"[Hewlett-Packard] Employees were to be trusted until they abused that trust. . . . Once, when Hewlett found a storeroom locked, he broke it open and left a note insisting it not be locked again. "HP trusts its employees," the note said according to former executives." (Peter Burrows, Backfire, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2003, p 55.)
1. Mistrust now flows over at Hewlett-Packard. They've been doing a bit more than locking storerooms. CEO Mark Hurd volunteers to appear before Congress after yesterday's news reports.
Mercury News Friday, 22nd September 2006
Hurd offers to speak at House hearing
SEC Requests Report on Perkins Board Resignation
By Pete Carey
As questions mounted over Hewlett-Packard's troubled boardroom leak investigation, HP chief executive Mark Hurd offered today to appear at a House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing next week on the investigation's use of private phone records.
HP issued a brief announcement about Hurd's offer late Thursday.
The offer came after a member of the congressional committee said he thought his colleagues should consider inviting Hurd to testify.
``Given allegations and media reports regarding Mr. Hurd's possible knowledge of HP's various deceptive investigative techniques, I would expect that members and staff of the subcommittee will take a hard look at whether it is appropriate for Mr. Hurd to appear before the Subcommittee next week,'' Rep. Bart Stupak D-MI, said in a statement Thursday.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/15576223.htm
2. Now it's damage control.
Mercury News Friday, 22nd September 2006
HP and Hurd shift into damage control
By Michelle Quinn and Pete Carey
With pressure mounting over its troubled internal investigation of boardroom leaks, Hewlett-Packard is shifting into serious damage control.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/15581253.htm
3. Quite by coincidence the above is not the only damage control which has been undertaken today. After eight years, three months and fifteen days, a scaffolding was erected outside up to my balcony during an afternoon of rain. This was accompanied by very intense and continuous verbal abuse from Lt Harry Bird and BS. They make every effort to interfere in all that goes on with their use of the surveillance technology and disruption of anything and everything. This activity was no exception. I took extensive notes. I don't know what is going to happen, but I would like to think that these scaffolding pipes are intended for repairing the balcony so that I can start using it and wash the windows which need it as can be seen in the photograph below.
Lt Harry Bird and BS exploit all that happens as part of their very intense smear and fear campaign using every "pretext" to attack me as viciously as possible. In this case it sounded like they were carrying that out with those who were responsible for putting up the scaffolding. It may have been a complete hoax to make it appear as if they were doing this to to get me to react in some way to what they were doing. I ignored them and documented what was going on. All that matters is that they were criminally harassing me with a fear of violence throughout the day which started early this morning. Actually, this goes on 24/7.
Because of their activity and all that I am doing, I did not get to bed until shortly after 2:00 am. I was woken numerous times throughout the night by their use of the surveillance technology complete with its side effects. This is all completely recorded on multiple devices. Shortly before 7:00 am, Lt Harry Bird and BS woke me and then kept me awake. There was other obvious abuse that occurred at the same time all of which was also fully recorded on multiple devices. I did manage to fall asleep a couple times only to be woken by excessive noises. I was trying to get at least eight hours rest if not sleep
At 9:30 am I was disturbed by excessively hard knocking on my door. This week there was supposed to be further inspections of the balcony and other bits of the flat, but the Council's agent hired for this was only sampling some 20% of the flats to determine what repairs needed to be done and was not making any appointments. That suited me fine since I could not make any appointments for anything given the extensive abuse from those using the surveillance technology. This morning was an excellent example of this which goes on every night. I don't know who tried to gain access this morning, and I was not interested in any inspection. The balcony was supposed to be inspected by outside access last June by agreement.
