Additional points:

Perkins quit over the illegal surveillance. SEC rules unambiguously require HP to make a public filing stating that he quit in protest, and why. HP still hasn't made that filing, months later. This is a major violation in my opinion, as bad as the original snooping. That's what Perkins went public about: HP wasn't disclosing that he quit in protest over something.

The illegal activities weren't just being run by some flunky, they were being supervised by the legal department (and, ironically, the “Chief Ethics Officer”). These are the guys who are supposed to make the rest of the company follows the laws yet they would have made Richard Nixon proud. If these guys are this bad, what do you think the sales guys are willing to do to make the quarterly numbers?

At least one internal memo stated that the pretexting methods were illegal. Even if this wasn't seen it is painfully obvious that you can't legally get such information. The legal department ignored an explicit warning and common sense that maybe a list of phone calls placed by the father of a reporter was maybe a risky thing to go for?

Why is the chief lawyer at HP still employed?

The first action the company took was to promote Mr. Hurd. Huh? Hurd specifically knew of and approved an e-mail attack on a journalist. Everything was done on his watch by people reporting though him. Maybe his culpability isn't that great for various reasons, but I see nothing in his behavior that screams “promotion!”

If these guys were willing to go this far with nothing personally on the line what would they be willing to do if presented with an Andy Fastow-like opportunity to line their pockets?