One aspect of the HP spy scandal that has received only passing attention is what the company might have done to ferret out its boardroom leaker instead of what it did, which everyone now agrees fell somewhere between ill-advised and illegal.
They should have given every director this choice: Take a polygraph … or take a hike.
The option was reportedly bandied about among those charged with finding the rat, but then summarily dismissed … for reasons that seem mystifying in hindsight.
Here’s why they should have gone that route.
Yes, polygraph technology is controversial, as evidenced by the fact that lie-detector results are largely inadmissible in court. But they’re deemed good enough for use in all manner of other circumstances, including the granting of security clearances at the highest levels of government. And we aren’t talking about a legal proceeding at HP: The goal was to find the mole and show him or her the door.
It’s true that asking a member of your board to take a lie detector test is supremely insulting and might prompt even an innocent man or woman to resign in protest. These are serious people, after all, not a bunch of ne’er-do-wells looking to beat the heat on some criminal rap. That’s a downside, all right. … Now weigh it against what happened. Right, it’s no contest.
As for those board members faced with and objecting to the indignity of strapping on a polygraph cuff, well, they’d just have to make a decision as to which is more important: their indignation or fiduciary responsibility. You say it’s a matter of principle? Now that I can get behind — it is simply wrong to have prove your innocence, in my opinion — but that’s not the country we live in any more … if it ever was.
And keep in mind that we’re choosing here between what HP actually did and what it might have done instead. Compared to stealing phone records, having board members tailed, and sending spyware to journalists, insisting on a polygraph seems like model citizenship.
And, by the way, HP already uses polygraph tests for screening job applicants, at least those who would be working on sensitive government-related projects, so it’s not as though company management can claim conscientious-objector status on the option.
Finally, here’s the best reason that HP should have used a lie detector instead lying detectives: In all likelihood, all of the board members save one would have gone along in the interest of protecting the company.
The lone holdout would have resigned.
Problem solved.
