Former HP executives invoke right not to testify
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Three former top Hewlett-Packard Co.   HPQ.N executives on Thursday invoked their constitutional   right not to testify to Congress for fear of incriminating   themselves in the company's privacy scandal.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee looking into theÂ Hewlett-Packard Co. boardroom spying scandalÂ has added a second day of hearings and issued subpoenas for some witnesses. The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee is holding hearings on Thursday, Sept. 28, and now Friday the 29th on pretexting, the practice of obtaining private phone records under false pretenses from phone companies. On the second day of hearings, the subcommittee has invited executives of the major wireless phone carriers to testify as well as the chairmen of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), according to a subcommittee news release Monday. Several people connected with the HP scandal have already accepted invitations to testify before the subcommittee on Thursday. HP has admitted that outside investigators it hired earlier this year to find the source of news leaks from the HP board engaged in pretexting to access their phone records. It is a decision HP now regrets, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Hurd said at a news conference Friday at the technology company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California. The committee issued subpoeanas compelling three witnesses to testify in regards to the HP scandal: HP senior counsel Kevin Hunsaker; HP Global Security Manager Anthony Gentilucci; and Ron DeLia, operator of Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc. (SOS), a Boston-based private investigations firm hired by HP. Hunsaker and Gentillucci worked closely with SOS to investigate the leaks, including use of pretexting, according to a report released Friday by an attorney hired by Hurd to investigate HP's investigation of the leaks. Congress has before it legislation to make pretexting a federal crime. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a bill on his desk to make pretexting a state crime, but Attorney General Bill Lockyer says state criminal charges could still be filed against those involved in the HP scandal under existing state law. The CEOs of U.S. Cellular Corp., Alltel Communications Inc., Cingular Wireless LLC, Sprint Nextel Corp., Verizon Wireless Inc. and T-Mobile USA Inc. have been asked to appear at the second day of hearings. The subcommittee said in a news release that the hearings are part of a seven-month inquiry it's been conducting into data brokers and the questionable practice of pretexting.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-PackardÂ Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd Friday confirmed that he approved a probe of HP employees, board members and journalists in an effort to find out who on the HP board was leaking confidential information outside of the company. However, Hurd said he did not approve the placement of tracing technology in an e-mail to a journalist, and apologized for this and any other "inappropriate" tactics -- such as physical surveillance and obtaining phone records under false pretenses, known as "pretexting" -- that HP undertook in its investigation to find the source of information leaks. "I extend my sincere apology to those journalists who were investigated and to everyone who was impacted," Hurd said. "The inappropriate techniques that were applied do not reflect the value of HP. ... These are not indicative of how we conduct business at HP." Hurd also said he accepted the resignation of Patricia Dunn from her position as chairman of the HP board and a director, effective immediately, and thanked her for her eight years of service on HP's board. Previously, Dunn was to stay on as a director of the board, but would step down as chairman in January. Hurd now takes on the role of chairman of HP's board. HP also appointed Bart M. Schwartz, a former U.S. prosecutor, as board counsel. His role will be to perform an independent review of investigative methods and the company's Standards of Business Conduct processes, and to make future recommendations for implementing best practices. He will report to Hurd and HP Chief Financial Officer Bob Wayman. Hurd said that HP had the "best intentions" when it began the first of two phases of a probe into boardroom leaks, but said it "turned in a direction we could not have anticipated" and he takes full accountability for what transpired. "I take this very seriously and commit to getting to the bottom of this," he said. "Our job is to fix this and get back to the job of running the business." Hurd did not field reporter questions at the press conference, at which HP searched attendees' bags and did not allow video cameras. Hurd plans to appear at an U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing about HP's investigation on Thursday, Sept. 28., and said he did not want questions on Friday to interfere with that testimony. Mike Holston, a partner with law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, also spoke at the press conference on Friday. HP appointed the firm, which reports directly to Hurd, on Sept. 8 to investigate the tactics used by HP and third-party investigators in its probe. Holston said his firm has read more than 1 million pages of documents about two internal HP investigations -- called Kona 1 and Kona 2 -- and is still in the process of putting together the details of what took place. He declined to identify by name the people HP investigated. However, Holston did confirm that HP worked with two third-party organizations -- Security Outsourcing Services and Action Research Group -- to investigate employees, board members and/or former board members and their families, and journalists and their families. That investigation included physical surveillance, obtaining social security numbers of those being investigated to obtain phone records and the placement of e-mail tracing technology in an e-mail to one journalist, he said. Friday's news conference followed a steady stream of news reports over the last two weeks with revelations of actions HP and its outside investigators allegedly took to discover the source of company leaks to the media. Schemes allegedly considered included an attempt to plant spies inside the San Francisco newsrooms of The Wall Street Journal and CNET Networks Inc. posing as clerical workers or janitors, and a sting operation in which a fake anonymous source within HP would e-mail CNET reporter Dawn Kamamoto with a tip and track her e-mails to see if she contacted her other HP sources about the tip. Holston said Friday that while there was evidence that HP considered starting undercover operations in the newsrooms of the Journal and CNET, there is no evidence that such operations ever took place. He also confirmed that HP did try to track one reporterâs e-mail through tracing technology, but did not name the reporter involved and said there was no evidence at this time that the HP investigation team was aware that the tracer was activated.
