The U.S. Government Spying on Americans: Was It Ethical?

In early June, 2013, while Barak Obama was still the U.S. president, Americans learned of the U.S. Government’s domestic surveillance program, under which the Verizon Business Network Services subsidiary had been turning over call logs “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency[1] The order, signed by a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April of that year, was "lawful,” U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein contended.[2] The program analyzed time and number logs that did not include the calls’ content. According to U.S. Senator Chambliss, “All of these numbers are basically ferreted out by a computer, but if there’s a number that matches a [suspicious] number that has been dialed . . . , then that may be flagged. And they may or may not seek a court order to go further on that particular instance. But that’s the only time that this information is ever used in any kind of substantive way.”[3] Harry Reid, Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate at the time, added that the phone-data program had “worked to prevent” terrorist attacks.[4] Does it make any difference. ethically speaking, that the program had helped stop a domestic attack? Shortly after The Guardian broke the story on Verizon’s subsidiary serving corporate customers, The Wall Street Journal reported, “[T]he initiative also encompasses phone-call data” from AT&T and Sprint, as well as from Verizon itself (i.e., beyond its business subsidiary).[5] Does this revelation on the vast scale of the program make any difference ethically? Moreover, does a positive collective consequence--or the lack of a negative harm to the public good--justify forays into the privacy of a vast number of individuals? 

Not surprisingly, privacy advocates were alarmed at the sheer scope of the program. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties advocacy group, said that “absent some explanation I haven’t thought of, this looks like the largest assault on privacy since the N.S.A. wiretapped Americans in clear violation of the law” under the Bush administration.[6] Her statement raises the question of whether the fact that the Obama administration had confined itself to court orders makes the program ethical.

Whereas the content of the phone conversations, including the parties’ names, were said to be not included in the trove of data turned over to the government, internet companies had been providing the contents of emails, online chats, Facebook accounts, Skype video calls, and web searches to the government as per court orders (i.e., not through direct access).[7] Does the inclusion of content make any difference, ethically speaking? Applying a few ethical theories may get us closer to some answers.

The analysis of the ethical theories is at "The U.S. Government Spying on Americans."

1. Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, “U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls,” The New York Times, June 5, 2013.

2. Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, “U.S. Maintains Vast Database of Phone Calls, Lawmakers Say,” The New York Times, June 5, 2013.

3. Ibid.

4. Siobhan Gorman, Evan Perez, and Janet Hook, “U.S. Collects Vast Data Trove,” The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2013.

5. Ibid.

6. Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, “U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls,” The New York Times, June 5, 2013.

7. Siobhan Gorman, Evan Perez, and Janet Hook, “U.S. Collects Vast Data Trove,” The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2013.

Balancing Budgets: Italy vs. Wisconsin

In what could be dubbed a tale of two states, Scott Walker of Wisconsin bragged about bringing the budget into balance without raising taxes while Silvio Berlusconi broke his pledge not to raise taxes in order to balance his budget for 2013. Walker relied on spending cuts and constricting the collective bargaining of government employees, while Berlusconi agreed to a package of tax increases, spending cuts and fewer labor protections to make up for $76 billion (54 billion euros) by 2013. The tax increases include raising the value-added tax from 20 to 21 percent and imposing a “solidarity tax” of 3 percent on state residents who earn more than $420,000 (300,000 euros). The latter tax would run through 2013. At a news conference in August, 2011, “Berlusconi acknowledged that he had pledged never to raise taxes, but that the attention of world markets had forced him to do so.” Was breaking his pledge a vice or a virtue?

The full essay is at Balancing Budgets

The American City: A Police State in the Making

Crime in 2017 was down the 30 largest cities in the U.S, but police levels remained robust. Specifically, less crime did not result in fewer cops on the street. “In 2016, there were slightly more officers per capita than in 1991, when violent crime peaked,” according to the FBI.[1] American cities were on a trajectory toward becoming police states. A mentality of excessive dominance, I submit, lies behind the excessive show of force.

The full essay is at "The American City: A Police State"

1. Jose Del Real, “Crime Is Falling, But Police Levels Remain Robust,” The New York Times, January 8, 2018.

Sustenance: A Human Right in America?

