Interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal, dealing with spies, critics, and Deutsche Bank (subscription required). In what seems to me as a rather over-the-top move, Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) used spies to keep tabs on its critics -- and the scope of the operation may be a bit more expansive than originally believed. In May, Deutsche Bank found efforts involving "questionable investigative or surveillance activities" that its security department and outside contractors conducted. The "monitoring" took place four separate times from 2001 to 2007, with the bank using a detective (and "others" according to the article) to basically spy on people affiliated with the bank.

The detective told the Journal that he received a list of names in 2006, a list of people that the security department wanted the detective to watch. The bank contends that the spy mission was conducted by its security department and made no mention of its legal department. This cloak-and-dagger game cost two executives their jobs last month, and could lead to more.

I've worked for a paranoid boss or two. I won't name names or dish details, but let's just say I've been directed to spend a lot of company money on re-keying every office lock. And again with the changing locks. And again!

But reading about Patricia Dunn and gang, I know that my brushes with paranoia have nothing on Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ). Why don't we lift a few quotes from the New York Times article. Like, "conducted feasibility studies on planting spies in news bureaus of two major publications," (pretty crazy right?) and "Feasibility studies are in progress for undercover operations (clerical) in CNET and WSJ offices in SF bureaus." (that's from an HP memo!)

Really, truly, Patricia Dunn and some of her deputies, including Anthony Gentilucci, manager of global investigations, and (this is comedy gold) Kevin Hunsaker, chief ethics officer, thought about placing their moles in the WSJ secretarial and janitorial staff. It's not known what was the result of the feasibility study (my gut goes with "NOT"), or whether spies were actually engaged and deployed. It remains to be seen whether current CEO Mark Hurd can escape from the mess; Dan Farber says, "Wall Street better hope that Hurd comes out clean from this sordid affair." Shivers.

It's truly the work of a disturbed individual, and it didn't work out well for Ms. Dunn. As we all know, she will be stepping down January 1. She may be the most famous paranoid business leader, but she's surely not the only one. It's a cautionary tale from which Tom Taulli learned, "emails are forever" and Frank Furd learned that the culture of spying is invading our culture as a whole (and "Is *this* what they meant when they spoke of an 'MBA president'?") But what did I learn from this? My lesson is a bit ironic:

Beware the paranoid boss. And whatever you do, don't conduct that feasibility study on criminal acts. (And if you discover criminal misdeeds? Don't reply to the email describing them, "I shouldn't have asked." It just makes you look, umm, unethical.)