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Energy and Commerce subcommittee to compel testimony of two high-level execs in its probe into a Hewlett-Packard investigation.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HP's) board of directors has approved a severance package including $3.7 million in stock options for its general counsel, who resigned Thursday amid a growing scandal into HP's conduct during an investigation into board leaks. Ann BaskinsÂ resigned Thursday just before a U.S. Congress subcommittee hearing on HP's investigation methods, including investigators pretending to be reporters or board members to gain access to their personal telephone records and other data. That practice is often called pretexting. During the hearing, former HP Chairwoman Patricia DunnÂ told lawmakers that Baskins had repeatedly told her the year-long investigation was done legally. HP filed a form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Thursday saying it would provide Baskins with a compensation package, including the option to sell her outstanding stock options, worth nearly $3.7 million, by Nov. 22. Baskins will also have access to the vested portion of her retirement account at HP and to other benefits. If she accepts the package, she will give up any claims against HP and its employees, according to the SEC document. Baskins declined to testify before the subcommittee, citing her right to not testify against herself. Members of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce hammered HP officials Thursday for investigators who allegedly lied to gain access to others' personal records, for attempting to trace the e-mail of a reporter and for following reporters and board members. Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, also questioned why HP was giving Baskins a "golden parachute" after Dunn identified her being one of the internal leaders of the leak investigation. "Do you think that's appropriate?" he asked Dunn. Dunn,Â who resigned from the HP board Sept. 21, said she was not a part of the board discussion to approve Baskins' severance package. She would have to hear the discussion before deciding if it was appropriate, she said. Baskins worked for HP for 24 years and served the company well before the recent questions, Dunn said. "She bled HP blue," Dunn said. "She made some mistakes."
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Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N Chief   Executive Mark Hurd told lawmakers on Thursday there were no   excuses for a probe of boardroom leaks that led investigators   to deceptively obtain private telephone records.
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A spokesman from the California attorney general's office Friday said that Attorney General Bill Lockyer at this point does not have any evidence to charge Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd with a criminal offense in the ongoing investigation intoÂ HP's probe of journalists and board members.
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Not Dunn arguing Patricia Dunn, the recently ex-chairman of HP, is to appear before a Congressional committee later today to defend her actions in spying on board members and journalists.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) - California Attorney General Bill Lockyer says criminal charges are "likely" in the scandal surrounding alleged spying involving the board of Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), reports say. Meanwhile, HP board Chairman Patricia Dunn says she will not resign over the scandal and that she was "appalled" that contractors hired to investigate news leaks used potentially illegal methods, news reports say. The Wall Street Journal reported the HP board will hold a special meeting by phone this weekend to discuss the situation. HP is on the defensive after the disclosures this week thatÂ phone records of HP board membersÂ andÂ journalistsÂ were hacked to see who on the board discussed confidential strategy sessions with reporters earlier this year. The company disclosed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday that investigators, in order to identify the leaker, had used "pretexting," a method in which false pretenses are used to gain online access to others' phone records. The investigation determined that director George Keyworth was the source for a Cnet.com story in January about HP's strategy. Keyworth was asked to resign from the board in May but refused. Board member Thomas Perkins, a renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist, did resign in May in protest over concerns with the HP board's handling of investigations into leaks of confidential information. Dunn, in an interview in the Journal Friday, said that while she ordered the investigation of board news leaks, she did not know the investigators hired to conduct the probe used pretexting. "I was appalled. And I'm going to apologize," to those journalists, she told the Journal. Because she was also subject to investigation, she said she could not have known what methods the investigators used. But while she does not plan to resign, Dunn will take into consideration what the board thinks she should do. "I serve entirely at the pleasure of the board,'' Dunn told the Journal. "If they determine it no longer is in the interest of shareholders [for me to remain on the board] I will do so.'' Charges could be filed under a California law prohibiting gaining unauthorized access to computer data or under another law prohibiting identity theft through unauthorized use of personal information, published reports say. The investigation is ongoing but prosecution is likely because a crime has occurred, Lockyer told the San Jose Mercury News. A bill to specifically outlaw pretexting is on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk awaiting his signature. The governor has until the end of September to sign or veto the bill, spokesman Darrel Ng told IDG News Service. Schwarzenegger hasn't taken a position on the pretexting bill, but only because it is one of hundreds of bills passed during the recently concluded session of the California Legislature, Ng said.
