The
Energy and Commerce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, which has been conducting an on-going investigation into the identity-theft-related practice of "pretexting," the practice of impersonating a person in order to access their personal information, has now joined the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Attorney's Office in investigating allegations that a "plumbers' unit" commissioned by technology giant and Silicon Valley icon HP sought to plug leaks to the media from members of its own board of directors by illegally accessing confidential private information to which it was not entitled.
You can read more about this case, which has been the focus of growing international interest, in
"HP faces federal investigation into snooping scandal" in the U.K.-based
Independent.
During that interview, Mr. Dresslar told
California Politics Today:
"There's no California statute that
per se says pretexting is a crime; however in this particular context, we believe that crimes have been committed, and what we're looking at, to be more specific, are three and possibly more penal code sections:
"502(c)(1) and (c)(2) that, taken together, what they do is say you cannot gain unauthorized access to computerized data and then use that data."
Here's that section of the California Penal Code:
(c) Except as provided in subdivision (h), any person who commits any of the following acts is guilty of a public offense:
(1) Knowingly accesses and without permission alters, damages, deletes, destroys, or otherwise uses any data, computer, computer system, or computer network in order to either (A) devise or execute any scheme or artifice to defraud, deceive, or extort, or (B) wrongfully control or obtain money, property, or data.
(2) Knowingly accesses and without permission takes, copies, or makes use of any data from a computer, computer system, or computer network, or takes or copies any supporting documentation, whether existing or residing internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network.
Mr. Dresslar went on to say that:
"The other one that we're looking at is Penal Code Section 530.5 and that's our general ID theft statute and what that says is that it's a crime to, without permission, obtain somebody's personal identifying information and then use that information for any unlawful purpose."
Here's that section:
530.5. (a) Every person who willfully obtains personal identifying information, as defined in subdivision (b), of another person, and uses that information for any unlawful purpose, including to obtain, or attempt to obtain, credit, goods, services, or medical information in the name of the other person without the consent of that person, is guilty of a public offense, and upon conviction therefor, shall be punished either by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both that imprisonment and fine, or by imprisonment in the state prison, a fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or both that imprisonment and fine.
