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| The Ann Baskins Materials: The HP Story Shifts Again - Updated |
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Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:08 AM EDT
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After absorbing all the testimony from Thursday's HP hearings, I think it's fair to say that no one took full responsibility. According to the witnesses, it just happened, and nobody knows quite how, because to hear them tell it no one was paying attention except folks who weren't in charge. Dunn absolutely and firmly denied she was in charge. She didn't even know what pretexting was. If they were in charge, as Mark Hurd acknowledges the CEO ultimately is, then they were not paying attention. So, it's nobody's fault, as far as the testifiers are concerned, despite some mild fingerpointing at each other. The buck stops nowhere.
It's maybe the folks who took the Fifth, then? Dunn seemed to think so. And Verizon has now sued the data brokers HP hired because they used "deceit" to get phone records. Imagine that. Deceit. In corporate America. Verizon's CEO is on HP's board. Too bad there's no law against hypocrisy. Cingular has sued one of the PIs also: The Atlanta-based company said yesterday in federal court papers it wants Charles Kelly, his firm CAS Agency, and any of its agents to return all Cingular customer information they may have, give up any profits they made for getting the data and pay unspecified damages for their conduct.
The complaint, which follows a similar suit filed late Thursday by Verizon Wireless, also seeks an injunction against CAS, which is based in Carrollton, Ga. Cingular is jointly owned by AT&T and Bell South, and it was Dawn Kawamoto's phone records at issue here. No doubt the PIs are asking themselves at this point, how did we get left holding the bag?
Cingular is suing saying that they used pretexting to get around the company's "safeguards". If there is one thing that is patently obvious by now, it's that the telephone companies don't have meaningful safequards. That's the real problem, and what happened will undoubtedly happen more and more unless they come up with better methods for determining who really is who. Using Social Security numbers, when you know that they are accessible to every PI in America and his cousin, is certainly not providing safeguards. Add runaway corporate board rooms and you have yourself a fine mess.
The lawyer for HP's recently resigned General Counsel Ann Baskin provided the House Committee some documents and a cover letter. The New York Times has the written material [PDF] her lawyer presented to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Although she took the Fifth and refused to testify, the materials speak for her, and to my eyes they tell a somewhat different tale. Here's the complete transcript of the hearings from Thursday as well, so you can compare the two.
If you wish to know how easy it was to get the phone records, just read the Baskins materials. And for you lawyers out there, when you read about the legal research done to determine if pretexting was legal, because at least four people, including Baskins herself, wondered and she even asked, I think you'll be puzzling, is the way an answer was arrived at what you would have anticipated?
US Representative Joe Barton, after reading these and other materials, said this:
Records provided to this committee show that phone records were being pulled by H.P.'s internal investigation team for more than a year, with the approval and knowledge of both then-Chairman Dunn and General Counsel Baskins.
It's my understanding that the day-to-day operations were controlled by the company's lead ethics attorney, Kevin Hunsaker, so that the investigation could be protected by the attorney-client privilege.
Mr. Hunsaker would frequently report to Ms. Dunn, to Ms. Baskins, about the developments and the next steps in the investigation. Yet not until last Friday, September the 22nd, did H.P. force Patricia Dunn's resignation.
I also have to say that I'm troubled to find out that the board's outside counsel, Larry Sonsini, learned last April that the investigation included information from fraudulently obtained phone records.
Why didn't he immediately recommend putting the brakes on the investigation?
Did he ask any questions about the investigative methods employed by Ms. Dunn, Ms. Baskins or Mr. Hunsaker?
...And, again, pretexting is pretending to be somebody you're not to get something you probably shouldn't have to use in a way that's probably wrong.
By coincidence, just a week before Mr. Sonsini's e-mail, the Federal Bureau of Investigation testified before this same subcommittee about its position on the legality of procuring records through pretexting.
The FBI testified that there are compelling reasons to believe such operations violate federal law, including the Wire Act. In fact, over the next few days of hearings, we actually expect several individuals -- and several is actually; I should say numerous individuals -- to invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self- incrimination, which they are obviously entitled to do, and to decline to answer our questions about their involvement with pretexting for phone records.
