We're all governed by different sets of morals in life. But what happens when personal morals and beliefs interfere with obligations in the workplace? For a lawyer, it's a common occurrence. It happened to me recently when my boss walked into my office and asked if I wanted to work on a big case with an attorney handling product liability lawsuits. First, this is not my area of expertise. I'm a trademark lawyer, working to clear and protect major brands throughout the world. Second, the client is a large car manufacturer being sued for faulty equipment which resulted in death or serious injury for others. My role in the case would be negotiating settlements to compensate people for brain damage or serious injury. In some situations, I would be negotiating with family members of the deceased to settle lawsuits against the car manufacturer. How can you place a monetary value on the ability to think, or on the loss of a loved one? I don't wish to be put in this position, so I declined the offer to work on the case. As a result, I lost a big financial bonus. The other attorney wasn't pleased with my decision and made it known to my boss.
The issue also frequently arises for defense attorneys, but these people are usually a unique breed. People who really believe in the justice system and the founding principle that everyone deserves a trial. Some of my friends work on the defense side, representing people they know are guilty of assault, physical abuse, major drug crimes or even murder. Where such people draw the line is unclear to me. What if your client admitted he or she is a child molester? Could you still represent them, try to find some loophole in the prosecutor's case, and save them from a conviction? For me the answer to all of these scenarios is NO.
I'm certain people in other professions face similar dilemmas. How about ad agencies? What if you were asked to advertise a harmful drug or target alcohol or cigarette ads to poor people or minors? Or work on an ad campaign for the KKK or some other extremist group to which you are opposed? One of my friends always tells me to push personal beliefs and morals aside and just "do the fucking job."
Of course the most extreme examples are the whistle-blowers, people who betray their executive, clearance and intelligence obligations to out what they believe are government or corporate wrongs. In general, I fully support these people. But this Snowden character, currently hiding out in Moscow, is distinguishable. He admitted he took the defense contractor job with the sole purpose of leaking classified information. Honestly I don't know what to think of him. I will say only that I don't really care if the U.S. government is monitoring my calls or emails if it prevents homegrown and international extremists from launching attacks. I don't know how Russian press is treating this, but it's a real international saga in the U.S. media. The burning question is how long will Putin shelter Snowden?
What do you think? Do we have a right to let moral or personal beliefs interfere with the job we're being paid to do? If it means the difference between a paycheck and unemployment, the moral line I've drawn may certainly be blurred but I doubt it will ever be fully erased.
The issue also frequently arises for defense attorneys, but these people are usually a unique breed. People who really believe in the justice system and the founding principle that everyone deserves a trial. Some of my friends work on the defense side, representing people they know are guilty of assault, physical abuse, major drug crimes or even murder. Where such people draw the line is unclear to me. What if your client admitted he or she is a child molester? Could you still represent them, try to find some loophole in the prosecutor's case, and save them from a conviction? For me the answer to all of these scenarios is NO.
I'm certain people in other professions face similar dilemmas. How about ad agencies? What if you were asked to advertise a harmful drug or target alcohol or cigarette ads to poor people or minors? Or work on an ad campaign for the KKK or some other extremist group to which you are opposed? One of my friends always tells me to push personal beliefs and morals aside and just "do the fucking job."
Of course the most extreme examples are the whistle-blowers, people who betray their executive, clearance and intelligence obligations to out what they believe are government or corporate wrongs. In general, I fully support these people. But this Snowden character, currently hiding out in Moscow, is distinguishable. He admitted he took the defense contractor job with the sole purpose of leaking classified information. Honestly I don't know what to think of him. I will say only that I don't really care if the U.S. government is monitoring my calls or emails if it prevents homegrown and international extremists from launching attacks. I don't know how Russian press is treating this, but it's a real international saga in the U.S. media. The burning question is how long will Putin shelter Snowden?
What do you think? Do we have a right to let moral or personal beliefs interfere with the job we're being paid to do? If it means the difference between a paycheck and unemployment, the moral line I've drawn may certainly be blurred but I doubt it will ever be fully erased.
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*Off top: Perry Mason is my favorite attorney :)
There is much more than a "moral" question to me, the concern is about the basic rights of people. And I'd be outraged. An intelligence service, secret or not, is an authority that must obey the basic rights of the people. Privacy is one of them. If I am not mistaken, there is a statement about this in the US Constitution. If they want to break your privacy they must have a court decision allowing them to do so for a good reason and a specific case. Clearly, they want it to be different. Control of information about yourself increases the power of government authorities on you. The more they know, the bigger is the Big Brother that is watching you, and the less power you have to resist him or just fight off to let you live in peace.
