Calif AG says no evidence to link HP CEO to crime
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The California attorney general said   on Friday there was no evidence yet linking Hewlett-Packard Co.   HPQ.N Chief Executive Mark Hurd to any criminal wrongdoing,   as scrutiny grew over his role in the PC maker's probe of a   boardroom leak.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif  - California's attorney general on Wednesday filed felony charges against former Hewlett-Packard Co.  Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others for spying on journalists and the company's own board of directors and executives.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. government panel has asked a corporate ethics lawyer from Hewlett-Packard (HP) to testify in its Sept. 28 hearing onÂ the company's use of "pretexting"Â to spy on journalists, board members and other employees. The investigative unit of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce CommitteeÂ said Wednesday that it has asked HP Senior Counsel Kevin Hunsaker and Fred Adler, a company computer security investigator, to join a growing list of witnesses. The subcommittee had also previously requested testimony from outgoing HP Chairman Patricia Dunn, HP General Counsel Ann Baskins, HP Global Security Manager Anthony Gentilucci, outside attorney Larry Sonsini as well as outside investigators. The practice of "pretexting" usually involves pretending to be a person, in order to obtain that person's personal information. An HP spokesman declined to comment. Up until now, Dunn has insisted she merely initiated the probe of boardroom leaks, and was ignorant of specific techniques used by investigators. "Unfortunately, the investigation, which was conducted with third parties, included certain inappropriate techniques. These went beyond what we understood them to be, and I apologize that they were employed," Dunn said in a recent statement. ButÂ e-mail correspondence examined by newspapersÂ including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times indicates that top HP officials solicited Dunn's opinion and questioned investigation techniques throughout the course of the leak probe. As early as Aug. 6, 2005, HP's Gentilucci asked for Dunn's advice about using "internal and external sources" to gather intelligence on "interested parties," according to company e-mail seen by The Wall Street Journal. Gentilucci offered to brief HP management on more details of "Project Kona" in a proposed meeting on Aug. 31. It is still unknown if that meeting took place, but Dunn replied to the e-mail, promising to respond. By Jan. 28, 2006, e-mail from Hunsaker to Adler shows that HP's own lawyers were closely questioning investigation techniques, The Wall Street Journal reports. Asked whether HP could legally spy on board members' cell-phone text messages, Adler replied: "Even if we could legally obtain the records, which we can't unless we pay the bill or get consent, I would highly suspect text-messaging records are not kept due to volume and expense." It is unclear if HP obtained text messages. But in an April 28 e-mail to Gentilucci and an outside investigator, Ron DeLia of Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc., in Boston, Hunsaker said he was writing at General Counsel Baskins' request to confirm the details of how the investigation team obtained phone records, The Wall Street Journal reports. In the e-mail, Hunsaker described how investigators were making "pretext calls." Hunsaker also said in the e-mail that his legal research confirmed that pretexting is legal. However, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has said that using fraudulent means to obtain personal information is not legal in the state. Lockyer has said he has evidence to charge people outside and inside HP. House investigators have also asked for testimony from DeLia and private investigator Joe Depante, owner of Action Research Group, which was reportedly hired by HP to help in the investigation. Dunn agreed on Sept. 12 to resign her own position, and will be replaced in January by current chief executive Mark Hurd. Â
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SAN FRANCISCO -- Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board of directors adjourned an emergency phone conference yesterday without announcing a decision on the fate of embattled chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who is facing calls to resign or be fired for ordering an investigation that may have used illegal means to spy on colleagues and journalists.
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(InfoWorld) - Former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman Patricia Dunn made a brief court appearance Thursday in Santa Clara County, California, to face four state felony charges in the HP boardroom scandal. Superior Court Judge Alfonso Fernandez scheduled her arraignment for Nov. 17, at which she will enter a plea to charges in the case. Also making an initial court appearance earlier in the day was Kevin Hunsaker, HP's former ethics counsel, who surrendered, was booked and was scheduled for an arraignment December 6, according to the office of California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Three private investigators hired by HP to investigate suspected leaks to news media by HP directorsÂ were also charged Wednesday, but since they are from out-of-state, their court appearances will likely occur sometime next week, Lockyer's office said. Each of the five defendants face charges of fraudulent wire communications, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft and conspiracy. The state alleges that Dunn and Hunsaker authorized an investigation of leaks and hired the private investigators. The investigators allegedly obtained, under false pretenses, the phone records of individuals targeted in their investigation, including HP directors, some employees and journalists who cover the technology company.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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California's attorney general is preparing to file criminal complaints today against ousted Hewlett-Packard Co. chairman Patricia C. Dunn and four others for their roles in the Hewlett-Packard Co. spying operation that surfaced last month, according to sources close to the case.
