An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! is reporting that HP has been asked by Congress to turn over records related to the internal investigation of possible illegal media leaks. This request came as a part of the continuing look by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee into 'pretexting.' From the article: 'The Federal Communications Commission has also taken interest in HP, asking AT&T Inc. last week how the company's private investigators managed to obtain the private phone records of board members and journalists. Following the investigation, board member George Keyworth II was identified as the source of the leak, and HP responded by barring him from seeking re-election.'"
In an ideal society, crimes committed by very powerful people should result in very severe penalties. Crimes committed by less powerful people should result in less severe penalties. Here, one form of power is money.
I am not suggesting that we should have 2 standards of punishment: one for powerful (usually quite rich) people and one for less powerful (usually less rich) people. Rather, I am suggesting that whenever the law grants a judge or a prosecutor wide discretion in meting a punishment, they should aggressively pursue and severely punish powerful people.
The rationale is that the crimes of powerful people are much more likely to hurt -- or even kill -- people. If a messed-up dude from the ghetto steals a high-end Acura that is worth 3x of his annual salary, then he is injuring principally the owner of the car. On the other hand, if a conniving money manager steals 3x of his annual salary ($300,000) from a mutual fund that he is managing, then he is hurting a large number of people on a large scale ($900,000). We are talking abou completely different orders of magnitude.
Sometimes, the justice system works in the way that I have suggested. For example, a special government-appointed prosecutor filed charges against both Scooter Libby and Bill Clinton for merely lying. The prosecutor acted appropriately.
However, usually, the justice system fails. It often severely punishes (by assigning prison time) the hapless criminal from the ghetto but barely slaps the wrist of the conniving money manager. We know the "deal". Most money managers who have been caught stealing from investors typically settle for both a relatively (i.e., relative to the manager's net worth) small financial penalty and signed statement that explicitly does not admit wrongdoing. The statement typically has the clause, "neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing".
The big question in the HP scandal is whether the justice system will slap Patricia Dunn (the chairperson of the HP board) on the wrist. Is there any chance that the justice system will actually punish her at the level of severity often meted to hapless criminals caught in the ghetto?
I am not suggesting that we should have 2 standards of punishment: one for powerful (usually quite rich) people and one for less powerful (usually less rich) people. Rather, I am suggesting that whenever the law grants a judge or a prosecutor wide discretion in meting a punishment, they should aggressively pursue and severely punish powerful people."
In Scandinavia (for sure in Finland, I think so in Sweden) fines are set according to your income.
Remember that high level Nokia manager who was fined 10s thousands of Euros for speeding? I don't really think that there's a double standard here, but in the case that actual jail terms differ between rich and not so rich there is, of course.
That's why My regime would require Samurai honor code for public servants and top level corporate executives. If you screw up in a big way and bring dishonor to your office you'd have to commit seppuku. [wikipedia.org] Steal billions of dollars, forcing employees of your company to work as Wal-Mart greeters until they die? Seppuku. Screw up the evacuation of a major city after a major disaster? Seppuku. Get caught funding an undeclared war in South America? Seppuku. And don't think MY regime wouldn't catch people, either! My regime would have informants EVERYWHERE!
Sounds like a great place to live. Remind me to vote for you. After all look at all the great happy democratic leaders that had such systems in place. Hitler, Stalin, Hirohito. . ..(By mentioning Godwin's Law I hope to aviod it!)
I believe that it's been proven that a benevolent dictatorship really is the best form of government, as long as it stays benevolent. The problem with dictatorships is that even if they start with good intentions corruption inevitably spreads as the dictator puts all his friends and family members in positions of power. My regime will take a dim view of corruption and if they get caught at it... seppuku...
