"I Dunn Nuffink", HP's Dunn says

EX-HP CHAIRMAN Patricia Dunn said in written testimony for a congressional committee that other execs at the firm were in charge of leak investigations, and she was just a bit player in the furore.

In the testimony, she said she was honoured to be asked to be chairman of the board after Carly Fiorina got her pink slip but "never in my worst nightmare" did she expect the current furore would ever happen.

Dunn said the board in the first year of her tenure was dogged by conflict among the directors. "Fundamental distrust" was the most corrosive problem because things kept turning up in papers like the Wall Street Journal.

She said after the leaks started she consulted people like Robert Wayman, Ann Baskins, and others. She didn't hire the dicks involved in the two investigations - Kona 1 and Kona 2. They already worked for HP. She initiated the investigation. She didn't enter the contracts or approve invoices. She "assumed" Robert Wayman had provided authorisation.

She wasn't the supervisor but Dunn believes that all the executives she relied on were confident that the records obtained from hacks and directors were accessed under legal circumstances. During the course of the investigation, she had no reason to believe anything legal was being, er, done.

Ann Baskins, HP's inhouse lawyer, and Mark Hurd, were involved in the investigation and the new CEO was a "hawk" about leaks. Hurd is "among the most straightforward, clear thinking and honourable executives" she'd ever known. He often referred to his conscience and ethics as driving his priorities, she said.

A Cnet leak made in January this year was serious, said Dunn. She was fully convinced that HP would never engage in anything illegal. Neither she nor Hurd designed or implemented the techniques. But both knew about a sting operation.

Tom Perkins, who resigned as a director of HP after the investigation fingered Keyworth as the source, complained that Dunn had organised and conducted an elaborate spying campaign on HP directors caused by a "delusion of paranoia about leaks coming from the board".

Press reports that she was the nexus of the leak probes were false, said Dunn, but she had become a "lightning rod". The board asked her to resign and she left the Board with "good feelings, embraces and clear messages from each director that they regretted that this had happened to me."

She urges Congress to pass laws to provide clear cut rules on pretending to be other people ("pretexting"). For example, maybe if there was a law agency HP could use to "pursue a fully lawful, sanctioned and protected investigation" none of this would ever have happened.

Mark Hurd gives evidence today but his written report said the investigation turned into a "rogue" investigation. He "pledges" he will dig harder and deeper to get to the bottom of this "rogue" investigation. We guess other authorities may dig even harder and even deeper than Mark Hurd.

Hurd also pledges that HP will regain its reputation as a "model citizen with the highest ethical standards" and will regain its pride. µ

L'INQ
news.com
New York Times says that senior executives were warned about potential illegal activities
Business Week says the leaks weren't leaks at all