In the fall of 2010, the following was said on Fox News: “The government should spend more on the war in Afghanistan in order to fight terrorism. The problem is that the government has gotten into entitlements.”  The latter presumably includes food stamps, public housing, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  To say that government ought to be engaged in defense and not in supplying needy citizens with food, shelter and health-care is distinct from saying that the federal government should concentrate on foreign policy and defense, while entitlements are formulated and funded by the state governments as their domestic programs. In other words, advocacy for a certain priority in government and for less government is distinct from advocacy for restoring balanced federalism. Most Europeans in the E.U. undoubtedly view the redistributive right for sustenance resources as founded on human rights and thus as a legitimate part of government.  In contrast, Americans do not typically apply a human rights justification to entitlements for other Americans even as foreign aid may be justified in part on this basis.

The full essay is at "Sustenance: A Human Right in America?"

Homeless “Campers” Starting Wildfires: Outside the Social Contract

Nederland, Colorado. A town in Boulder County that had embraced marijuana dispensaries for profit, found itself just outside a wildfire that burned 600 acres in July, 2016. Two homeless men were charged with fourth-degree arson for failing to put out their camp fire. The townsfolk reacted in anger, pointing to the increasing number of homeless people in the nearby national forest. Officials had been forced to deal with “more emergency calls, drug overdoses, illegal fires and trash piles deep in the woods.”[1] Some residents urged the U.S. Forest Service to crack down on the homeless by imposing tighter rules on camping, or banning it altogether in certain parts of the woods most popular with the homeless. An analysis drawing on the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, a seventeenth-century English philosopher can be employed to reveal a broader perspective on the problem.

The full essay is at "Homeless Campers."

 

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1. Jack Healy, “As Homeless Find Refuge in Forests, ‘Anger is Palpable’ in Nearby Towns,” The New York Times, August 21, 2016.

Adolf Eichmann: Justice or Retribution by the Victims?

In February, 2016, 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning, a former guard at Auschwitz, went on trial in Detmold, Germany for being an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people. Back in 1961, Adolf Eichmann had been tried in Jerusalem for crimes against the Jewish people. I submit that the situs for the Hanning trial is proper ethically and legally, which is to say that Eichmann too should have been tried in Germany rather than in Israel.

Reinhold Hanning, center, on trial for 170,000 counts of accessory to murder in Germany. Proving that he himself facilitated the murders may be more difficult than one might assume; hence the importance of a fair hearing by neutral judges. Associated Press.


The full essay is at "Adolf Eichmann."

Natural Rights in Europe and America: Shoring-Up Each Other’s Weak Spots

The Declaration of Independence made by the thirteen newly sovereign American states in 1776 recognizes “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These rights are not dependent on any government, and thus exist equally so in the state of nature. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, made in Europe thirteen years later, omits any mention of a creator-deity. “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” The equality here is more limited, being solely in terms of rights, “man’s natural and imprescriptible rights” in particular. These “are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” We can thus compare and contrast the two sets of rights, which important implications for public policy for both America and Europe.

The entire essay is at “Natural Rights in Europe and America”

Democratic Tyranny: The Case of Ukraine

Is democratic tyranny an oxymoron? If it were, why then did the delegates at the American Constitutional Convention go to such pains to carve up public or governmental power between the states and the federal government, as well as between three “arms,” or “branches,” of the federal government. Moreover, pitting ambition against ambition points to just how dangerous ambition itself can be. When it is legitimated under the auspices of democracy, democrats may have trouble coming up with justifications for removing a democratically-elected tyrant. In this essay, I draw on the case of Ukraine in early 2014 to suggest a few possible rationales.

Would it make a difference if the protesters were hitting other citizens rather than governmental forces? (Image Source: GlobalPost)

On February 19, 2014, violence erupted between the police and the protesters bent on toppling the democratically-elected president. Twenty died on that day, and over seventy on the following day. While it might be tempting to focus on “who started it,” a higher-yielding strategy goes after the means used by the government to end the protests. Such means need not involve violence. For example, after the second day of violence raging in Kiev, the president took part in a fruitful “all-nighter” negotiation session with the protest leaders and E.U. officials. 

To be sure, the president had an incentive to negotiate then, for his backing in the parliament was weakening. Violence rather than compromise had been his preference. Behind the scenes, the government had been paying titushki men to attack protesters whether they were being violent or not. Heather McGill of the Europe and Central Asia Regional Program at Amnesty International points to various reports of armed men carrying bats and other makeshift weapons roaming around Kiev in organized groups and attacking citizens presumed to be protesters.[1] “(W)e have seen interviews with titushki where they admitted they were being paid—there is definitely a body of young, athletic men being paid by the government.”[2] This practice obviously goes well beyond hiring people as counter-protesters, and this distinction is vital in forming an argument founded on human rights that can be used as a basis to re-conceptualize national sovereignty as inherently limited rather than absolute.