My regime would be mostly benevolent. I would be harsher on crime across the board, but there'd be a
Yes, that is why China kills its most corrupt mayors. Unfortunately people are people. And due to the Peter Principle [wikipedia.org] (and other principles on that page) it is likely that incompetent people will rise to a managerial role, which means that a screw-up is a screw-up regardless of how much money he is screwing up. Beyond a certain amount it's just numbers anyway. If you want to punish someone who is incompetent, punish the guy who hired them.
White collar crime however stems from imperfect people, full of char
Well there is a difference between incompetence and corruption. Incompetence, particularly those that involve large losses should be caught quickly and the punishment is simple: firing or demotion--that's it. That's all that incompetence deserves. But corruption, thievery (particularly the type that requires a CEO to accomplish), and so on deserves swift, painful punishment. Forced repayment of entire wealth if necessary, large fines, long jail terms, and execution if deaths were involved.
In an ideal society, crimes committed by very powerful people should result in very severe penalties. Crimes committed by less powerful people should result in less severe penalties. Here, one form of power is money.
This is in effect in context of traffic violations in Finland: Getting a 100000 euro ticket for speeding is possible if you happen to have sky high income...
It's absurd, but on the other hand the way foreign diplomats park and drive all around the world proves that people just don't respect
Regarding the leaking of the identity of a covert CIA agent and the entire front company that she worked for. Their area of expertise was of course weapons of mass destruction.
IIRC disclosure of the identity of covert agents is a federal felony.
Congress should demand to see the after action reports on how many assets were comprised (people killed) as a direct result of this.
"Congress Asks HP for Information"...but, we can't forget the lesser part of the story. They also asked: "Our printer lights are flashing and the motor is whirring and it won't take in any paper, what do we do?"
Yes.Most of the world does not use US Letter, but it is still the default on all HP printers. Why? Why cannot HP default its European printers to A4?
It is little US-centric things like this that point to the lack of real customer sensitivity or innovation in large corporations. Or is it a backhanded compliment: Europeans are sufficiently intelligent to change the defaults, but Americans aren't? No, I don't believe that either. It is pure laziness on HP't part.
It would be nice if congress would go after the white house. I find it amazing that they would get involved with a private business, but allow a president to ignore our rights.
I find it amazing that they would get involved with a private business, but allow a president to ignore our rights.
We have a republican president and a republican-controlled congress. Don't think for a moment that if we had a democrat president and democrat-controlled congress we wouldn't have the exact same problem. Partisan politics means protecting your party even in cases of egregious wrong. American politics needs a serious dose of proportional representation. But that would require democrat and republican politicians to agree to change the system. Somehow, I don't think that's gonna happen. They both play the gerrymandering game - they're both fairly corrupt.
When congress "asks" individuals or business for anything--records, testimony, etc, is it compulsory? In other words, are you mandated by law to obey them as though it were a court order?
No, but Congress does have subpeona power, which WOULD be compulsory and be a bad way to start the meeting. So usually folks go along with requests from Congress and use relationships with friendly congressmen to try and limit topics covered or questions away from the more embarrassing stuff.
The Federal Communications Commission has also taken interest in HP, asking AT&T Inc. last week how the company's private investigators managed to obtain the private phone records of board members and journalists.
Well, a likely candidate is something like Jigsaw [release1-0.com]. Capitalism at its finest.
Why is congress getting involved? Isn't this area sufficiently covered by state and federal law that they can leave it up to an Attorney General somewhere?
I suspect grandstanding. Get the parade grounds ready because the marching band is coming!
> Why is congress getting involved? Isn't this area sufficiently covered > by state and federal law that they can leave it up to an Attorney General somewhere? > I suspect grandstanding.
A chance to grill one of the those terrible corporate executive fat cats, possibly on TV? Two months before a mid-term election? I just can't see the connection...
Why is congress getting involved? Isn't this area sufficiently covered by state and federal law that they can leave it up to an Attorney General somewhere?
It's may not be, the HP thing has been big news lately because there's debate as to wether it is covered by law, it's not clear if pretexting phone records is illegal since it's "non-financial" information.