It's funny to me that if you have to invoke your Fifth Amendment right, you're doing something that's legal. I'm still waiting for someone to describe a legitimate way, short of a subpoena issued by a judge or Congress, to obtain another person's phone records without their permission.
Update
I'm happy to tell you that SFGate is reporting that some phone companies are now adopting stricter methods. And the pretexting bill that was on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk was just signed. Also several Congresspersons in the article predict that the federal bill outlawing pretexting has a likelihood of being passed now. But what the article contributes is something I'd like to emphasize, testimony from the next day's hearing by reporter Christopher Byron of the New York Post, who became the target of pretexting and surveillance, he and his family, after he wrote an article critical of a Vancouver BC company named Imagis Technologies. His testimony addresses the why of it all, why it's wrong to do such things, and this is the part that no one at HP got right. They forgot that their targets were human beings and they lacked fellow feeling, empathy: That was made clear by the experience of journalist Christopher Byron, who testified before Congress about his own battle with pretexters the day after the HP hearing.
The disastrous HP probe had involved the pretexting of nine journalists, to whom the Palo Alto company has apologized. Byron, who writes for the New York Post, said he went up against a more aggressive company.
"To discover that someone has spent weeks trying to obtain access to you and your family's most personal and private records and finally succeeded at it," he told the committee, "is like learning that a Peeping Tom has been spending weeks on end hovering at night outside your bedroom window, watching and videotaping everything that goes on inside." That's what law is for. It's for those who have no heart or no conscience and who will do bad things if you leave it up to them. They'll do them if they think they'll be effective, no matter who gets hurt. They might even view the hurt as a plus. Humane, decent folks will likely do the right thing with or without a law, because they can feel for the other guy. They understand and empathize and won't do to others what they wouldn't like done to them. The Golden Rule, if you will. It is for the rest that societies need to establish laws, so it is clear to those without a working internal checks and balances ethics system where the acceptable line is.
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| Authored by: MathFox on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:46 AM EDT |
So that Pamela can easily find them...
---
If an axiomatic system can be proven to be consistent and complete from within
itself, then it is inconsistent.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- safequard > safeguard - Authored by: Waterman on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 06:39 AM EDT
- Corrections here - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 09:14 AM EDT
- Punctuation - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 02:54 PM EDT
- Gif patents dead!! - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 09:26 PM EDT
- OOPS!! - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 09:27 PM EDT
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| Authored by: ankylosaurus on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:55 AM EDT |
Please remember to make links clickable - thanks.
---
The Dinosaur with a Club at the End of its Tail[ Reply to This | # ]
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- OT - more MS competition ? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 09:18 AM EDT
- Link... - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 09:51 AM EDT
- OT: Mims on SCO - Authored by: jplatt39 on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 09:52 AM EDT
- Do CableTeleCos need more fiber trunks? FYI- 14 terabits per second is now the fiber record. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 11:15 AM EDT
- OT: Gimp Wars - Authored by: jplatt39 on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 11:20 AM EDT
- News-Pick - "End result may be better privacy laws " - Authored by: grokker59 on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:08 PM EDT
- Researcher Defends Mac Wi-Fi Hack - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 07:00 PM EDT
- The Bugs in GPLv2 - Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 10:58 PM EDT
- Off-topic C&C - Authored by: Tufty on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 11:11 PM EDT
- Off-topic C&C - Authored by: tiger99 on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 08:05 AM EDT
- Heh.. - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 11:13 AM EDT
- Supermarket software, and thoughts on FOSS "marketing"...... - Authored by: tiger99 on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 08:49 AM EDT
- OpenCD - Authored by: jplatt39 on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 09:31 AM EDT
- GPL V2/V3 - Authored by: Jude on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 10:37 AM EDT
- Off-topic - More Vista problems - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 10:45 AM EDT
- OT: SCOX today - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 11:35 AM EDT
- OT: IBM Files A Monster - Authored by: Steve Martin on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 07:33 PM EDT
- Greenpeace wants "Green Apples" - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 08:10 PM EDT
- Gif patents dead! - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 09:28 PM EDT
- Litigation Privilege + SCO's summary judgement motion on IBM CC2,3,4,5 - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 10:02 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Tweeker on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:58 AM EDT |
Garbage picking has quite a bit of precedent, with police departments commonly
doing it without warrant.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 04:01 AM EDT |
No one took full responsibility, it just happened, and nobody knows quite how,
no one was paying attention except folks who weren't in charge. Sam absolutely
and firmly denied he was in charge. If they were in charge, then they were not
paying attention.