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Ousted Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn, a former company lawyer, and three outside investigators were charged Wednesday in California on felony charges related toÂ the conduct of an investigationÂ to track down news leaks from the HP board that allegedly broke state law.
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(InfoWorld) - Embattled Hewlett-Packard chairman Patricia Dunn told an appreciative audience in San Francisco Wednesday night that she looks forward to the opportunity to "set the record straight" regarding allegations that she oversaw anÂ internal investigation of the companyÂ which may have broken the law. Dunn made the remarks during a previously scheduled event where she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of a group of San Francisco Bay Area government and business leaders. An audience of about 800 people at The Westin St. Francis hotel on San Francisco's famed Union Square, gave Dunn a standing ovation. "All I will say about the maelstrom ofÂ  recent unwelcome attention is that I look forward eagerly to the time in the near future when I will be permitted to set the record straight," she said. Dunn was honored by the Bay Area Council for her success in business and her philanthropic work. Besides being chairman of HP, she was vice chairman of Barclay's Global Investors. Dunn also is on the board of a nonprofit program helping troubled youth in San Francisco and a program for providing health care to the poor in Oakland, California. The audience was largely supportive. "I think she was courageous" to appear, said Lynette Busby after the speech while her husband, James, added, "she hasn't been convicted of anything and in America that's important. She is a very forthright person." But there was some criticism. "I think it's unbelievably arrogant of [the council] to select her when she is under anÂ egregious cloud of suspicion," said one local attorney who declined to be identified. Even though she was chosen for the Hall of Fame before the scandal broke, the honor should have been withdrawn, he said. She and others involved are accused of "doing things that are contrary to the best values of America." Dunn also tried to make light of her situation. While she said she wanted to set the record straight, she added, "and in the meantime it wouldn't hurt if the pope would continue to make controversy." Dunn is one of several people who have agreed to appear at aÂ Sept. 28 hearingÂ of a House Subcommittee probing allegations that HP hired private investigators to determine which of its board members were leaking news of board deliberations to the media. The investigators allegedlyÂ obtained private phone recordsÂ of board members, some HP employees, and reporters under false pretenses to determine the source of the leak, a tactic called pretexting. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is considering federal legislation to outlaw pretexting. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is investigating the possibility ofÂ filing state chargesÂ against people implicated in the scandal. Dunn was forced to announce Sept. 12 that she will resign in January from the chairmanship of the HP board, although she will remain a director, amid news reports about her role in ordering an investigation of the board media leaks. She has stated she did not know outside investigators were using pretexting and that she kept a distance from the investigation, but a Wall Street Journal article Wednesday, based on an internal HP report, indicated she may have been more involved in the probe than she indicated earlier.
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By Mike Langberg, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Sep. 13--Hewlett-Packard and its directors took an ineffective half-step Tuesday toward resolving the spying scandal at Silicon Valley's largest company.
