• "I do not know exactly how long"
• "I did not attend the entire meeting"
• "I do not have any reason to believe"
• "I do not know"
• "I cannot say"
• "at some meeting someone mentioned"
• "I would like to make clear that I am not certain"
• "I do not specifically remember"
• "Not that I recall."
• "Not that I recall."
• "Not that I recall."
• "In retrospect, I wish that I had been more focused"

• "I do not remember the exact words used and do not recall any discussion"
• "Not that I recall."
• "Not that I recall."
• "I cannot provide any further explanation"
• "I did not have any specific understanding"
• "I did not give any further thought to the issue"
• "I cannot say"
• "I do not recall"
• "I did not think"
• Part 10, subpart (c): "I did not have an understanding one way or the other"
• "See answer to subpart (c)."
• "Not that I recall."
• "I am not aware"
• "I cannot say without speculating"
• "I do not recall"
• "Not that I recall."
• "I do not recall"
• "No."
• "I learned only after the conclusion"
• "I do not recall exactly when I learned that fact or how I learned it"
• "I do not remember asking how phone records for my HP-owned phone were obtained."

Earlier: HP's Hurd heard nothing, nothing! [Valleywag; photo by Getty Images]

Let's play the HP $10,000 Pyramid...

Q. 'I do not know.' 'Not that I recall.' 'I can't say.'

A. Things Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark 'We can win the [post-9/11] information war' Hurd said when asked by Congress to supply more information in writing about HP's spying campaign against journalists and company directors!

Hurd - who once provided data warehousing expertise to six of the top nine communications companies - also tap danced around his earlier stated belief in the existence of a mythical view-anyone's-private-phone-records website in his written responses (PDF, WSJ account needed).

[Photo licensed from Getty Images]

Summary and analysis:
Patricia Dunn explains that four articles appeared in early January in the Wall Street Journal, revealing confidential information leaked from the board. These leaks violated an official board member agreement. As Dunn says, this was a legitimate reason to open an investigation of the board, and several HP executives encouraged her to do so.

From here on, Dunn says, she delegated work. Unbeknownst to her, the company she contracted to investigate the leaks hired a subcontractor. Dunn's major problem here is not willful criminality but negligence over the investigation.

Her second problem is believing that investigators could legally obtain people's phone records. That's the statement that bewildered Congressman Greg Walden at Dunn's Congressional hearing.

Takeaway: Dunn shows she's refined her "play dumb, point fingers" strategy into a believable (though unfortunate) story of a heroic chairwoman who trusted too much. Her routine should be polished up by the time she needs to tell it to a jury.

The money paragraph:

Despite reports to the contrary, I did not unilaterally decide to initiate a leak investigation. I did not run, supervise or direct the investigations. I did not select or hire the investigators or direct who should be investigated. Nor was I aware of exactly who was being investigated. The company's legal and security departments were in charge of the work. In fact, I was a full subject of the investigations and was "pretexted" along with the others. While I did (appropriately) receive periodic reports on the progress of the investigation, I was not aware until after the investigation was complete and the results were presented to the full board of some of the tactics used. I am still learning about some of the techniques that were used or contemplated.

Word counts:
Total: 1500
"Carly Fiorina": 1
"Mark Hurd": 1
"Larry Sonsini": 0
"I": 38
"H-P way": 2
"Legal": 10
"Illegal": 0
"Confidential": 5
"Apology/ies/ize": 1

Earlier: SV Confidential: Pat Dunn thought she could pull up anyone's phone records [Valleywag]

• An ABC News writer and ex-HP employee says Carly Fiorina (photo from Freaking News) is a lucky bitch who screwed up HP in a quest for personal glory. [ABC News]
• The New Yorker's James Surowiecki notes that Hewlett-Packard boardroom leaker George Keyworth wasn't a whistle-blower or innovative thinker — he told the press about dealings with beleagured then-CEO Carly Fiorina as a political move. HP, though it did it wrong, was right to hunt him down. Keyworth, says Surowiecki, was destroying the trust that makes real board debate possible, and that could make the board unwisely fill itself with yes-men to compensate. [New Yorker]
• Law professor Douglas Branson agrees that this fiasco destroyed the sanctity of the board, but he says HP should have just let Keyworth finish his term and quietly not renominated him. Branson wants to see California prosecute the indicted execs — hard. [Jurist]
• Fiorina's description of "beautiful" D.C.? Not so deep. Wonkette blogger Alex Pareene tells me, "I don't believe she's actually ever lived here. The Potomac is hideously ugly, the monuments are a crowded clusterfuck, and sunrises???" [92nd St. Y]

So why is she suddenly so wise about the world of corporate espionage?

If you think that Hewlett-Packard is the only company that has an investigations force — which by the way, is peopled mostly with former law enforcement officers that do all kinds of private detective work, monitoring, posing as other people in order to solve problems to protect shareholder value — you're being na ve.

Wow, Ms. Dunn, I liked you better when you were na ve.

Former H.P. Chairwoman Makes Court Appearance [NY Times]
Earlier: SV Confidential: Pat Dunn thought she could pull up anyone's phone records [Valleywag]

The best part: when Walden utters, "You're serious." Poor guy's face freezes in disbelief for about five seconds.

Earlier: SV Confidential: Day 1 wrap-up for the HP Congressional hearings [Valleywag]

At one point, Walden asked about the illegally obtained phone records, "How did you think they were getting them?" When Dunn said she thought that there were normal, legal methods to get people's phone records — Walden offered the example of Dunn calling up the phone company and saying "I want Greg Walden's phone records" — he exclaimed, "You're serious." Several in the audience chuckled. "I'm not being funny here," said Walden, "I'm being honest."

We'll see if we can get video tomorrow morning. [C-SPAN Live]

A few more daily highlights follow.

Outside investigator Ron DeLia chose to take the Fifth instead of testifying before Congress about his involvement in a probably illegal investigation of Hewlett-Packard board members and reporters. Ron probably regrets publically saying that using someone's Social Security number to find their personal info is definitely illegal and fraudulent — since that's what his agency did for HP, according to everyone who did testify today. [Pinhead's Progress]

Dunn says HP isn't the only company using the techniques that Congress investigated it for. Weird, she said she didn't know anything about these techniques. [Washington Post]

One of HP's investigators smashed his computer with a hammer, according to the Wall Street Journal. Good idea — hard-drive recovery experts say physical destruction is the only way to truly erase computer data. Not that you'd hire this guy as your security expert. [Inquirer]

First up is testimony from ex-chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who says she didn't even know what pretexting was until former board member Tom Perkins told her about it this June.

Pretexting, as Dunn now knows, is calling a company impersonating a customer so the caller can get that customer's account information. In this case, investigators under Dunn's command pretexted AT&T to get call records for Perkins's personal phone.

Dunn's former lawyers could back up her story, as they claim they felt the whole investigation was legal. The Congressional panel clearly doesn't think so, as they've asked everyone today how lying to get people's personal records, planting spies at news offices, and planting e-mail-tracking software on a reporter's computer seemed legal.

Dunn expresses 'deep regret' over leak probe [CNNMoney.com]