Hiding notes from the cleaning lady

Former BusinessWeek reporter Gary Weiss, the author of “Wall Street vs. America,” noted on his blog Wednesday that he once hid his notes for a story because he didn’t want a cleaning lady to find them after he left the office for the day.

He thought he was being paranoid until the disclosure in the New York Times today that Hewlett-Packard considered putting spies in newsrooms in the form of cleaning staff.

Weiss wrote, “So I guess there is nothing wrong with a little paranoia after all.

“Loathsome as Hewlett-Packard’s conduct surely was, I’m having a little trouble trying to figure out if it broke any laws. I hope not. If corporate boorishness and stupidity were against the law, the penal system would break down under the strain, and we can’t have that.”

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