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Some news about Hewlett-Packard today has some business professors sounding a lot like journalistic ethicists. The company had hired private investigators to uncover the source of leaks to the press … and it turns out that the investigators also “accessed private phone records of nine journalists who covered the company, without obtaining their permission,” writes The Washington Post. According to The New York Times:

“The company said this week that its board had hired private investigators to identify directors leaking information to the press and that those investigators had posed as board members — a technique known as pretexting — to gain access to their personal phone records.

“In acknowledging Thursday that journalists’ records had also been obtained, the company said it was apologizing to each one. ‘H.P. is dismayed that the phone records of journalists were accessed without their knowledge,’ a company spokesman, Michael Moeller, said.”

Accessing personal records through computers without permission is a violation of California law, Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office is investigating, told The Washington Post. The paper noted that Lockyer “called the accessing of journalists' phone records ‘stupid cubed.’”
Lockyer told The Times: “‘A crime was committed.’ But he added: ‘It is unclear how strong the case is. Who is charged and for what is still an open question.’”

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