San Francisco – Extending beyond the skullduggery that pried loose people’s private phone records, Hewlett-Packard Co. investigators hunting for a boardroom leak shadowed the company’s directors and tried to install snooping software on at least one reporter’s computer, according to published reports.
While the additional surveillance reported by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal may provoke more indignation about HP’s probe, the tactics aren’t likely to shift the focus of the inquiries into whether the company and its investigators broke any laws in their quest to identify the boardroom leaker.
Authorities and politicians remain primarily concerned about the deceptive measures that enabled HP’s investigators to obtain the personal phone logs of several directors, nine reporters, two employees and a semiretired physicist.
To pull off a ruse known as “pretexting,” HP’s investigators masqueraded as the targeted individuals, using parts of their Social Security numbers to dupe telephone companies into turning over their calling records.
Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, emphasized Monday that the state’s inquiry remains focused exclusively on pretexting.
Lockyer, who opened the first investigation into HP’s tactics, already has said that he has enough evidence to indict people inside and outside HP but is still trying to determine the breadth of the suspected crimes. Other investigations are underway at the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. A congressional panel also has scheduled a Sept. 28 hearing.
