Dunn to surrender Thursday

Former Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn is scheduled to surrender to authorities in Santa Clara County on Thursday, one day after being charged with four felonies related to the company's spying campaign.

Dunn has agreed to appear at 2 p.m. PDT at Santa Clara County Superior Court to set an arraignment date, according to a statement issued by the California Attorney General's office.

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Three others charged--Kevin Hunsaker, HP's former senior lawyer; Ronald DeLia, a private detective; and Bryan Wagner, an employee of data-brokering company Action Research Group--have also agreed to voluntarily surrender. Lockyer's office has yet to contact defendant Matthew DePante of Action Research.

All the accused are charged with fraudulent wire communication, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft and conspiracy to commit those crimes. Each count can bring a three-year jail sentence.

Prosecutors called Dunn the catalyst for HP's probe hunt, which attempted to uncover the source of media leaks at the company. HP investigators obtained phone records belonging to journalists, employees and board members without their permission.

Dunn has said she was never aware that illegal methods may have been used during her company's leak probe.

DeLia and Wagner live out of state but have agreed to come to California to set an arraignment date. The attorney general's office said Wednesday that it will request a $50,000 bail amount for both men.

Michael Pancer, Hunsaker's attorney, issued a statement Thursday saying that his client is innocent and that "pretexting," the practice of obtaining information by false pretenses, was going on at HP well before Hunsaker joined the company's leak probe. HP's first large campaign to uncover the source of media leaks, dubbed "Kona I," started in the spring of 2005. Hunsaker first joined the team of investigators in January 2006.

"Kevin took no actions related to obtaining information about phone calls that were not known and authorized by his superiors," Pancer said.

The attorney also defended HP's right to expose those who leaked vital information about the company.

"The information obtained in this case was not obtained to cause harm or embarrassment of any kind," Pancer said, "but to end an unprecedented and prolonged breach of fiduciary duties that was harming the company."

[mhersh]

That's great...

HP spies, people are charged.
Bush spies, it's all good.

Ludicrous, anyone?

[DBaldwin]

Not impressed by Lockyer's antics

I would vote against him. If he wants to use my tax money properly, perhaps there are better things to investigate (like spin-ins and spin-outs, or are they scam-ins and scam-out?) in the corporate world.

[SomethingToThinkAbout]

This is Ludicrous

California has the worst possible AG in Lockyer. There was nothing malicious about the HP probe, and frankly, it was justified. If they broke some rules, fine, slap their hands. But tearing apart the leadership of a fine company on the rebound, and filing multiple felony counts is just ludicrous (and unlike previous poster "mhersh," I know the meaning of that word).

This will be a small circus event until eventually misdemeanor fines are handed out.

[author20]

She Would Have Paid for Murder

It is clear, these folks would have hired a hit on people if it would have helped them stop leaks or helped to cover up their spy project.

The words of Dunn before she was busted indicate an incredibily unethical person, that would have stopped at nothing to "get" the leakers.

But there are sooooooooo many ways to test your board for loyalty and security. Let's look at a few of them:

1. lie detector tests -- almost 100% reliable.
2. internal moles -- this is ethical, simply get a person to "buddy up" to all board members so that they hear about the same leaked information that is fed to the press.
3. compartmentalization of projects -- so that nobody has all the information on a particular project. They can be led to believe that they know the entire project, and when they leak, they can only divulge what one aspect of the project, thus leaving a stamp that shows what compartment or aspect they have knowledge of.
4. internal wire-taps - both ethical and legal but not that effective since folks don't generally leak from work.
5. job screening -- leakers have reputations. Why did HP have leakers on the board? Because it never really screened them well.
6. document control -- if you don't show documents to people that are not engineers then board members can only leak general information. This limits damage from leaks to what is probably already public.
7. Big paychecks. Why were board members willing to risk their jobs and pay if they were getting enough? This seems strange. Maybe there was such horrible management by Carley that the board felt that leaking was the only way to get HP back to a productive mode. That leads to the next suggestion.
8. Better management. If Carley wasn't an idiot that was destroying the company, why would board members want to hurt her feelings and leak about her outster? Maybe Carley was the wrong person for the job and was so horrible that the board members felt so helpless and hurt that they wanted to send a signal to the next CEO.