Why is congress getting involved? Isn't this area sufficiently covered by state and federal law that they can leave it up to an Attorney General somewhere?
Congress is federal.
Also, and I've only read the blurbs, if it is true that HP attained private phone records that's fairly huge and well-worthy of the biggest attention. It's one thing when the government does it -- which rightly always a topic on/., but now your boss? What's next? Getting paid with factory notes like they did circa early 20th
I can see you're trying to be funny, but you don't understand a few things about the US government. Congress and the NSA are in two separate and idependent branches of govenment. The Congress is part of the Legislative Branch, and the NSA is an Executive Branch organization. The NSA may have been spying, but Congress is looking at that, as well as HP's actions. So, the Government may have been illegally spying on people, but because of the way that the government is structured, Congress is not being hyp
Congress is looking at that,.... at the other way.
Iam waiting for Nov elections so that the new Dems Congress and Senate can impeach the prez. and indict him for war crimes.
Yesterday he publicly acknowledges that Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11, which is what CIA had been saying all along.
He went to war based on his, cheney's and Rice's shoutings that Saddam's link with Qaeda were so strong....and his WMD arsenal...
All of which have been proven wrong and even acknowledged by His Majesty himself.
Iam waiting for Nov elections so that the new Dems Congress and Senate can impeach the prez. and indict him for war crimes.
Don't hold your breath.
Why don;t all the parents/spouses of all the fine Soldiers he got killed sue the Prez in a Civil Action. Its easier to get a judgement that way.
Four of the nine justices currently on the Supreme Court were appointed by either GW Bush or his father. Three were appointed by other Republican presidents.
I worked at HP in 1988-1989. I wont bother to look up his name, but some business-school schmuck was ruining the "HP Way". No more weekly donuts. No more team-spirit.
David Packard apparently was very concerned. He came out of retirement for a while to run the company. Everything got good again, fast.
Some other examples: Bill Gates, Sony's dead founder/CEO, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs. Like them or hate them, they leave a mark. Once their gone, multi-billion-dollar corporations can fade into irrelevance. We simply haven't found a way to identify these guys and put them in the top jobs. Unless they build the company themselves, they never get there.
We simply haven't found a way to identify these guys and put them in the top jobs. Unless they build the company themselves, they never get there.
My own experience as a director is that these people, for the most part, are quite easily identified by boards and rejected, often quite adamantly, by them.
Big business now runs on the concept of replacable mediocrity, extending right up to the level of the company president. A good, strong leader is hard to replace and thus leaves a hole behind when he/she leaves (noticable publicly by the dramatic dip in the stock price). They create a corporate culture that is very much centered around their personality (see Microsoft) so that even the public views the leader and the company as one and the same.
This is anethma to the corporate board. What they're looking for is the effective dullard. The sort of person who can work the system well enough to get a degree in history from an Ivy League school, but remain ignorant of history in practice, because they never actually understood the material they were studying. The sort of person with strong, but simple ideas who will be intellectually content with just keeping the gears of the system turning smoothly.
The schools currently pump this sort of person out by the container full, so if you lose one you can just go grab yourself another and the boat (and the stock prices) doesn't rock much in the process.
I haven't sat on a board for years now and the last time I was effectively ousted, from a company I cofounded (to continue a preexisting sole proprietorship in corporate clothing whose orginal founder had died). I rocked the boat. I made public statements that the majority of the board didn't like ( I never "leaked." I always talked directly to the press for attribution). I created discord without anything productive coming out of it because I was out of line with the majority view.
And in a sense the board was right to get rid of me, I didn't belong there. The company has grown smoothly and continues to thrive and grow under distinctly mediocre, largely invisible, but nominally effective, leadership, which has changed hands a few times without much of anyone even noticing that it was going on.
Go public, be run by the public. You don't get all that money for free. Companies that go public should understand that they are selling their souls to the same people that brought us our current gov't, laws, etc. Once you get big, the large majority of people involved want stability, and having an innovator at the top doesn't give them that.
