It is beyond my imagination as to how anyone can authorize access to private and personal telephone records of a company’s board number, to investigate a purely business issue. Patricia Dunn, the chairwoman of HP should resign. Infact, I think every one of HP’s board should’ve resigned the minute they were informed of the above breach of privacy. It just goes on to show that stupidity and arrogance knows no boundaries. I’ve known stupid and arrogant PhDs when I was in academia. Now real-life board of directors are no better either. More on Calif. Investigates Legality of HP Probe

Dunn’s consultants weren’t actually listening in on the calls—all they had to do was look for a pattern of contacts. Dunn acted without informing the rest of the board.

Perkins co-founder of Menlo Park-based venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers complained to other executives and journalists about the investigation’s ethical implications.

His attorney, Viet Dinh, a former assistant U.S. attorney general, says he discovered that one of HP’s private investigators also obtained the last four digits of Perkins’ social security number.

The investigator used that information to open an online account with AT&T, Dinh said. The investigator then called the telephone provider and impersonated Perkins, offering up his social security digits as proof of identity and asking AT&T to send a record of phone calls to and from his house in December 2005 and January 2006 to a free, Web-based e-mail account.