BARTON BACKS PRETEXTING BILL, CHIDES HP WITNESSES

摘要

House Commerce Committee Chmn. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) pushed a House pretexting bill, while he chided Hewlett-Packard (HP) witnesses for refusing to testify at a Thurs. hearing on the HP spy scandal. Congress should outlaw pretexting as soon as possible to prevent future corporate scandals like the HP debacle, he said. Barton said he asked House leaders 揺arly this week that the bill [HR-4943] be put on the floor as soon as possible.?The Commerce Committee unanimously passed the measure in May; it went on the House calendar but was pulled, Ranking Member John Dingell (D-Mich.) said: 揑t has not been seen or heard from since. Who did it, and why??Dingell criticized the Bush Administration for blocking the bill, saying he wrote to the Dept. of Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies asking how the law could be changed to address their concerns. nnBarton scolded 10 witnesses, including top HP officials, who are involved in an investigation using pretexting -- getting people抯 personal information using false identities. 揑抳e never had a hearing where no witnesses had an opening statement and everyone took the 5th,?Barton said, after a panel of witnesses was dismissed upon declining to answer queries by House Oversight Subcommittee Chmn. Ed Whitfield (R- Ky.). HP executives who did testify said they hadn抰 known the scope of investigative tactics used to pursue the leaker of sensitive HP board information. 揅hecking phone records was standard practice at HP and was drawn from public records,?Patricia Dunn, former HP chmn., told the committee.