Specifically, in sanctioning payments to young athletic men tasked with hurting and even killing citizens who are not being violent at the time of attack, the Ukrainian president violated his governmental obligation to protect the citizenry. This duty goes back to the social contract between kings and subjects wherein the latter agreed to be ruled by the former, who in turn obligated himself to protecting the subjects. This social contract survives in the norm held around the world that a government is obliged to protect its citizenry (including residents). Put another way, a government that violently turns on its own people is typically viewed as having over-reached in a way that violates a major postulate of its monopoly on legitimate force. When people are themselves being violent against each other or their respective property, or are destroying public property, military or police force does not involve such a violation of the conditions of governmental sovereignty because protecting the citizenry includes stopping violence within the citizenry and a government acts legitimately to protect public goods.[3]

Besides being a case of over-kill, paying thugs to wander around Kiev (and other cities) to beat or kill citizens thought to have been in the protests or to be protesting non-violently at the time exceeds and thus violates a government’s legitimate use of force, which in turn comes out of the concept of governmental sovereignty and thus national sovereignty. Such a violation invalidates a government’s claim to the rights the sovereignty. Crucially, this human-rights and sovereignty based argument applies to any government official, regardless of how he or she gained power. Hence, tyranny invalidates even a democratically-elected government. Just as governmental and national sovereignty are subject to limits based on the normative social contract and the human right to life (which itself may be limited by committing violence), democratic government also faces limits at the expense of unlimited license.

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[1] Olga Rudenko and Jennifer Collins, “Thugs Said to Roam in Ukraine,” USA TODAY, February 20, 2014.

[2] Ibid.

[3] I am assuming here that the case of citizens paid by the government to inflict harm on other citizens pertains to governmental power rather than violence between citizens. 

Poorest at Risk: U.S. States Cut Lifelines

“State finances are teetering with $4 trillion in unfunded liabilities to cover pensions and health care for state workers, along with revenue shortfalls, antiquated financial practices and skyrocketing Medicaid costs.” This according to the Huffington Post, based on a report in July 2012 by State Budget Crisis Task Force, which was organized by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker (R) and former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch (D). Volcker and Ravitch said that unfunded state government pension obligations could total as much as $3 trillion, triple the $1 trillion estimate produced by the states. This is in addition to the $1 trillion in unfunded health care obligations for retired state employees. This does not include the rising Medicaid costs. The report notes that state governments have been borrowing to pay for operating expenses in order to comply with state constitutional mandates for balanced budgets. Those loans and the practice of shifting spending between budget categories make balanced budgets "illusory," the report said. Lastly, Volcker and Ravitch point out that "one-shot" financial measures are common in state governments, including those that pile up debt for the future.

The most striking thing concerning the finances of the states studied (California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Virginia) is the noted threat to the social order itself. "The thing that worries me is the threats to the social order," Ravitch told The Huffington Post, noting that "cultural and social bankruptcy precede financial bankruptcy." "You can't cut human services and cut the ability of government to take care of the people"—meaning without expecting the collapse of the social order. Such a slide tends to be gradual, sliding below the radar screen of the general public.

For example, during 2011 over 500 people in the U.S. died every week because they were without access to health care. That’s like having a full A380 (the double-decker jumbo-jet, larger than the 747) crash every week of the year, albeit without the headlines. The collapse of a social contract happens gradually, without much fanfare because enough of the electorate is unaffected.

Furthermore, the changes that led to an increased reliance on government entitlement programs by the most vulnerable in society were gradual as well. The increasing divorce rate beginning in the 1970s and the increasing geographical distance permitted by air travel during the last quarter of the twentieth century are just two factors making it less likely that families would care for their own. The daily demands of sustenance mean that charitable organizations could not possibly pick up the slack. As a result, government entitlement programs became the default. Compromising them without providing for an alternative could not but put the social order (a.k.a. social contract) at risk, even if this risk is not shared or even noticed by the majority of the electorate.

To obviate the collapse of its social order, a government would have to distinguish between sustenance programs and the other budget categories. To give but one simplistic example, a town can do without its municipal pool for a summer, but a homeless man needs food every day. Cutting ten percent from both categories ignores this vital distinction, and thus puts the social order at risk, even if people do not notice that the man is no longer sleeping on the bench but has died.

