In order to catch a member of the board of directors who was leaking information to the press, HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn allegedly authorized private detectives to get phone records of the directors. In doing so, the investigators and Dunn may have violated federal and state privacy and telecommunication laws. But I can't think of any corporate law Dunn violated in doing so; indeed, to the contrary, the director/leaker may have violated his fiduciary duties by leaking information to the media.
THe episode calls to mind the scene in the Day of the Jackal, when Inspector Claude Lebel plays the tape of the leaker. When one of the ministers asks how Lebel knew which minister to record, he replied that he had taped them all.
The ministers forgave Lebel because he stopped the Jackal. Will the HP board forgive Dunn? Granted, unlike Lebel, she didn't tape their conversations - instead, she simply had data on who they called collated. Yet, even so, it's hard to imagine the big egos on most corporate boards taking this sort of privacy invasion lightly. Certainly, if I were on HP's board, I'd want Dunn's head on a platter.