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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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SACRAMENTO, Calif  - California's attorney general on Wednesday sought felony indictments against former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others in a leak scandal that involved spying on board members and journalists.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  SAN FRANCISCO  Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn said Friday that several of her fellow board members want her to remain on the job despite a criminal investigation into her efforts to plug a media leak.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer Mark Hurd blamedÂ the scandalÂ that has besieged his company on "a rogue investigation" that got out of hand, in an advance copy of his Congressional testimony released by a House Subcommittee on Wednesday. "How did such an abuse of privacy occur in a company renowned for its privacy? The end came to justify the means," Hurd wrote. "The investigation team became so focused on finding the source of the leaks that they lost sight of the privacy of reporters and others. They lost sight of the values HP has always represented." Former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn,Â forced to resignÂ Sept. 21 because of the scandal, defended in her testimony her decision toÂ investigate the leaksÂ of confidential board discussions to the news media. In her testimony, Dunn wrote that she knew investigators were obtaining the phone records of people it was investigating. Lawyers for HP and for an investigation firm carrying out the probe assured her the tactics were legal, she wrote. "I was fully convinced that HP would never engage in anything illegal," she wrote. "Given that attorneys were unambiguously overseeing the investigation ... reinforced my understanding that the investigations were being handled appropriately." Both are among severalÂ witnesses expected at a hearingÂ before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday in Washington. The committee is looking into the practice of "pretexting," or using false pretenses to gain access to confidential records. Investigators hired by HP to find the source of leaks engaged in pretexting to get hold of the phone records of directors, HP employees and reporters who cover the Palo Alto, California, technology company. Hurd, echoing comments he made in a news conference last Friday at HP's headquarters, said he was determined to get to the bottom of this episode and to try to restore HP's image. "I pledge that HP will take whatever steps are necessary to make sure nothing like this ever happens again," he wrote, "and that this company will regain not just its reputation ... but its pride." Although much of the criticism of the scandal surrounds the tactics used by the investigators, Dunn wrote in her testimony that equal consideration should be given to the leaks from within the company that damaged HP. HP's board was notorious for its leaks to news media and such disclosures made it difficult for the board to deal with important issues candidly, she wrote. Dunn explained that board deliberations on the selection of a replacement for former CEO Carly Fiorina in 2005 were leaked. She cited a BusinessWeek magazine story "disclosing opinions about various candidates and revealing details about ... the search process." "If you were a top CEO candidate, would you want to work for a company whose board could not be trusted to keep such information confidential? HP is very lucky to have been able to recruit Mark Hurd under such circumstances," Dunn wrote. "I wish fervently that none of this had ever happened," Dunn continued. "But boards have an unquestionable obligation to take steps to prevent [leaks]. That certain steps taken during the investigation went well beyond what was appropriate does not undermine the importance of the board's mission in this matter." Hurd also outlined several steps the company is taking internally to clarify its privacy policy for employees and to emphasize it in employee training programs.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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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.
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Patricia C. Dunn, the former chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard, and four other people will be named in indictments being filed by CaliforniaÂs attorney general today in the spying case at the company, according to lawyers involved in the case.
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The House Energy and Commerce  Committee on Friday asked two Hewlett-Packard Co.   executives to testify at a hearing later this month in the wake  of the scandal over the company's investigation into media  leaks.