Don Park raises a good question of whether or not I (and other journalists and bloggers) are being fair to Patricia Dunn?

I’ll be happy to give Hewlett Packard or Patricia Dunn an entire blog post (take as many words as you want) to give her side, or HP’s side of this whole thing. I’d even be happy to take my video camera over and put the video up on YouTube or Google Video or Blip.TV and let anyone at HP say whatever they want unchallenged by me and I’ll put that up unedited.

I won’t even link to David Kirkpatrick at Fortune Magazine, who called for her head.

Is my reaction over the top? Yeah! But like Russell Shaw says, it’s an American tradition!

Is this story boring yet? I really don’t care if I lose every single reader I have because I keep rambling on about this story. Patricia Dunn has got to go. The HP board has to realize this story is not going away.

Well, it shouldn’t. Where are we going to draw the line on privacy? At pretexting? Or when they stick a little recording device in my bedroom to see who I am talking with? Oh, not willing to put the line there? Well, how about just implant an RFID tag in my head along with a GPS and a little transmission device.

Hell, let’s just get rid of this privacy idea altogether, right? OK, I’m game. Patricia Dunn first please. If she does it, I’ll go along with this whole “get rid of privacy” game that seems to be how many employers want to play it (ever look into how deeply employers can look into your private life? It might scare you.)

HP should prepare itself for a raft of headlines like this one, HP Boosts Its Integrity, in InfoWorld.

Is that unfair? Sure! But we aren’t the ones who broke the law.

Anyway, to answer Don’s question: I don’t really care at this point. I’ve been reading very carefully trying to find a reason to take Patricia Dunn’s side. I’ve been talking with dozens of people behind the scenes. I can’t find one reason to take a different stance than I now am taking. That said, I’d be happy to learn tomorrow that we’re all mistaken and that we’re barking up the wrong tree and I’d be the first one to report I was wrong.

The facts in this case, though, don’t get better, they just get worse and that’s after the New York Times reported Patricia’s own words. Translation: I doubt she’ll take me up on my offer.

Update: Blog Herald goes further and asks “Will Social Software Mutate Blogosphere into Mob Rule?”