So, it's nobody's fault, despite some mild fingerpointing at each other. The
buck stops nowhere.
Sam Palmisano, Irving Wladawski-Berger, Dan Frye love it.
It's the story of their life.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Tweeker on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 04:10 AM EDT |
To me, a core problem is that entities arent liabile for the data they keep
about you.
Maybe theyd take more care if they had to treat data about you as though it was
your data, and if something happens to it, thier on the hook.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 05:23 AM EDT |
While Dunn & Co. may not have heard of "Pretexting" (as I
certainly had not
either), how is pretexting different from lying and outright fraud?
Is Dunn getting off the hook just because there is a special name for this type
of
lying?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 06:40 AM EDT |
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 10 2006 @ 06:35 AM EDT
With apologies to the more sensitive among us, it's a well known fact of
management life that "manure" can be made to roll downhill very
easily! You wait and see, the so called executives involved with this little
escapade will ensure that they come out of this with reputations intact, and as
usual the guy at the bottom of this little pyramid of corruption will get to
carry the can on their behalf, that's not to say he isn't guilty as well by the
way, but there's no reason the culpability should stop right there. This mucky
little "plausible deniability" tactic is starting to wear a bit thin
right now!
CPW[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: freeio on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 08:10 AM EDT |
Let's go back and look at the supposed justification for this
fraudulent
information gathering activity. The stated reason that all
of this activity took
place was to determine who had been leaking
board-room secrets. This is the
factor which caused them to violate the
law, violate their own ethics policies,
and risk the financial future
of the company. It is an application of the old
phrase, “The
ends justify the means.”
In corporate America,
the fiduciary responsibility is taken to
extremes. Well, perhaps I should
rephrase that: If we assume that the
fiduciary responsibility means the
responsibility to make money,
quickly, and to make this quarter look good
(regardless what happens in
the future) then any extreme behavior is
justified in order
to meet this responsibility. Lie? Cheat? Steal? Sure! It is
required by
our duty to the stockholders and the most powerful analysts. Just
get
the deal done! Show me the money!
My statements may seem extreme,
but if you look at the behaviors of the
board, it all makes sense if you assume
that the above statements are
true. What is the worst thing you can do? Why, it
is to get caught at
it, of course. This would seem to be a confusion of
capitalism with the
Spartan philosophy. It is also very common in today's
corporate world.
In the corporate world, the ends do most certainly justify the
means,
and if you don't believe it, look at the way the incentives are
rigged.
The incentives are for the shortest of short-term successes, and
there
are no incentives at all for ethical/legal/moral behavior. Just show
me
the money, and
don't get caught!
I look at the behavior of these
fine individuals, and I am reminded of
many CEO/President/CFO/board/senior
manager types I have met over the
years. What is worth remembering is that these
fine folks are
(unfortunately) perfectly normal among their peers. They are are
not an
abnormality in the slightest. Doing what they do has gotten them to
the
top, and everyone sees it. If you cannot do like they do, you will
never
make it in the vast majority of corporations.
Yes, I am a cynic. Yes,
in this case, I am also right. I would much
rather be proven wrong in my
assertions, but I doubt that it is
possible to do
so.
--------
Yes,
I am still
alive!
---
Tux et bona et fortuna est. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 08:15 AM EDT |
<blockquote>No doubt the PIs are asking themselves at this point, how did
we get left holding the bag?</blockquote>
Of course the PIs are left holding the bag, because they're the ones that
committed any alleged crimes. To say that they are not culpable is like saying
a hired hit man should not be left "holding the bag" simply because
someone else hired him to do it. If anyone at HP is guilty of a crime, they
should be prosecuted, but that does not dissolve wrongdoing by the PIs
themselves.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Holding the bag - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 08:50 AM EDT
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| Authored by: PTrenholme on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 08:20 AM EDT |
Perhaps someone has asked this before, but -- since we're talking about 'phone
company records -- why don't the "safeguards" include a confirming
call to the number (or account holder of record) for authorization before any
warrantless access to those records is granted?
