PressEthic

Apparently Hewlett-Packard did not get all the information it needed from the phone records it acquired through pretext calling. According to the New York Times, H.P.

conducted feasibility studies on planting spies in news bureaus of two major publications as part of an investigation of leaks from its board, an individual briefed on the company’s review of the operation said yesterday.

The Times goes on to report that the studies:

are said to have included the possibility of placing investigators acting as clerical employees or cleaning crews in the San Francisco offices of CNET and The Wall Street Journal.

Information of these studies was found in a report sent to senior H.P. management, including Kevin. T. Hunsaker, H.P.'s senior counsel and chief ethics officer. It would seem that reference to planting spies in newsrooms would find strong opposition from the person appointed to represent and ensure the ethical integrity of a corporation. However, in the case of H.P., the term "ethics" is synonymous with "legal". Any reasonable person examining the "ethics" of a situation would conclude that planting spies in newsrooms would cross some ethical boundaries. In particular, the use of a mole in a cleaning crew at a news bureau would suggest that more than mere eavesdropping would be in play. Cleaning crews do not generally mix with the people working in an office during the day, but rather empty trashcans, possibly containing discarded memos or other information, and work mostly at night when the offices are empty, a prime time for snooping.

According to the Times article, Mr. Hunsaker sent an email to the H.P. manager of global investigations inquiring as to the legality of the methods used by a private detective hired to acquire phone records. When he received a reply telling him that investigators had called operators "under some ruse" and confirming that pretext calling (confirmed as legal) had been involved, Mr. Hunsaker's response was simply "I shouldn't have asked….".

As the chief ethics officer, I would think that Mr. Hunsaker would have responded with reprimand or further inquiry. Yet, Mr. Hunsaker's response, or lack thereof, implies that he was more concerned with the legality of the investigation as opposed to any "ethical" issues it might raise. Furthermore, that he wished to remain ignorant to any ethical wrongdoing insofar as it did not cross any legal lines.

The mere idea of proposing such an infiltration program to the chief ethics officer, would presuppose that such a proposal would not be immediately shot down. I see the connection between ethics and law and how it would be logical to include a company's ethics department with the legal department. However, in corporate America these two entities do not seem to carry much distinction. All that is legal is not intrinsically ethical. It can be argued that the reverse is true as well.

An "ethics officer" in a company like H.P. is a misnomer. The attribution of an "ethics" department or title to the legal department is in place merely for appearances sake. If it can be done legally, and will benefit the financial standing of the company, ethics don't seem to play a real role in H.P.'s decision-making.