Seems the over-zealous chairwoman at HP didn’t like the fact that one of her board members was leaking board information to the media (sidenote…I call her overzealous but I do agree that what happens in the boardroom should be considered under the same context as a trip to Las Vegas). She addressed the situation, though, by employing a controversial technique called pretexting to track their phone and email communications. The net result is that one board member (George Keyworth) won’t be nominated for re-election and another (Tom Perkins) resigned due to HP’s tactics to identify the "leaker".
The best part of this story is how the chairwomen initiated the probe, and the legal advice they received…
"…The counsel advised the company that the use of pretexting at the time
"was not generally unlawful" but couldn’t confirm that the techniques
employed by the private investigator were completely legal."
Not generally unlawful but not completely legal…I guess that’s how good lawyers make their money.
