back to article HP pretexting affair ends with jail time for last player

The HP pretexting scandal has finally ended, with the last person involved getting three months in prison for illegally accessing the phone records of journalists. Colorado private investigator Bryan Wagner convinced phone companies to hand over the telephone records of HP's management and the journalists who spoke to them as …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nominative determinism

    Cynthia Lie, attorney at law.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    interesting....

    I always find it fascinating (and a little scary) how the same act has different consequences in different countries. In this case , in the U.S. pretending to be someone else to access private information results in jail time, whereas in Australia a similar act is regarded as a prank.

    Of course what makes it scarier is the lengths that US courts are often willing to go to in order to extradite someone into their hands.

    1. david 12 Silver badge

      Re: interesting....

      >whereas in Australia a similar act is regarded as a prank.

      Critical difference: In AUS, it was the media going after the rich. In the US, it was the rich going after the media.

      This should give you some indication about where the effective power lies in western society.

      1. Fatman

        Re: interesting....In the US, it was the rich going after the media.

        Not exactly, it was In the US, it was the rich going afterbuying up the media.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More interesting...

    ...is the fact that it is the fall-guy at the bottom of the $h!theap that gets screwed, again, while the instigators get off scot-free. Just goes to show that if you have been/are an HP Board member you can just about get away with anything, with nothing more than a slapped wrist - at worse.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: More interesting...

      Yup. And the wankers won't even have the decency of providing the poor bastard a lawyer.

      Mind you, the poor bastard should have known that what he was, according to the sentence, doing was both illegal (which is not necessarily a problem) and immoral (which is).

  4. Robert Helpmann??
    Childcatcher

    Editorialize much?

    As an interesting side-note, Perkins went on to join the board of News International in 2007. He still holds his position, despite the corporation's own troubles with illegal access to phone records. It seems some crimes are more egregious than others, to his mind.

    That is an interesting point. Had the last sentence been left off, it would have been good journalism, too.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like