SV Confidential: Day 1 wrap-up for the HP Congressional hearings
Hero of the day's Hewlett-Packard Congressional hearings: Representative Greg Walden, who tried hard to wave a smoking gun in HP Chairwoman Pat Dunn's face. Dunn spent the whole day expressing surprise at every piece of information — leading one Congressman to remind himself out loud, "You were the chair of HP."
At one point, Walden asked about the illegally obtained phone records, "How did you think they were getting them?" When Dunn said she thought that there were normal, legal methods to get people's phone records — Walden offered the example of Dunn calling up the phone company and saying "I want Greg Walden's phone records" — he exclaimed, "You're serious." Several in the audience chuckled. "I'm not being funny here," said Walden, "I'm being honest."
We'll see if we can get video tomorrow morning. [C-SPAN Live]
A few more daily highlights follow.
Outside investigator Ron DeLia chose to take the Fifth instead of testifying before Congress about his involvement in a probably illegal investigation of Hewlett-Packard board members and reporters. Ron probably regrets publically saying that using someone's Social Security number to find their personal info is definitely illegal and fraudulent — since that's what his agency did for HP, according to everyone who did testify today. [Pinhead's Progress]
Dunn says HP isn't the only company using the techniques that Congress investigated it for. Weird, she said she didn't know anything about these techniques. [Washington Post]
One of HP's investigators smashed his computer with a hammer, according to the Wall Street Journal. Good idea — hard-drive recovery experts say physical destruction is the only way to truly erase computer data. Not that you'd hire this guy as your security expert. [Inquirer]