Just wanted to share a humorous tidbit with you. When I got notification via email that you had responded, this was the in-email ad:
Ever wonder why HP has seven consecutive years of Linux market share leadership? Maybe it's our portfolio of best-of-breed partner products, or HP value-add in management, high availability, and virtualization. Maybe it's the integrated, consolidated infrastructure of HP BladeSystem, single-source accountability and solution support from HP Services in 160 countries, or just our un
We simply haven't found a way to identify these guys and put them in the top jobs. Unless they build the company themselves, they never get there.
If they don't start their own company, they are not one of 'these guys'. So I would say it is faily easy to identify them. Start with the fortunate 500 or however large a number you want. Look how many of these companies are ran by the person who started it ad you have found 'them'.
From my understanding the HP way traveled on to Agilent, which is currently doing most of what was done at the old HP. It's hard to pay for tip top benefits for what is essentially commodity work (and aside from printer toner that's essentially everything else HP does).
"The Federal Communications Commission has also taken interest in HP, asking AT&T Inc. last week how the company's private investigators managed to obtain the private phone records of board members and journalists."
Isn't this the same AT&T that's all too willing to sell the government private phone records without anything as silly as a warrant?
How are they going to answer? "Why, the same way you did, of course."
I agree. I'm sure Dunn would be more than happy to take responsibility for any good news to come out of HP. Why won't she take responsibility for the bad acts that resulted from an investigation she, by all accounts, ordered and oversaw?
Silicon Valley has gotten rotten. Dunn's refusal to take responsibility is a textbook example.
I can't believe you're attributing the obviously criminal acts of this woman to sexism on the part of the board. Yes, women can commit crimes, too. What she's done amounts to simple hacking via social engineering. Last time I checked, it was illegal, too. Forget resignation, Dunn needs to get an attorney, because she's looking at jail time if this plays all the way out.
Sometimes I get the feeling that although they have a female face at the top of HP (previously Fiona, now Dunn), that the board members are little more than an old-boys-club which would rather see a man leading the venerable HP than some uppity broad. The board seems to be going out of their way to make Dunn feel unwanted, so far even as to break the law to do so.
You're kidding, right? At times, I think a woman could kill an entire family and devour their hearts, and SOMEONE would find a way to blame it on
Sometimes I get the feeling that although they have a female face at the top of HP (previously Fiona, now Dunn), that the board members are little more than an old-boys-club which would rather see a man leading the venerable HP than some uppity broad.
Let's do a simple logic exercise OK?
If the board members wanted a man to run the company they would not have voted to have either Fiona or Dunn to run the company in the first place.
The board seems to be going out of their way to make Dunn feel unwanted, so far
Eh... no. With things like the patriot act passing, I'm willing to bet this "monstrous legislation" won't make this illegal for companies while quietly passing through a clause to finally clarify in legal terms the government's right to do so. Mean while 99% of Americans will go by happily applauding the talking heads for working together to fix these kinds of corporate scandals.
They want to know.. (Score:5, Funny)
We want to know what the punishment is. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not suggesting that we should have 2 standards of punishment: one for powerful (usually quite rich) people and one for less powerful (usually less rich) people. Rather, I am suggesting that whenever the law grants a judge or a prosecutor wide discretion in meting a punishment, they should aggressively pursue and severely punish powerful people.
The rationale is that the crimes of powerful people are much more likely to hurt -- or even kill -- people. If a messed-up dude from the ghetto steals a high-end Acura that is worth 3x of his annual salary, then he is injuring principally the owner of the car. On the other hand, if a conniving money manager steals 3x of his annual salary ($300,000) from a mutual fund that he is managing, then he is hurting a large number of people on a large scale ($900,000). We are talking abou completely different orders of magnitude.
