The New York Times reports that Hewlett-Packard considered planting spies at media organizations to discover the source of leaks from its board:

It is not clear whether the plan described in the documents, which were read to a reporter, was ever acted upon. The report was sent on Feb. 1 by Anthony R. Gentilucci, Hewlett-Packard’s Boston-based manager of global investigations, to four others, including Kevin T. Hunsaker, a senior counsel in Hewlett-Packard’s legal department and the company’s chief ethics officer. “Feasibility studies are in progress for undercover operations (clerical) in CNET and WSJ offices in SF bureaus,” the memo said, referring to two publications in which reports of the company’s board discussions had appeared. Under a section labeled “Investigation Activity Update,” with the subtitle “Covert Operations,” it also called for examining the use of cleaning employees at those locations.

Covert ops? The use of cleaning employees? Bush should have put Hewlett-Packard in charge of the Plame leak and saved us all three years of headaches.