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Cingular Sues Private Eye in HP Leaks
ATLANTA
OCT 06 – Cingular Wireless LLC, the nation’s largest cell phone
provider, on Friday sued a private eye caught up in the scandal over
the Hewlett-Packard Co. leak investigation, seeking to make him pay for
allegedly obtaining customer call records under false pretenses.The
Atlanta-based company said in federal court papers it wants Charles
Kelly, his firm CAS Agency Inc. and any of its agents to return all
Cingular customer information they may have, give up any profits they
made for getting the data and pay unspecified damages for their
conduct.The complaint, which follows a similar suit filed late Thursday
by Verizon Wireless, also seeks an injunction against CAS, which is
based in Carrolton, Ga.Kelly could not immediately be reached for
comment Friday. No phone listings for Kelly or CAS could be found
through directory assistance, an Internet search or a Georgia state Web
site on corporation registrations.Citing testimony before a House
committee, Cingular said the defendants or their agents improperly
obtained the customer call records of CNET news.com reporter Dawn
Kawamoto and provided the information to HP as part of the computer
maker’s probe to root out corporate leaks to the media.Cingular said
that in an attempt to circumvent its safeguards, the defendants or
their agents used several different types of ruses to gain the customer
information. This included posing as customers seeking information
about their accounts, posing as fellow employees needing access to an
account or using customers’ online passwords without their consent, the
suit said.The practice of obtaining customer call records by posing as
the customer is known as “pretexting.”Kelly was among five private eyes
summoned to appear before a congressional hearing to explain their
alleged actions.HP officials are accused of conducting an
investigation, designed to trace a boardroom leak, that used a network
of private detectives who impersonated the targeted individuals to
obtain their phone records, snooped through their trash and physically
spied on them. The probe targeted HP directors, employees and
journalists.Besides the inquiry in Congress, federal and California
prosecutors are investigating whether company insiders or outside
investigators broke the law. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
has said he has enough evidence to indict HP insiders and
contractors.cingular is jointly owned by AT&T Inc. and BellSouth
Corp., while Verizon Wireless is a partnership between Verizon
Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC.
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