Sometimes, the justice system works in the way that I have suggested. For example, a special government-appointed prosecutor filed charges against both Scooter Libby and Bill Clinton for merely lying. The prosecutor acted appropriately.
However, usually, the justice system fails. It often severely punishes (by assigning prison time) the hapless criminal from the ghetto but barely slaps the wrist of the conniving money manager. We know the "deal". Most money managers who have been caught stealing from investors typically settle for both a relatively (i.e., relative to the manager's net worth) small financial penalty and signed statement that explicitly does not admit wrongdoing. The statement typically has the clause, "neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing".
The big question in the HP scandal is whether the justice system will slap Patricia Dunn (the chairperson of the HP board) on the wrist. Is there any chance that the justice system will actually punish her at the level of severity often meted to hapless criminals caught in the ghetto?
Parent
Re:We want to know what the punishment is. (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds like two standards to me...
Parent
In Scandinavia (Score:2)
In Scandinavia (for sure in Finland, I think so in Sweden) fines are set according to your income.
Remember that high level Nokia manager who was fined 10s thousands of Euros for speeding? I don't really think that there's a double standard here, but in the case that actual jail terms differ between rich and not so rich there is, of course.
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Yep! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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.
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My regime would be mostly benevolent. I would be harsher on crime across the board, but there'd be a
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Argument seems inverted (Score:2)
White collar crime however stems from imperfect people, full of char
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Well there is a difference between incompetence and corruption. Incompetence, particularly those that involve large losses should be caught quickly and the punishment is simple: firing or demotion--that's it. That's all that incompetence deserves. But corruption, thievery (particularly the type that requires a CEO to accomplish), and so on deserves swift, painful punishment. Forced repayment of entire wealth if necessary, large fines, long jail terms, and execution if deaths were involved.
As far as t
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This is in effect in context of traffic violations in Finland: Getting a 100000 euro ticket for speeding is possible if you happen to have sky high income... It's absurd, but on the other hand the way foreign diplomats park and drive all around the world proves that people just don't respect
The real question (Score:2)
Regarding the leaking of the identity of a covert CIA agent and the entire front company that she worked for. Their area of expertise was of course weapons of mass destruction.
IIRC disclosure of the identity of covert agents is a federal felony.
Congress should demand to see the after action reports on how many assets were comprised (people killed) as a direct result of this.
Congress Asks HP for Information? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Congress Asks HP for Information? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Slightly OT HP question - letter vs A4 (Score:2)
It is little US-centric things like this that point to the lack of real customer sensitivity or innovation in large corporations. Or is it a backhanded compliment: Europeans are sufficiently intelligent to change the defaults, but Americans aren't? No, I don't believe that either. It is pure laziness on HP't part.
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White house (Score:2, Insightful)
Electioneering 101 (Score:2)
Re:White house (Score:4, Informative)
We have a republican president and a republican-controlled congress. Don't think for a moment that if we had a democrat president and democrat-controlled congress we wouldn't have the exact same problem. Partisan politics means protecting your party even in cases of egregious wrong. American politics needs a serious dose of proportional representation. But that would require democrat and republican politicians to agree to change the system. Somehow, I don't think that's gonna happen. They both play the gerrymandering game - they're both fairly corrupt.
Parent
A question for the lawyers (Score:2)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress [wikipedia.org]
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jigsaw (Score:2)
Well, a likely candidate is something like Jigsaw [release1-0.com]. Capitalism at its finest.
What about existing law? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect grandstanding. Get the parade grounds ready because the marching band is coming!
Re:What about existing law? (Score:5, Insightful)
> by state and federal law that they can leave it up to an Attorney General somewhere?
> I suspect grandstanding.
A chance to grill one of the those terrible corporate executive fat cats, possibly on TV? Two months before a mid-term election? I just can't see the connection...
Brett
Parent
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It's may not be, the HP thing has been big news lately because there's debate as to wether it is covered by law, it's not clear if pretexting phone records is illegal since it's "non-financial" information.
