Credit: Getty Images Hewlett-Packard (HP) has turned over thousands of documents to a U.S. House subcommittee investigating methods the company used to find out who was leaking company information to the media, a subcommittee spokesman said Monday.“The committee did receive thousands of pages of documents from HP. Staff investigators are reviewing them now,” said Terry Lane of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.HP confirmed it responded to the subcommittee’s request but didn’t go beyond that. “We are complying with the House Subcommittee’s request for information but are not releasing the details of what’s being provided for the committee’s inquiry,” said HP spokesman Ryan Donovan.The inquiry springs from revelations that HP hired an outside investigative firm that used questionable tactics to find the source of leaks from the HP board to news media in 2005 and 2006. HP, in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Sept. 6, acknowledged that unnamed outside investigators used “pretexting,” a form of subterfuge where investigators pose as someone else, to obtain personal phone records of people it was investigating. The committee is considering federal legislation to make pretexting illegal. The House panel, in a Sept. 11 letter to HP Board Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, asked HP to: identify the outside investigative firms it hired; identify the people within HP who authorized, participated in or had knowledge of HP’s investigation; provide copies of contracts between HP and any outside firms; disclose the identities of everyone whose phone records were procured, or were attempted to be procured; and provide other information.HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., has refused to identify the outside firms it hired, but various media reports have identified them as Security Outsourcing Services of Needham, Mass., and Action Research Group of Melbourne, Fla. Although HP has claimed that its legal advisers told it that the pretexting was within the law, an HP security specialist reportedly questioned its legality earlier this year.Fred Adler, a computer-crimes specialist within HP’s global security division, and a former U.S. FBI agent, notified his supervisors that acquiring people’s phone records under false pretenses could be against the law, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.The subcommittee has invited Dunn and HP General Counsel Ann Baskins to testify at a committee hearing Sept. 28, and a committee source told the Journal they would appear. HP’s Donovan would not comment. Larry Sonsini of the Palo Alto law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati was also invited to testify, but it’s not known if he will appear. Ronald DeLia of Security Outsourcing Solutions, also invited, hasn’t replied, but the Journal quoted a committee source as saying that if DeLia were to testify, he said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right to not testify to protect against self-incrimination.-Robert Mullins, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)Related Links: House Committee Seeks Testimony from HP Execs HP Pledges to Better Connect With Customers Reports: HP Probe Included Physical, E-Mail Tracking HP Spying Allegations Probed by DoJ Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost ChatGPT and Your Organisation: How to Monitor Usage and Be More Aware of Security Risks By Hayley Salyer Jun 05, 2023 7 mins Chatbots Artificial Intelligence brandpost Who’s paying your data integration tax? Reducing your data integration tax will get you one step closer to value—let’s start today. By Sandrine Ghosh Jun 05, 2023 4 mins Data Management feature 13 essential skills for accelerating digital transformation IT leaders too often find themselves behind on business-critical transformation efforts due to gaps in the technical, leadership, and business skills necessary to execute and drive change. By Stephanie Overby Jun 05, 2023 12 mins Digital Transformation IT Skills tip 3 things CIOs must do now to accurately hit net-zero targets More than a third of the world’s largest companies are making their net-zero targets public, yet nearly all will fail to hit them if they don’t double the pace of emissions reduction by 2030. This puts leading executives, CIOs in particul By Diana Bersohn and Mauricio Bermudez-Neubauer Jun 05, 2023 5 mins CIO Accenture Emerging Technology Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe