More Disturbing News About HP…
The bad news continues: Hewlett-Packard Spied on Writers in Leaks [NYT]
Here is a clip from the article:
“The company said this week that its board had hired private investigators to identify directors leaking information to the press and that those investigators had posed as board members — a technique known as pretexting — to gain access to their personal phone records.
“In acknowledging Thursday that journalists’ records had also been obtained, the company said it was apologizing to each one. ‘H.P. is dismayed that the phone records of journalists were accessed without their knowledge,’ a company spokesman, Michael Moeller, said.
“In an interview Thursday about the state’s criminal investigation of the Hewlett-Packard matter, Attorney General Bill Lockyer said, ‘A crime was committed.’ But he added: ‘It is unclear how strong the case is. Who is charged and for what is still an open question.’”
And then more specific information regarding the investigators spying on journalists:
“CNET said Thursday that phone records of two of its reporters, Dawn Kawamoto and Tom Krazit, had also been obtained. It said access to Ms. Kawamoto’s records had been gained from the same Internet address used by the person who accessed the phone records of Mr. Perkins. A caller used the last four digits of her husband’s Social Security number to establish an online account with AT&T to view the records. Access was gained on one date, in late January 2006, it said.
“A CNET spokeswoman, Sarah Cain, said: ‘These actions not only violated the privacy rights of our employee, but also the rights of all reporters to protect their confidential sources.’”
TAGS: HP | Hewlett Packard | Pretexting | Spying | Board of Directors | Ethics | Corporate GovernanceThis entry was posted on Friday, September 8th, 2006 at 10:29 am and is filed under Business Ethics, Corporate Governance, Interesting News, Socially Responsible Investing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
September 26th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
One of the more troubling aspects of the HP fiasco is that it points to the absence of trust that exist at the highest level of corporate governance. In this particular case, you have a board president indulging in unethical behavior in order to find out which board member or members were speaking with the press. If I were a shareholder, I would appreciate the fact that board matters are being brought to public light. After all, it wasn’t like company secrets were being compromised.
October 1st, 2006 at 12:40 pm
What I find striking is that there are quite a few reasonable ways in which the “leak” issue could have been dealt with. The most reasonable and ethical, from my perspective, would have been a very open discussion within the board.
Presumably, if the members were truly taking their fiduciary duties into consideration, an open investigation, authorized by the board and conducted by an independent committee, would have been a possible outcome. No sneaking. No “pretexting.” No slinking around and violating privacy laws. Compare the possible damage that scenario would have caused (short-term bad press) versus the situation HP now faces (pitiful scandal and tons of bad press).