Was there any discussion of Federal rules mandating this before such access was
granted?
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IANAL, just a retired statistician[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: The Mad Hatter r on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 08:34 AM EDT |
It's unfortunate that Ethics appears to be an Unknown Country as far as business
is concerned. This problem appears to be more prevalent in the US than Canada
from what I've. I don't know why that is, thought I suspect that differences in
the laws relating to the board's responsibility to shareholders may be at the
root.
I gather that a few of us (and all of the trolls) don't seem able to understand
why ethics are an issue. To that I'll quote the bible: Do unto others as you
would have others do unto you.
---
Wayne
http://urbanterrorist.blogspot.com/
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 08:46 AM EDT |
has unfortunately become "Do ONE to others before they do ONE to
you".
By the way, didn't the Enron liars Take the Fifth?
Where did that get them?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 09:22 AM EDT |
| No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime,
unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases
arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service
in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same
offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall
private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. http://casel
aw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/
Are people deluded into
thinking they can cloak themselves in the Fifth? It's not a Romulan device for
evading justice. There's plenty of people who still wound up getting found out. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 09:40 AM EDT |
This case involves a woman who has been suffering memory loss and is in care in
a nursing home. Her husband died some years before she entered the nursing home.
Occasionally she would ask the staff, "Where is my husband?". They
faced a dilemma. Did they tell her that he had died and then have to help her
with the grief she would go through, or did they tell her "something
else"?
The problem with telling her that her husband had died is that she would forget
it sometime later and then ask again in 2 weeks time. The repetition of this
event took its toll on the woman and the staff, because she would suffer
physically as well as emotionally, everytime she was told he was dead. The
nursing staff dreaded knowing that she would ask again, and not knowing when.
They also repeatedly had to go through the same process of dealing with her
grief.
Eventually it was decided to tell her something along the lines of "He's
not here today", or "He isn't able to visit today" and then find
a gentle way of distracting her. Is it ethical? I say YES. Is it truthful? Yes,
again. Is it harmful? It's a lot less harmful than risking her having a heart
attack every time she asks.
I'm not a grief counsellor, but when the nursing staff breakdown in tears while
telling you the story, you can see that maybe "the truth" isn't always
the best response.
So does anyone think it's unethical?[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Be Relevant! - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 10:36 AM EDT
- Be Relevant! - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:07 PM EDT
- Not from Dear Abby - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 07:59 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 09:46 AM EDT |
I find it amusing that everyone here expects accountability from an american
company... If the Governement isnt accountible in this country why should a
corporation be accountible. Corporate ethics are a lead by example thing in
america... And since this country is run like a corporation why would you expect
corporations to do something up right... They got the idea for spying on their
employees and reporters from this countries administration and they (the curent
administration) arent being held accountable.... So why are HP being held
accountable?... You guys certainly pick you fights... Start at the top and the
rest will fall in line.
IC[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 10:13 AM EDT |
The laws cited by various indiduals:
California penal code, which is 538.5, it says specifically, "prohibits
fraudulently obtaining information from a public utility. This statute makes it
unlawful for any person to transmit or cause to be transmitted by means of wire,
radio or television communication any words, sounds, writing, signs, signals or
pictures for the purpose of furthering or executing a scheme or artifice to
obtain from a public utility confidential, privileged or proprietary
information, customer records, billing records, customer credit data or
accounting data, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses."
[Telecoms are regarded as public utilities under this statue.]
Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act has long prohibited pretexting. In
May of this year [2006], the Federal Trade Commission brought five court
complaints charging Internet information brokers with illegal trafficking in
consumers' telephone numbers.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 added a new section, 222, to the
communications act. Section 222 clearly states that customers' phone records can
only be disclosed to the customer or to someone else with the permission of the
customer.
--
SONSINI: Yes. And pretexting, generally, other than the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
relating to financial institutions, is not illegal. It depends upon the
methodologies in pretexting.