I've been waiting for a "repair" since June 1998 when a state of disrepair was deliberately created by outside access instead of the promised repair. Then surveillance technology was installed in mid-August 1998 and used as a weapon against me by those for whom I had reported antisocial and criminal behaviour most especially the child abuse by four adults. I would have thought that they would have repaired the balcony in the same manner using ladder access. It would be a simple process of hauling the little material needed in buckets on a rope and doing it one half at a time. If they want to go the considerable expense of erecting a scaffolding so be it. I will simply sit and wait to see what happens.Fri Sep 22 19:34:15 BST 2006: "It's too risky. Got to make it stick." said a male with Lt Harry Bird and BS providing a perfect example of conspiracy and collusion after over eight years of 24/7 totally invasive surveillance technology abuse which has been used as a weapon to create something that does not exist. This is still going on and has occurred once again in this context as I prepared the photograph of my balcony with the scaffolding for this web journal entry. They have never found anything. They know that there is nothing to find. All that is ever done has been extremely provocative assaults hoping to cause a reaction about which they can then point a finger. These are viciously violent and extremely abusive bullies who have been given the use of surveillance technology for this purpose. They are attempting to fabricate. They are not investigating.
Fri Sep 22 20:25:47 BST 2006: "I can't pull him," said a male a moment ago while I was writing the above description of events today along with a bit of its history. At first he had asked "Is that true?" as I was writing the above. Lt Harry Bird and BS are constantly misleading everyone, and surprise, surprise people learn the truth by reading what I am writing by means of the surveillance technology.
Fri Sep 22 20:40:22 BST 2006: "Riot," threatens Lt Harry Bird. He is using this to threaten mob violence when he does not get his way as indicated by the statement in the above paragraph. He will do or say anything no matter what it is. What he is communicating here is 'I'm stirring up the mob. If I don't get what I want, the mob will riot.' He is threatening mob violence and no one stops him. He should be arrested, but, instead, he is supported in his vigilante activity.
All of this has to be taken as criminal harassment and a performance with the intent to induce some kind of reaction in me. It is what I have lived with for over eight years 24/7, and it has now become the standard. It's far beyond Big Brother, ad I believe it will be the future for everyone unless it is recognised now for what it is and properly stopped by the democratic rule of law and its institutions which have so far been completely destroyed by this surveillance technology and its activity.
4. Continuing this thread of espionage as the psychology of our times, this evening's programming on BBC Four was extraordinary and stunningly beyond words. There was a documentary about Johnny Cash followed by a BBC Sessions concert by Roseanne Cash. As if that wasn't enough, there followed a performance from the Bottom Line featuring Nanci Griffith, Roseanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter. The thread here is Roseanne Cash if one can make such a claim. Her song Radio Operator from her recent Black Cadillac album is about her father and mother.
Roseanne Cash described her father as being in Germany in 1954 and her mother was the girl from San Antone. Johnny Cash spent three years overseas in the USAF Security Service as a Morse Intercept Operator aka "Ditty Bop" or "Dit Chaser." Earlier this year David Dye replayed a couple earlier interview programmes World Cafeon WXPN he had done with Johnny Cash who explained that his empathy with prisoners had come from this three years overseas in the Security Service. Later this year David Dye did an interview programme on his WXPN World Cafe programme with Roseanne Cash where she talked about and performed Radio Operator. She said that her father had attributed his ear's sensitivity for music had come from his days as a radio operator in the USAF.
I don't think many can really appreciate Johnny Cash describing his empathy for prisoners as coming from his experience in the USAF Security Service. He went on to describe those three years as a period of time when he lost all contact with family and friends until he returned to the US. His work put him into a completely different world. Only those who shared that experience could fully understand the isolation it created which carries on after the experience. This was a time when no one had any idea about the extensive signals intelligence operations world wide carried out against the Soviet Union, Chinese Communists and others. It truly was a completely different world that could not be shared with anyone except those who were doing the same thing.
This went on for decades until the end of the 1970s when this espionage activity began to be made public. In 1979 it was still an offence under the Official Secrets Act to even mention the name or initials of GCHQ. The same had been true for NSA. The job of radio intercept operator was especially difficult. For eight hours a shift these guys would sit glued to the airwaves trying to identify and copy target Morse communications. They could not send Morse code. They could only receive it. Their work was incredibly important, difficult and full of stress.
