Hewlett-Packard's chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, is going to step down from that post after "admitting she authorized an investigation that relied on 'inappropriate techniques' to uncover who was leaking boardroom secrets to the media."

That quote, from an AP story on Forbes.com, goes on to explain:

Dunn was angry about media leaks of confidential board discussions and commissioned an unnamed outside firm to identify their source. The investigators used Social Security numbers and other personal information to get phone companies to turn over detailed logs of home phone calls of reporters and company directors.

What really happened is this:  HP, and apparently Dunn herself, violated a key rule in managing a high-profile company:  If you aren't comfortable reading about it on Page 1, don't do it!

This rule, in addition to being important in terms of reputation and corporate communications, serves as a good moral litmus test for any action.  If executives -- and politicians -- were to ask more frequently what would happen if proposed actions were made public, a lot of truly boneheaded moves would be avoided. 

And what HP did certainly qualifies.  Basically, the company was spying on journalists and its own directors.  How did HP imagine it would use whatever information it gained without disclosing the methods?  Any PR 101 student could predict what the result of that would be.

It's not a good idea to be too dogmatic in our rapidly changing communications world, but some old rules still apply.  In this case, it would have paid for HP to think about the Page 1 implications of its actions -- before they ended up on Page 1.