For example, if Social Security numbers are used, then it is very likely that
there is a violation of the Social Security statute. There are other laws. The
Federal Trade Commission takes the viewpoint that it could be an unfair trade
practice
---
ESHOO: ... Can you explain to us, from your investigation of the investigation,
how many Social Security numbers were used from inside the company to access
information?
HURD: I do not yet have a complete report on how many. Clearly, there had been
an effort to gather at least a couple that I've seen, which we're still not to
the end of the trail.
--
WHITFIELD: ... But I think the record also does reflect the existing California
law and the Federal Wire Act and the FTC's civil penalties that it already is
illegal.
--
An impressive list of laws that seem to have been violated.
California penal code
Telecommunications Act (1996)
Federal Trade Commission Act
Federal Wire Act
Social Securities statute
'The Federal Trade Commission takes the viewpoint that it could be an unfair
trade practice'
And yet everyone here seems to think the law is not clear enough on the
practices employed at HP? How many laws do you have to break before it is clear
that what you are doing is illegal?
Recall that ignorance of the law is not an excuse.
+++++++++++
SONSINI: Yes, I do. My counsel is Mr. Evan Chestler (ph).
I cant help but wonder if this is the same Chestler that has appeared on GL
before.
+++++++++
Sonsini's involvment here:
SONSINI: When we were asked by the Hewlett-Packard board of directors to
investigate the matter, we told the board that, although, generally, pretexting,
except in the instance of financial institutions, was not specifically unlawful,
we could not confirm that the methodologies used in the investigations were
legal.
--
WALDEN: In the document we have here, the interview of Ron DeLia, a draft from
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati -- I believe it's document number 115 --
talks about Kona I 2005 investigation.
And in number 4, on page 1, says DeLia has no doubt that he discussed
methodology of pretexting, i.e., impersonation, with Dunn, at some point during
the 2005 investigation.
--
SONSINI: The first time I heard about the Kona I and Kona II investigations I
believe was a note I received from Patty Dunn on or about March 15th of this
year.
The questions that spring to mind here are:
(1) Is anyone in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati familiar with the state
and federal laws? They provide reports on Kona 1 and 2 that appear to be
unlawful under various state and federal laws and do nothing about this.
(2) Sonsini is the outside counsel to HP. Sub rosa investigations are not - I
hope - common in Fortune 15 companies. His own firm produces a report on such an
investigation (Kona 1) in 2005. And he does not hear about this until a director
decides to resign.
While Im a firm believer in Hanlon's razor one has to seriously wonder about
these people. Hurd's statements that he knew nothing either are equally credable
(or not).
+++++++++
Dunn on pretexting. It seems she was first made familar with the term in June
2005.
DUNN: The word pretext and pretexting means a lot to us now. It meant nothing to
me in June of 2005.
--
Now, when Ms. Baskins was on the panel, I asked her about some notes that she
made on June 15th of 2005.
And in her notes -- and this is in Exhibit 124 of the exhibit book -- these are
notes of Ms. Baskins. And the very first note says: Obtaining phone numbers is a
time-consuming process. Call carriers Nextel, Spring and use pretexting to
extract the information. And then they have your initials down here of questions
that you asked.
--
DUNN: I would like to try and interpret it if I may. I believe I told Mr. Schatz
that it was possible that I had seen the word pretext, not that there were false
pretenses that I was aware of, and the fraudulent misidentification of identity
as part of this investigation.
The word pretext does show up in documents that I have been shown that I saw...
--
DUNN: As I have testified and in my written testimony as well, I became aware
that phone records were a part of this investigation circa June 2005.
--
Ms. Dunn, in a January 30th, 2006 e-mail to Kevin Hunsaker, Mr. Gentilucci,
H.P.'s global security manager, states, quote, "We use pretext interviews
on a number of investigations to extract information and/or make covert
purchases of stolen property" -- in a sense, all undercover operations.
--
One has to wonder about the last bit - make purchases of stolen property. That
might or might not be illegal by itself.
++++++++++
Dunn on board minutes:
DUNN: there needs to be a way for companies to do the kinds of investigations
they need to protect intellectual property and, in this case, repeated,
unconfessed, serious disclosure of confidential company information.