Source:

John Gelock, “Paul Volcker, Richard Ravitch Say State Budget Crisis Threatens ‘Social Order,’” The Huffington Post, July 17, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/paul-volcker-richard-ravitch-budget_n_1677739.html

Moral Hazard in Mortgages

“The cherished American ideal of self-reliance has a flip side”[1]  Before getting to the implications, or flip side, I want to fill out what informs this ideal. One could add to it the ideological stance that came into its own in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan, who declared that government is the problem. This implies that government should be minimized, and otherwise corrected as much as possible. Government is hardly to be viewed as the solution. This is the legacy of the Kennedy assassinations of the 1960s, the Vietnam War, and Watergate as well as Ford’s pathetic “WIN” buttons and Carter’s micromanagement and failure in regard to the hostages in Iran. I was not old enough for the Kennedys’ truncated optimism (and that of Martin Luther King) to resonate; I knew the political (and economic) pessimism of the 1970s and the energizing “fix it” mentality of the early 1980s. Of course, Reagan’s “new federalism” failed, as did his aim to balance the federal budget, and the jury is still out on whether “peace through strength” pushed the USSR off the cliff.

The full essay is at "Moral Hazard in Mortgages."

1. Shaila Dewan, “Moral Hazard: A Tempest-Tossed Idea,” The New York Times, February 26, 2012. 

Contending Healthcare Social Contracts: A False Choice?

On March 21, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives approved “a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health system . . . , voting over unanimous Republican opposition to provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans after an epic political battle that,” according to The New York Times, “could define the differences between the parties for years.”[1] The vote was 219 to 212. “This isn’t radical reform,” the U.S. president said, “but it is major reform.”[2] Whether that was real change is an open question. House Speaker Pelosi said, “Today we have the opportunity to complete the great unfinished business of our society and pass health insurance reform for all Americans that is a right and not a privilege.”[3] While Obama was referring to the bill’s reliance on extant private insurance companies, absent even a public option, Pelosi made explicit the change to the American social contract—access to health-care would henceforth be a right for all citizens rather than a benefit to be conferred to those able to pay from their own wherewithal and insurance. The basis of this new right was undoubtedly the human right to life, as in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The closeness of the House vote suggests that the people were divided on whether the new right ought to be conferred (and/or whether it should be conferred by the U.S. Government rather than decided on a State by Stat basis). Sure enough, the pendulum did indeed shift.  

The full essay is at "Contending Healthcare Social Contracts."

1. Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn, “Obama Hails Vote on Health Care as Answering ‘the Call of History,” The New York Times, March 22, 2010, p. A1.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

Tax Avoidance at GE: On Corporate Income Taxation

In spite of $14.2 billion in global operating profit ($5.1 billion on U.S. operations) in 2010, GE paid no corporate income tax to the U.S. Treasury that year thanks to offsetting prior losses by GE Capital (i.e., bad loans).  In spite of that unit having received TARP funds from U.S. taxpayers, the corporation was able to avoid paying any income tax. This seems like Rousseau's social contract run amuck: corporate welfere in exchange for nada.  Such a modus operendi is in line with the corporate mission: to economize in the sense of maximizing (or satisficing) what is taken in while minimizing what must go out.  In other words, a corporation aims to turn itself from a productive, lean throughput to a concentration of capital in its own right.

The full essay is at "Tax Avoidance at GE."

BP Clips Societal Norms

In Senate testimony on May 11, 2010,  the three companies did their best to point the finger at each other, with the result that neither BP, Transocean or Halliburton would admit, undoubtedly for liability purposes, any contributory role. In the midst of such liability evasion, those of us in the wider society want to get to the bottom of the accident so future such accidents can be prevented. In pointing the finger at the other guy while ignoring one’s own role, the managers of the three companies are added insult to injury.  

The full essay is at "BP Clips Societal Norms"

Is Corporate Social Responsibility the Same as Business Ethics?

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is typically thought to be a topic in the field of business ethics. If a company is socially responsible, it is typically presumed to be ethical in being socially responsible. Solidifying this attribution, some scholars of CSR have even sought to explicitly base it on specific ethical principles. However, contrasting a corporate policy with societal norms or specifying how corporations can get in line with them is not to provide an ethical justification.  Even if a societal norm is consistent with an ethical principle, the norm itself is something that is, rather than a justification for what ought to be. To attempt to derive ought from is is known as the naturalistic fallacy. It is like getting what ought to be from a melon ripening in a field. Is does not imply or justify ought.


This paragraph has been incorporated into the introduction in Cases of Unethical Business, which is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.