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(InfoWorld) - In one telling moment during the recent Congressional hearings onÂ the Hewlett-Packard Co. board scandal, ousted chairman Patricia Dunn offered the "everybody does it" defense. Asked by one legislator about HPâs hiring private investigators who obtained phone records under false pretenses, a practice called pretexting, to identify whoâd leaked confidential information, Dunn replied, "I believe these [pretexting] methods may be quite common at companies around the country." If so, that is chilling to business ethicist Kirk Hanson. "As an ethicist Iâm horrified that HPâs managers relied on the assertion that it was borderline, but legal, and never asked whether it was ethical," says Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, in Santa Clara, California. If HP adopted what Hanson called "black ops" as standard investigative practices, he wonders how many other companies have done it. HP, some of its employees and companies it hired to investigate boardroom leaks to news media still face potential civil and criminal liability for their actions. Other companies find themselves in a dilemma over how to control information within the law. Companies may have a moral or legal responsibility to respect peopleâs privacy, but they also have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to protect confidential business information. And under the federalÂ Sarbanes-Oxley ActÂ in effect the last four years, they have obligations to investigate certain leaks, Hanson says. Companies have a right to investigate their own employees if theyâre suspected of leaking information. Employees should presume no right to privacy in their use of company computers, e-mail programs or telephones. One commonly used tactic to probe security breaches doesnât even involve electronic snooping. Companies exclusively give suspected leakers seemingly important but relatively benign information. If it turns up in the media, the company has identified the leaker. But Hanson sees a bright line separating how a company can investigate its own employees and how it can investigate outsiders. The HP reaction to leaks to reporters contrasts with the recent practice of Apple Computer Inc. when proprietary information got out. Although Apple is known for its devotion to secrecy, it went to court rather than to private eyes when confidential information leaked in 2004. Apple, of Cupertino, California, sued in state court to force two Web sites to reveal sources for stories they posted about a possible new Apple product. A state appellate court ruled May 26 that the writers on those Web sites enjoy the same First Amendment rights as mainstream journalists and, thus, were protected by Californiaâs shield law from having to reveal their sources. Apple dropped the case. It did not reply to a request for comment on this story. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires companies to develop a whistle-blowing reporting system so employees can raise issues about improper behavior within the company, said Hanson. That has prompted companies to develop an investigative capability in the event improper or illegal activity is alleged. "So (under SOX), companies have developed much enhanced investigative capability," he said. Companies also have to keep confidential information safe because disclosure could be a criminal act or a breach of fiduciary responsibility, said Rob Enderle, senior analyst at Enderle Group, a technology market research firm. If word leaks that a board is contemplating an acquisition, for instance, the company or people in it could be prosecuted for insider trading if people used that knowledge to make stock trades. Given the potential liabilities, corporate investigations of leaks are "common," said Enderle. "The stuff with the pretexting goes to the extreme, but looking at company phone records or e-mails, that is very common. Hiring an outside contractor is also common." In fact, leak investigations enjoy broad support among corporate directors. In a September telephone survey of 226 board members at publicly traded companies in the U.S., 73 percent said a company's chairman should be empowered to use any legally available means to identify a board-level leaker, according to Ponemon Institute LLC. About 71 percent of the respondents said it would be okay for a board chairman to review the e-mail messages of other members, in addition to other types of confidential data stored on company computers. Fifty percent said that reviewing telephone records of individuals obtained via pretexting is proper as long as that approach hasn't been outlawed. But HPâs tactics of tailing reporters, attempting to install a tracer on a reporterâs e-mail program, pretexting numbers of people outside the company and even considering planting spies in newsrooms as janitors or clerical workers is "bizarre" to Rick Belluzzo. "The reaction by HP was totally out of proportion with the situation," said Belluzzo, chairman and CEO of Quantum Corp., a network storage equipment maker. His rÃ©sumÃ© includes president of Microsoft Corp. and a 23-year stint at HP, where he rose to the position of executive vice president of its computer division. While he understands the importance of keeping certain information confidential and making employees and directors sign confidentiality agreements, HP overreacted to information leaks that are sometimes going to happen anyway. "Itâs an impossible task to control information flow. Some leaks are inevitable," Belluzzo said.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.  Chief  Executive Mark Hurd told lawmakers on Thursday there were no  excuses for a probe of boardroom leaks that led investigators  to obtain private telephone records deceptively.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- Hewlett-Packard Co.'s chief ethics officer learned the company's detectives were relying on shady tactics to gather private phone records long before a boardroom battle over media leaks triggered criminal and congressional investigations .
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For investors, Hewlett-PackardÂs leak investigation is a nonissue, analysts say, unless it affects chief executive Mark V. Hurd.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.  Chief Executive Mark Hurd is not expected to face charges when California's attorney general seeks indictments over a boardroom leak probe, BusinessWeek reported in its online edition on Wednesday.
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By Laura Kurtzman THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  SACRAMENTO -- State police have concluded there was no crime committed when campaign workers for former state Treasurer Phil Angelides downloaded an embarrassing audio file of Gov.
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California's attorney general filed a criminal complaint on Wednesday seeking indictments of former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others for their roles in a probe into board leaks.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif  - California's attorney general on Wednesday filed felony charges against former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others for spying on journalists and the company's own board of directors and executives.