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Wal-Mart fires technician who recorded phone calls

Systems tech also intercepted text messages, retailer says

Nicole Maestri

March 05, 2007 (Reuters) -- CHICAGO - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said today it fired a systems technician for intercepting text messages of people who were not Wal-Mart employees and for recording telephone conversations with a New York Times reporter without authorization.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said an internal investigation found the technician had monitored and recorded phone calls between Wal-Mart public relations employees and a New York Times Co. reporter between September and January.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer also said the technician, who worked in its information systems division, intercepted and stored text messages that contained certain key words, including those sent by people in the Bentonville area who were not Wal-Mart employees.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said on a call with reporters that the technician "did this on his own."

While interviews with the technician gave the retailer an idea as to why he recorded the calls, Williams said she could not disclose the reasons because the case has been turned over to federal investigators.

Wal-Mart's disclosures come after a corporate spying scandal that erupted in September at Hewlett-Packard Co., in which the computer company disclosed it had undertaken an aggressive investigation to learn the source of boardroom leaks to the news media.

At HP, private investigators posed as board members, employees and journalists to obtain phone records in a deception known as "pretexting." The scandal led to the departures of several HP executives.

Policy violations 

Wal-Mart said the phone recordings were not authorized by the company and violated its policy of forbidding such activity without prior written approval from the legal department.

The retailer also said the interception of text messages and pages that don't involve Wal-Mart associates is not authorized by its policies under any circumstances.

"We are troubled by what appears to be inappropriate taping of our reporter's conversations," said New York Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty. "At this point, we don't know many of the key facts, such as what the purpose of this taping was and the extent, if any, to which the action was authorized."

She said Michael Barbaro was the reporter whose calls were taped.

Williams said Wal-Mart had called the New York Times to apologize for the recordings. While a handful of other conversations were recorded, Williams said none of those involved other reporters, public speakers or Wal-Mart critic groups such as Wake-Up Wal-Mart.

Williams said the technician's supervisor was also fired, and the retailer has removed the recording equipment and related hardware from its system.

Wal-Mart has kept the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas informed of the investigation and the U.S. attorney told the retailer on March 1 that his office would conduct an investigation of the pager intercepts and the recording of phone calls.