California attorney general, H-P's investigators also used the last four digits of my Social Security number to impersonate me in order to obtain my phone records, a technique known as "pretexting.""
OK, if I'm not mistaken it's completely illegal to impersonate someone, and also, are phone records not considered "private" information? In such a case there's not only impersonation but right-to-privacy laws that have been treaded upon...
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...
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
This is one of those points where we don't need more legislation, we need people to educate themselves and pick up the responsibility for their own actions. It's not the government's problem if you don't shred sensitive documents, and it shouldn't be. It's not like there is a shortage of cheap paper shredding machines -- you have hands, they can do the job if you're really cheap. If I toss papers with information on my bank account out without shredding, I don't expect them to be any more secure than leaving my ATM card sitting on the sidewalk.
Laws aren't going to fix things here, they just give us a method of reacting. The old saying "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." still applies. Suck it up and take some responsibility for yourself, stop shovelling it off on the government.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
clearly, you need to start leaving an EULA on your trash: "By reading this, you agree to an exclusive binding legal contract with [name] as to the nature of all dealing with this trash. This trash is not discarded property. This trash remains the property of [name] until such time as those individuals designated for its collection for immediate disposal remove it. At such time, ownership of this trash will transfer to the designated collecters (or their employing agency) for the explicit purpose of immediate disposal. Those found tampering with this trash will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This contract shall be construed as being formed under the law of the State of California unless otherwise prohibited by local law of competent juristiction."
That should stop the snoopers!
FGD 135