Reporters tracked before HP story ran

HP's surveillance of CNET News.com reporters began before a key story was published and, following that story, expanded to include bogus email tips and physical surveillance, government investigators have told the reporters involved.

Dawn Kawamoto, a reporter for ZDNet UK's sister site, CNET News.com, said she was told on Tuesday that HP began tracking her phone records on 17 January. That was about a week after a January strategy meeting for directors and executives, but six days before News.com published its 23 January story about the meeting.

News.com reporter Tom Krazit was also told by investigators that his personal phone records were accessed on 20 January, the same day he called HP spokesman Robert Sherbin for comment about the board meeting. In records provided by HP to government investigators regarding its leak hunt, there is a notation that says Krazit made a "call to BS (presumably Sherbin) for comment". The story was published three days later.

It has been widely thought that HP reignited and intensified a nearly year-long leak probe after that story was published, but the account given to Krazit and Kawamoto suggests HP had in place the means to quickly track down private phone records before publication of that or other articles.

Sherbin, HP's vice president of external communications, said on Tuesday evening that he does not recall whom he notified about his conversation with Krazit, but had been asked some time earlier to flag other HP officials of potential news leaks. It's not clear how news of Sherbin's conversation with Krazit reached HP's investigators, nor is it clear what prompted HP to target Kawamoto before the story was published.

HP has come under fire for using the legally questionable practice of "pretexting", or obtaining personal information under false pretences. HP has said the personal phone records of board members, two HP employees, nine journalists, including three CNET News.com reporters, and an unknown number of other people were accessed by investigators hired by the company to look into news leaks.

California's Attorney General Bill Lockyer said in a television interview last week that his office believes it has enough information to bring charges against people both inside and outside the company. Charges could come within a week, according to a spokesman for Lockyer, although there is no set timetable.

The Wall Street Journal cited an internal HP email on its Web site late Tuesday night that indicated HP chairman Patricia Dunn and general counsel Ann Baskins helped direct…