"This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone account. The account has been inactive for several months. The device on the account was a simple voice flip-phone, not a BlackBerry or other smartphone designed for e-mail or other data services.

"All employees who have accessed the account - whether authorized or not - have been put on immediate leave, with pay. As the circumstances of each individual employee's access to the account are determined, the company will take appropriate actions. Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action.

"We apologize to President-Elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day."

From the archive, a CRS report on Selected Laws Governing the Disclosure of Customer Phone Records by Telecommunications Carriers:

Telephone records contain a large amount of intimate personal information. Recent years have seen a rise in the use of this information for marketing and even for criminal purposes. The purchase and sale of telephone record information, therefore, became a booming business. Websites and data brokers claiming to be able to obtain the phone records for any phone number within a few days abounded.

See also:

The actual work of obtaining the phone records was given to other subcontractors, one of which is said to have worked in or near Omaha. The methods were said to have included the use of subterfuge, a practice known as pretexting, in which investigators pose as those whose records they are seeking.

On the HP case:

"He was the most hawkish member of the board for finding the leaker," she added. "He wanted us to bring in lie detectors."