DUNN: I have tried -- I'm under oath here. I have tried, believe it or not,
throughout this, to maintain some shred of the sanctity of the boardroom. If you
force me to say, I will. But I do not think that it is relevant to the public
interests that I disclose my confidential discussions with directors.
--
Dunn has been a member of the HP board since 1998 and still doesnt know that
board room minutes are not confidential. Interesting.
+++++
Did Dunn actually have the authority to carry out this investigation at all?
WALDEN: The part of the chain of communication I'm confused about is you've
said, as an outside director, charged by a board of seven without an official
board position -- I assume they were -- as I understand, seven board members,
basically, said: Please, go do this. You didn't vote on it as a board, right?
DUNN: We did not. In fact, it was not a matter that could be brought to our full
board.
++++++++++
Pretexting and placing spyware on outside computers has been going on for years
at HP. Its all part of the 'HP Way'.
--
DUNN: I never received a formal legal opinion, but, in Mr. Hunsaker's final
draft report of March 14, on the investigation, as was also contained in the
final report in May, he made it very clear, after laying out all of the
investigative methods, that each of them were legal and proper and in
conformance with the standard investigative techniques that the company had been
using for years.
--
DUNN: I asked for this to be done in the H.P. standard way.
WALDEN: "Schatz explained that DeLia believed he'd shared with Dunn the
concept of impersonation to get records. Dunn said she is not willing to
contradict DeLia on this."
And then it goes on to say, "Dunn thinks it is probable that she was told
that in some circumstances, they may need to use false pretenses, but she was
always assured the methods used were lawful and consistent with H.P. practices.
--
DUNN: During this investigation, it was my understanding that these records were
available through permitted mechanisms and that it was the common practice
within Hewlett-Packard to use phone records to perform investigations.
--
DUNN: I don't know who at my level or Mark Hurd's level considered it was
appropriate to spy on reporters.
--
DUNN: As Mr. Adler has testified, this is a common investigative technique that
has been used -- and I'm just quoting his testimony -- one dozen to two dozen
times at Hewlett-Packard in sensitive investigations.
It is still the policy of H.P. that this technique is a standard and acceptable
part of its arsenal in investigative (inaudible)
--
DeLia said he knows that he would have described the processes with Dunn, though
he did not tell Dunn that he was using a subcontractor."
--
The operation included placing a legally permissible software-based tracing
device in an e-mail attachment sent to Kawamoto."
--
ADLER: I mean, if you want to talk about the use of the e-mail by the name of
Jacob, that's the first time we're ever employed that to my knowledge.
If you want to talk about the tracer technologies in that context, then we've
used it, as I said, probably a dozen or two dozen times that I am aware of.
--
HURD: The spyware technology, I only put the caveat on it, as Fred described,
there are a couple of dimensions to the use of this technology.
--
HP placing spyware on a non HP owned computer will violate computer laws in
multiple jurisdictions. This method is being used by HP at the minute and has
the approval and knowledge of the CEO.
Lets just say that Mr Hurd had better be very careful where he travels to for
the next number of years. More than a few police forces outside the US may be
*very* interested to ask him a few questions.
Please bear in mind that a company may not authorise an illegal activity. Such
an action is the personal responsibility of the directors or employees. A
company may act in an unlawful fashion which is a different kettle of fish. Also
recall that director's insurance cannot protect them from illegal actions.
I suspect that Hurd's tenure at HP will not last much longer.
I also note that this is the pattern I suspect all along: HP have been engaged
in illegal activities of a similar nature for a number of years. The
investigative firm used here were employed back in 1998 - about the time Dunn
was invited to the board. Carly F took over as CEO in 1999. It seems that
pretexting etc may well have started or continued under Carly F's reign. She may
yet be appearing before the House or Senate comittees on these matters.
--
MadScientist[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tz on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 11:20 AM EDT |
The representative is being disingenuous.
The problem is you can either invoke the 5th at the beginning of your testimony,
or never. That is why they typically give immunity. And whether something is
legal or not is still a gray area in the issue, so if they testify, they may be
incriminating themselves on some technicality.
