PatriciaGate Update: Another head rolls (the GC's)

In advance of a Congressional hearing today, HP's top lawyer has stepped down bringing  the total number of executives who have lost their jobs as the result of a recent privacy scandal at the IT company to four. News.com's Margaret Kane:

Hewlett-Packard General Counsel Ann Baskins has resigned, the company announced Thursday.  The move comes hours before Baskins, among other HP executives, is scheduled to testify before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee in an investigation into a spying campaign to probe leaks to the media....Baskins, who spent much of her legal career with the company, also served as secretary for its board of directors. She has come under scrutiny for her role in HP's leak investigation, which allegedly involved "pretexting," or using fraudulent means to obtain someone else's personal records....The scandal has already cost the jobs of Chairman Patricia Dunn and two other employees.

Meanwhile, whether you know it or not, you are probably receiving traceable "PattyMail" (of the sort that HP used to smoke out whoever was leaking confidential information).  Here's how it works and a usage case under which there may be nothing you can do about it.