H-P scandal?

Question

Can anyone tell me what the H-P scandal is about? I caught the news late, so I have no idea about it.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Basically,

there was a boardroom leak at H-P... some execs (I'm guessing) started leaking out confidential information.

Then... some other H-P people wanted to find out who the tattle-tellers were so they tried to get the information by pretending to be someone else. They either did it themselves or they hired people who they knew were going to "pretext" - this is the term used to describe what they were doing. It's as if a telemarketer were to call you up pretending to be from your doctor's office to try to get your date of birth.

So basically, that's what the scandal is about because pretexting is illegal.

Answer 2

I want to know too. I have spend over $20000 on Hp products in the last 10 years. I have never had any of these products cause any problems with me so I am wondering what the deal is. I think HP is a great company.

LOL I guess I could go type in HP scandal and get some info. I will do that now.

It has something to do with spying but Its all confusing to read so far.

Answer 3

H-P having internal problems with misinterpretation and miscommunication with communication failures and communication break-down that ended up in throwing pots and pans in bashing up one another for the benefit of HP being overlook on planet earth.

Answer 4

If its Hewlette Packard it was about invading thier own employees phone records with out permission and the CEO had to step down. They broke the law.

WASHINGTON - A trio of top Hewlett-Packard Co. executives, two of them newly resigned, are occupying center stage in the drama around the technology company's spying probe that targeted HP directors and journalists with surveillance and subterfuge.

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Company chairman and CEO Mark Hurd, ousted chairwoman Patricia Dunn and Anne Baskins, whose resignation as general counsel was announced just hours before, appeared at a congressional hearing Thursday as lawmakers delved into the scandal that has roiled the Silicon Valley icon.

None wanted to assume blame for the investigation, designed to trace a boardroom leak, that used a network of private detectives who impersonated the targeted individuals to obtain their phone records, snooped through their trash and physically spied on them. And the two who testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee indicated gaps in their recollections of events over the past two years.

Dunn was grilled by lawmakers for hours — nearly all day.

Hurd, the figure whom investors are most concerned about, did a far briefer turn at the witness table following Dunn and with lawmakers admitting their fatigue. He is credited with turning around HP's performance in his 18 months as CEO.

Baskins did not testify. She asserted the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, refusing to answer questions, along with nine others with roles in the affair.

Much more information could have been known if so many people hadn't declined to testify.

Baskins did say, in a statement issued by her lawyers, that she always believed "that the investigative methods that she knew about were lawful, and she took affirmative steps to confirm their legality."

Documents released by the committee indicated that Baskins may have been aware of the investigators' deceptions to obtain the phone records, a practice known as pretexting.

Dunn likewise said she had been assured that only lawful methods were used. She said she asked Hurd for approval of the probe. And it was Baskins, she said, who "made some errors in judgment," who suggested the investigation should be conducted by HP's senior ethics officer.

"At no time in this investigation was I responsible for designing its methods," Dunn told the committee members. "I do not accept personal responsibility for what happened."

Referring to the ethics officer, Kevin T. Hunsaker, who reported to Baskins, Dunn said: "From my perspective, I was relying on Ann Baskins. I believe she was relying on Mr. Hunsaker."

Hurd told the panel: "This was a leak at the board level. Pattie (Dunn) took it very seriously."

As company chief executive, he said he should have detected that improper spying methods were being used, but that he failed to do so. "I should have been able to catch it. I didn't," he allowed.

While he apologized for the gross invasion of privacy that resulted, Hurd denied having direct knowledge of the methods used in the probe.

Lawmakers came up with a seemingly damaging e-mail: An HP investigator warned higher-ups in February that the company's leak probe was possibly illegal and likely threatened the computer and printer maker's reputation.

The committee members expressed outrage that HP, the nation's 11th biggest company by revenue, would find itself in such an ethical morass. Some said the situation was reminiscent of the Enron Corp. debacle, in which top management claimed not to know of serious wrongdoing that ultimately brought the company down. Democratic Rep. John Dingell (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan summoned the ghosts of Watergate.

"We have before us witnesses from Hewlett-Packard to discuss a plumbers operation that would make Richard Nixon blush were he still alive," Dingell said.

Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., chairman of the committee's investigative panel, demanded to know why, with many high-ranking HP executives and attorneys involved in the probe, "No one had the good sense to say `Stop.'"

Besides the inquiry by the House committee, federal and California prosecutors are investigating whether company insiders or outside investigators broke the law. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has said he has enough evidence to indict HP insiders and contractors.

Dunn noted that she was pretexted as well; the probe targeted every member of the board, HP investigator Fred Adler testified. Pretexting also was used in previous investigations by the company.

Late Thursday, Verizon Wireless sued an undetermined number of pretexters in New Jersey federal court for obtaining the phone records of Verizon customers as part of the HP probe.

The complaint says that Verizon does not yet know the identities of the pretexters being sued, but that they used "fraud, trickery and deceit to access confidential customer information" by making pretext calls Verizon customer service centers and posing as customers online.

The complaint says the pretexters obtained information on at least one HP director and possibly that person's spouse. The director was not named. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

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AP Business Writer Jordan Robertson in San Jose, Calif., contributed to this report.