In a trial, you can testify, but then the prosecution gets to ask you questions
too.
Worse, if you misremember something, it becomes obstruction, perjury, or
something similarly serious and they will care what the definition of
"is" is.
If your lawyer tells you to take the 5th, even if you are innocent, you
should.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Alger Hiss - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:13 PM EDT
- Alger Hiss - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 07:48 PM EDT
- Alger Hiss - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 11:16 PM EDT
- Alger Hiss - Authored by: alangmead on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 11:36 PM EDT
- McCarthyism today - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 02:01 PM EDT
- The Path to 9/11 - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 03:02 PM EDT
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| Authored by: dcf on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 11:35 AM EDT |
Of course the buck stops nowhere. This is the company that brings you
HP
Integrity NonStop computing [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 12:01 PM EDT |
When Fiorina forced the last of the Hewletts and the Packards out of the
company, and off the board of directors, during the Compaq merger, many
predicted that Hewlett-Packard would not survive. Well, it certainly isn't the
company anymore that Hewlett and Packard founded.
Had a Hewlett or a Packard been on the board, I believe none of this would have
happened. They were the moral compass of the company.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:22 PM EDT |
This is a good article about another pretexting victim:
<a
href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/09112006/business/the_phone_thieves_busin
ess_christopher_byron.htm?page=1" >NY Post</a>
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 03:22 PM EDT |
| Forgot to use HTML encoding. DOH.
This is a good article about another
pretexting victim:
NY Post
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 05:38 PM EDT |
"And Verizon has now sued the data brokers HP hired because they used
"deceit" to get phone records. Imagine that. Deceit. In corporate
America. Verizon's CEO is on HP's board."
So we have a corporation in effect suing itself. The money goes around in
circles, but the lawyers take a big cut along the way. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 05:43 PM EDT |
PJ writes, "It is for the rest that societies need to establish laws, so it
is clear to those without a working internal checks and balances ethics system
where the acceptable line is." Perhaps, but what about those who change
the laws to enable them to subjugate others?
Diana Gibson and Craig Wiesner have an op-ed piece in the Sunday 10/1 San Jose
Mercury News titled, "Compromise on torture violates American values".
In it they note that the recent legislation pushed through by the current
administration allows them "to delcare people to be 'enemy combatants,' to
imprison them indefinitely without charges, denying them the fundamental right
to habeas corputs appeals to federal courts, to authorize acts against their
bodies and minds that most decent people would consider torture, and to try them
in military tribunals while denying them the right to see all the evidence
against them or to confront their accusers." Further, "it grants to
the president the authority to interpret the Geneva Conventions as he sees
fit."
You may recall that in the US there have been laws allowing slavery,
imprisonment and confiscation of property for being of Japanese descent,
imprisonment for teaching evolution, ....
I submit that "The Law" is not the glorious thing that saves us from
tyranny and torture. Rather, it is people acting collectively, standing up for
what they believe in. Even when the law says that they are acting illegally.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 08:34 PM EDT |
| Thanks to a previous poster on leaks :)
http://www.kumquatcomputer.com/i
ndex.htm
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 09:04 PM EDT |
How about fewer laws, not more.
Rather then a law that says, Oh, fraud also includes LYING to impersonate to get
(medical |legal | phone | library | ...} records....do we not just need a law
that says taking something not yours is a crime?
(don't we have that already?)
Make the fine proportional to the asset/income value of the reciepient of the
benefit of the crime - i.e., for a CEO/CB that would scale up to 100K$..10M$,
for a $90b corp, how about 100M$ or more?
Instead we have laws made for loop holes.
Bah.
How [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 01 2006 @ 10:33 PM EDT |
In U.S. Law there are two relient terms:
Comission
This applies to the person who pulls the trigger.
Omission
This applies to the person who drives the car ...
as in "get a way car" ,,, with
the the "Comissioner" ... the one who did the "killing"
... located within the car.
Both "Comissioner" and "Omissioner" can be found
equally guilty under the Law and sentensed to the
full extent under the Law when found guilty.
Toodles![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 08:18 AM EDT |
If their board, chairman, and CEO are failing to assert any repsonsibility, then
it raises the question, just what is HP compensating them for?
