Journalists Sue HP For Invasion of Privacy

Stony Stevenson writes "Four journalists and one of their family members are suing Hewlett-Packard for obtaining their personal phone records. The journalists filed lawsuits in California this week, claiming that HP invaded their privacy, intentionally inflicted emotional distress, and violated California's fair business rules. HP acknowledged in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing last year that it investigated journalists in order to find out who inside the company had been leaking information to the press. The reporters' own publications have reported that HP representatives said they were disappointed the reporters did not take a settlement and decided to sue instead. The company said it plans to defend itself against the lawsuits."

Comments

Of course they do.

[xC0000005]

"The company said it plans to defend itself against the lawsuits."

When was the last time you saw something say "The company plans bend over and really take it from this lawsuit. Yeah, we're going to sit on our asses and get plugged." More likely, "We're going to ask you to bend over and get plugged. And by ask, we don't mean ask." Companies will defend all of their actions to the death (or the disolve, in this case). If the company had put orders in to have the journalist shot they'd still defend themselves against a lawsuit.

Personal responsibility is dead in this country.
It should be no surprise that corporate responsibility is.

Re:HP should be convicted and Carly jailed

[goldspider]

I'll grant you that if you agree to eliminate "emotional distress" from the list of reasons to sue. I'm really tired of seeing that in EVERY lawsuit.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I hope it helps

[Whuffo]

I can't believe that HP would do such a stupid thing to start with. Out of all the people you could mess with in this life, pissing off a reporter has to be one of the dumbest moves you could make. Breaking the law while you're doing it doesn't make things any better at all. Multiply that by the number of reporters they messed with and it's a real problem.

So up to this point - charges were filed against HP by the government. Those charges were dropped - all HP had to do was admit wrongdoing, pay a 15 million dollar fine to the state, and agree to make some changes in the way they handle investigations. $15M sounds like a lot, but to a corporation like HP it's not such a big penalty.

The people involved were also charged - and the charges were dropped in all cases except one of the underlings at the private investigation agency - he had to do some community service. The worst actor of the lot - Patty Dunn - walked away scot free.

But what about those reporters? Beside the trauma of finding that their private records had been rummaged through secretly, they've suffered some real damage to their careers. None of them can ethically report on HP any more - and what good is a technology reporter that can't report on HP?

Not to mention the chilling effect HP's actions had on news reporters in general. Hard to get those hot tips when the people passing the information along quit doing so; if someone's tapping the reporter's phone, they'd be targeted. No thanks.

HP tried to settle with the reporters. We don't know what kind of settlement offer was made but it clearly wasn't enough to satisfy the reporters. So the reporters sue, and HP announces that they'll defend vigorously. What kind of defense can they offer, considering they admitted guilt in the state case? Another bad move by the folks at HP - now they're going to end up paying more (probably much, much more) and enjoy more negative publicity that gets generated as the cases wind their way through the legal system.

HP needs to make those reporters whole. Since HP through its illegal actions damaged their careers, they should pay the reporters at least the difference between what they would have earned and what they can earn now. That's only fair. But there's another angle to consider - punitive damages. Big punitive damages, the kind that would cause HP some financial pain and send a message to others - it's not even worth considering illegally manipulating the press. Lots of people in the news business feel this way, not just the plaintiffs in this action. And while these plaintiffs can't report on HP, There's an awful lot of reporters who saw what happened, feel that their profession has been done a great wrong, and aren't prohibited from writing about HP.

So here they go - HP gets to defend itself in multiple lawsuits and has to go in with the fact that they've already admitted guilt, preventing them from arguing much of anything other than how much they should have to pay. And while this is going on, the media will be reporting on it - the same media that HP went out of their way to alienate. The same media that HP depends on to print its press releases.

What will ultimately be the result of these suits? I don't want to guess at this point; corporations seem to be getting away with all kinds of things these days.

Re:HP should be convicted and Carly jailed

[the grace of R'hllor]

Normally I'd agree, but actually having your personal and private life rooted around in can make a person quite paranoid, and *can* cause emotional distress. In this case I'd call it appropriate.

Re:HP should be convicted and Carly jailed

[donaldm]

Err Carly has not been the CEO of HP for a few years, Mark Hurd is the current CEO.

The problem you have here is what was done not actually illegal in the eyes of the Law. Unethical yes and definitely breaching HP's own conduct of standards. This does subject the person or persons subject to disciplinary action within the organisation which can be a sever reprimand to termination of employment.

While IANL for someone in an organisation to be jailed they must break the Law and be convicted of it. It could be put forward in a court that while certain people in HP acted inappropriately the Journalists also acted inappropriately in accepting what could be construed as getting data that could be used for "insider trading" which is actually illegal.

Many large companies actually try to foster a code of ethics within the company and with their customers but it only takes one to use questionable practices to breakdown this standard and expose the company to ridicule and possible litigation. Of course there are some companies that view ethics as a sigh of weakness.

Re:HP should be convicted and Carly jailed

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Why should shareholders suffer losses because some idiot CEO or criminal CFO cooked up statements or committed a crime by using Corporate Veil.

Because they own the company, they finance the company, they benefit from a corporation's wrong-doing, and they employ the people committing. In fact, it's them who directly influence the company's actions. If they don't want financial inconvenience, they can either choose a more reputable company, or actively demand in stockholder's meetings that day-to-day profits are secondary to obeying the law, and the financial security associated with it.

Shareholders who are either care only for profits, or who take an apathetic view to the origin of their own dividends are solely responsible for the state of corporations today.