On top of that they worked a rotating shift called "trick work": three swings (3 to 11 pm); three mids (11 pm to 7 am); three days (7 am to 3 pm) and off for 72 hours. Between each set of swings, mids and days, there were 24 hours off to roll over to the next different time for three days. That means when the third swing ended at 11 pm, it was necessary to stay up all night to sleep during the day to make certain that one did not fall asleep on the first mid the next night. When the third mid was finished at 7 am, it was necessary to stay awake all day to be able to sleep that night before working the next day. This was called "bleed day." Try that sometime for a bit. Then do it for three years. It's a like living with permanent case of jet lag filled with high pressure, precision work upon which people's lives could depend at times.
The people who did this work were left alone, and they were allowed every thing to keep them happy. Only one thing as important: doing the job as best as it could be done since it was critically important. It was necessary to blow off steam from the pressure and intensity of the work as well as problems related to working a rotating shift. It was a self contained and fascinating work that could never be shared. In fact, what was being done could never be acknowledged at all in any way. One learned to live two lives out of necessity.
In many ways it was like living in a prison with an experience that could never be told to anyone. For me it's easy to see why Johnny Cash felt that his Security Service experience provided him with an empathy based with prisoners. I was in the USAF Security Service from 1961 to 1964. It can also explain his later amphetamine usage although there was no drug usage when I was there that I knew about. There might have been in Germany. Living like that for three years can do permanent damage to the body's endocrine synchronisation so he might have felt like drugs were necessary to maintain some kind of balance. Also working hard and partying hard were elements of that kind of environment.
Network analysis is the thread that links these espionage activities. Collecting all that Morse code traffic enabled traffic analysts to construct and maintain communications networks which formed a key part of the foundation of communications intelligence. This was a massive worldwide job carried out by NSA, GCHQ and others from after WWII onwards. The espionage activity which Hewlett-Packard carried out was network analysis. As can be seen, it was very valuable because it revealed the identify of the board member leaking information.
It's easy to see why this would be done since it has proven to be a very valuable source of information for many decades. That's why NSA started doing it domestically in the US after 9/11 without a warrant collecting tens of millions of phone records to do a network analysis. Those at Hewlett-Packard could hire the security firms to do the work without knowing what they were specifically doing, but at some point they learned. The question is when?
What cannot be ignored is that this has been a very large part of the psychology of intelligence for many decades. Johnny Cash among many did it. It's logical that security firms and their corporate clients would be doing it. This is what makes this overall situation such a fascinating and important problem which needs definitions for applications of ethics and the law. A debate is critically important here because this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Sat Sep 23 01:56:47 BST 2006: I had just finished the above after an evening of music and writing about it. Then I looked up what had happened today on the West coast after the market closed. i wanted to point out that I wrote the above and have just learned the stunning news that Pattie Dunn has resigned from the Board of Directors at Hewlett-Packard thereby relinquishing her position as Chair to Mark Hurd. This move raises many more questions about what is really going on at Hewlett-Packard. Instead of solving anything, it makes the overall situation look much worse. If this is happening at Hewlett-Packard in what is a minor case of espionage, why is it that over eight years of 24/7 surveillance technology driven torture is being allowed to continue agaisnt me in North Kensington? Consider what Mark Hurd says below:
Mercury News
HP Chairwoman Dunn resigns immediately
Questions Mounting on Legal, Ethical Boundaires
By Pete Carey
Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Mark Hurd said today the company's chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, has resigned from the board of directors effective immediately.
The announcement came during an afternoon news conference at HP's headquarters in Palo Alto. Questions have mounted for weeks about HP's troubled investigation of boardroom leaks, which was initiated by Dunn in January. She and other top managers at HP, including Hurd, have said they did not know the details of how the investigation was carried out by outside investigators.
The company first disclosed the investigation on Sept. 6. On Sept. 11 HP announced that in January, Dunn would step down as board chairman but remain on the board. It is not clear why today her resignation from the board was announced effective immediately.
Hurd has denied knowing any details the investigation, such as investigators impersonating board members and reporters to obtain their private phone records. But he has come under scrutiny this week as e-mails and one report in March suggested he might have known about or approved some aspects of the investigation.
``I understand a written report was addressed to me and others, but I did not read it,'' Hurd said today. ``I could have, I should have,'' he said.