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Congress is federal.
Also, and I've only read the blurbs, if it is true that HP attained private phone records that's fairly huge and well-worthy of the biggest attention. It's one thing when the government does it -- which rightly always a topic on
Competition (Score:5, Funny)
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Iam waiting for Nov elections so that the new Dems Congress and Senate can impeach the prez. and indict him for war crimes.
Yesterday he publicly acknowledges that Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11, which is what CIA had been saying all along.
He went to war based on his, cheney's and Rice's shoutings that Saddam's link with Qaeda were so strong....and his WMD arsenal... All of which have been proven wrong and even acknowledged by His Majesty himself.
And
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Don't hold your breath.
Why don;t all the parents/spouses of all the fine Soldiers he got killed sue the Prez in a Civil Action. Its easier to get a judgement that way.
Four of the nine justices currently on the Supreme Court were appointed by either GW Bush or his father. Three were appointed by other Republican presidents.
This exemplifies importance of individuals (Score:5, Interesting)
David Packard apparently was very concerned. He came out of retirement for a while to run the company. Everything got good again, fast.
Some other examples: Bill Gates, Sony's dead founder/CEO, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs. Like them or hate them, they leave a mark. Once their gone, multi-billion-dollar corporations can fade into irrelevance. We simply haven't found a way to identify these guys and put them in the top jobs. Unless they build the company themselves, they never get there.
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Re:This exemplifies importance of individuals (Score:4, Interesting)
My own experience as a director is that these people, for the most part, are quite easily identified by boards and rejected, often quite adamantly, by them.
Big business now runs on the concept of replacable mediocrity, extending right up to the level of the company president. A good, strong leader is hard to replace and thus leaves a hole behind when he/she leaves (noticable publicly by the dramatic dip in the stock price). They create a corporate culture that is very much centered around their personality (see Microsoft) so that even the public views the leader and the company as one and the same.
This is anethma to the corporate board. What they're looking for is the effective dullard. The sort of person who can work the system well enough to get a degree in history from an Ivy League school, but remain ignorant of history in practice, because they never actually understood the material they were studying. The sort of person with strong, but simple ideas who will be intellectually content with just keeping the gears of the system turning smoothly.
The schools currently pump this sort of person out by the container full, so if you lose one you can just go grab yourself another and the boat (and the stock prices) doesn't rock much in the process.
I haven't sat on a board for years now and the last time I was effectively ousted, from a company I cofounded (to continue a preexisting sole proprietorship in corporate clothing whose orginal founder had died). I rocked the boat. I made public statements that the majority of the board didn't like ( I never "leaked." I always talked directly to the press for attribution). I created discord without anything productive coming out of it because I was out of line with the majority view.
And in a sense the board was right to get rid of me, I didn't belong there. The company has grown smoothly and continues to thrive and grow under distinctly mediocre, largely invisible, but nominally effective, leadership, which has changed hands a few times without much of anyone even noticing that it was going on.
Shooting stars need not apply.
KFG
Parent
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If they don't start their own company, they are not one of 'these guys'. So I would say it is faily easy to identify them. Start with the fortunate 500 or however large a number you want. Look how many of these companies are ran by the person who started it ad you have found 'them'.
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The House Committee's Letter to HP (Score:4, Informative)
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Some nerve (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this the same AT&T that's all too willing to sell the government private phone records without anything as silly as a warrant?
How are they going to answer? "Why, the same way you did, of course."
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Silicon Valley has gotten rotten. Dunn's refusal to take responsibility is a textbook example.
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You're kidding, right? At times, I think a woman could kill an entire family and devour their hearts, and SOMEONE would find a way to blame it on
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Let's do a simple logic exercise OK?
If the board members wanted a man to run the company they would not have voted to have either Fiona or Dunn to run the company in the first place.
The board seems to be going out of their way to make Dunn feel unwanted, so far
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