Same goes for their outside counsel, who should probably be facing disbarment,
or at least sanctions, as well, if he failed to advise them of the illegality of
actions performed on their behalf.
As for the PI agencies holding the bag, well, they shouldn't have been sticking
their hands in the cookie jar. It doesn't matter if it was left in the yard with
the top off.
bkd[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: DannyB on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 08:52 AM EDT |
PJ wrote...
> After absorbing all the testimony from Thursday's HP hearings,
> I think it's fair to say that no one took full responsibility.
I'm shocked, Shocked! I tell you, that you think that anyone in an American
corporation should take responsibility for anything!
Adam said: the woman made me do it.
Eve said: the snake made me do it.
OTOH...
Jill Pole said (to Aslan): I was showing off sir.
---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Responsibility - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 09:15 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Crocodile_Dundee on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 09:31 AM EDT |
Yes, this is perfectly relevent. HP are saying that the ends justified the
means. This story is one where the ends could be said to be justified by the
means.
In this story a single affected person is spared repeated distress by failing to
continue telling the whole truth. The carers still feel the pain, but the
patient feels less. The ends are that the patient benefits from an
"economy" of information.
In HP's story the rights of the affected are conciously overridden in an attempt
to further the company's position. The aim is to hide the truth from all
parties. The ends are that the Company benefits from information and the
affected people have their privacy violated.
What is relevent is that there may be extreme cases where the ends justify the
means, but they are often things that we will debate and feel ill at ease about
even if we chose the "least worst" option. It serves to highlight how
far away from this moral dillema the HP case is.
Most of us know that there are shades of grey in the world. If HP's case is not
pure black, then it's a very dark charcoal.
---
---
That's not a law suit. *THIS* is a law suit![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 12:03 PM EDT |
How about looking at the phone companies in this little escapade - All they are
interrested in is grabbing as much money as possible by whatever means is
easiest. Thus your records aren't really yours, but theirs and they can do
whatever is easiest for them to do. Those with responsibility for those records
have been very cooperative in theis whole "pretexting" business, and
until it embarrassed them they weren't interrested in doing anything about it.
Kind of like leaving the keys to your Porche with the window down in the Big
City. This is allowing them to hide behind Those Evil Pretexters when they left
the door open. This is a problem that has been in the news for several years
now, just those stinkin' PI's sneaking around were doing up to now.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 12:10 PM EDT |
P.J. ought to do an article on why companies are incorporated -vs- other types
of businesses, and also the different types of corporations.
After all, this is about the law right?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 01:10 PM EDT |
Apparently some of the people "pretextized" had connections to
(US) Department of Defense programs, possibly even security clearances. As such,
why isn't the DOD in there worrying about and investigating who has the
"pretexted" information. After all, such personal
"pretext-worthy" information could be used (in an attempt) to
blackmail classified information. Yet, nary a whimper out of the supposed high
security DOD people. Furthermore, with all the acquisition and sale of personal
information going on between companies, it is inconceivable that absolutely no
individuals with security clearances are being targeted. Again, personal
information of security clearance holders could be used to attempt blackmail of
classified information. No DOD.
Why isn't Congress worried about the Member-Of-Congress relatives, friends
and support people being "pretexted" then blackmailed, in order to get
at the MOC's?
Something is fishy, in Congress, in the DOD; I don't know where. None the
less, something is seriously wrong in and beyond the corporate board rooms.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 02 2006 @ 02:32 PM EDT |
This may actually be somewhat close to the truth.
The massacre of the Vietnamese village by US
troops happened under similar circumstances.
Everyone following orders, never questioning the
absurdities of where the orders might lead them.
However, a good dose of "ethical education" might be
in order for *any* board of directors.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 04 2006 @ 11:56 AM EDT |
Anybody else here seen the sci-fi-horror film "The Cube"? No-one
seemed to know how the whole Cube came about, or why. The people who made it
each made only a component, not knowing what it was for. It came together and
functioned as it did by a a kind of perverse serendipity. No-one could be held
responsible for it, or could take the buck, they said.[ Reply to This | # ]
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