Allowing the authorities to read your E-mails that are expected to be private, making searches of your belongings and stripping you down with no options to resist, etc., etc., is always justified by a zillion extremists just waiting for a chance to blow you up. The reality is, an extremist in the US and in the West is an extremely rare animal. There have been only two or three attack ATTEMPTS in the US within 12 years after 11/9. There have been just four plots to attack the airplanes in the Western countries in 12 years after 11/9, and all of them failed. Your chance of being hit by extremists are probably a bit higher than being hit by a meteor and a lot less than being shot dead in a shooting attack, which are A LOT more common, but still do not lead to firearms ban. Road incidents have a five orders of magnitude higher probability than this. The money spent by the US to the national security is about $75 bln per year which is only justified if you have approximately 1000 Boston attacks per year, or one 11/9 attack per year. I think they were just wasting your money. But there is never enough money and power, and now they try to sneak in into your PC without even being given the right to do so.
And "I don't care" is not a really good option. When they don't see extremists on horizon, they will be looking for them in the lawful population. Having unlimited power provokes to use it for other purposes: to spy on senators, on business, on political opponents and on you, and this will have nothing to do with your interests, but only with the interests of keeping their power and control to make their political positions undisputable.
Putin is no better. He is, too, the man of control. So Snowden is not his type and he will get rid of this guy; he just wants to show his resistance to the US, nothing more. In Russia, we are under surveillance as well. The intelligence service is spying on all political opponents, most of the NGOs, many political and public activists. They recently revealed that the phone of Mr. Navalny has been listened to from as early as 2009 when we didn't even hear his name.
Yes, they are monitoring the extremists at the same time and prevent a number of terror attacks. But the main goal is always different and it is the same both in the US and in Russia. It is to keep the fat guys in power to be in power forever.
Ask yourself a question, are you ready to give up your basic right of privacy to keep the fat guys in power to remain in power forever?
Edited at 2013-06-26 05:46 am (UTC)
But homegrown extremists are a continuing problem. The Tsnarnaev brothers are the latest example. We had the Fort Hood shooter, and all of these people who walk into public places like schools or movie theatres and blow their fellow citizens away with guns. They're all extremists in my mind. I'm not speaking only about Islamists or traditional "terrorists."
The Fourth Amendment protects against unlawful "searches and seizures." But there are exceptions to when a warrant is required and public safety is one of them. Besides the First Amendment, this is probably one of the most important protections in the Bill of Rights.
Putin, well he's not going to hand over Snowden. It's like a wet dream for him - to have the U.S. begging him for cooperation and him having ultimate control. But he's under no legal obligation to return Snowden as the U.S. has no extradition agreements with Russia. If Putin wished to cooperate, he could easily find a basis to return him (maybe Snowden doesn't have the requisite Russian visa or something similar), but this will not happen. And honestly, America cannot be demanding cooperation from countries like China when they would not do the same in return. If a political dissident from China fled to America, we would likely protect him or her and ignore China's demand for return.
It's all a very slippery slope when it comes to civil liberties, be it expression, privacy, etc. I write about it frequently, but don't have the answers. There's never an easy solution or balance.
Sorry for my English, it's not so good:)
Thank for the post.
P.S. in one old Soviet toon, Armenian one, Armenia was Soviet repablic, old man said, " make good things, (or dids), and throw`em into the deep see". They gonna be back when you never be expected.
U.S. Dostoyevsky - lol! :)) Regarding your P.S., this is the concept of karma. It's how I live my life - good deeds usually come back to you somehow, while bad ones come back to bite you in the ass. I've seen it happen many times with myself and others.
Edited at 2013-06-26 03:21 pm (UTC)
Government and other social/political institutions were made to protect individual, not vice versa, so moral is prior to right/duty (see Hugh Cecil's "Conservatism" for instance).
And considering Snowden - I do hope that he gets to a safer place, because what he did was also right. Israel had means to keep terrorism at bay before there was Internet, so I doubt that USA can't do the same.
In press he is mostly portrayed as a hero or at least as a good guy, for we do not want the Big Brother to look over our shoulder, we had enough of this since 1920-s.
But if these workers' families want to cue a car manufacturer what is their goal? Money, anyway?
If so. they themselves are not against money for lives and health damage.
"To settle" in my understanding is then just a try to pay them such (or less) money without going to court.
BTW "to protect major brands" would contradict MY principles if we are talking about freedom of information or production of generic copies of medical drugs.
Concerining privacy and Snowden... it's a hard dilemma.
Technology now gives to terrorists too much power to impact others.
So the only solution to prevent this would be to watch almost everybody.
This scandal is maybe good for Putin but as he said in the very beginning of it Snowden's information is absolutely not a surprise.
I work in the IT industry and there always was pretty good understanding that all major mail services, search engines and social networks cooperate with the respective governments.
Generic copies of pharmaceuticals - this is a patent issue. Not trademark. :) I don't have a scientific or technical mind, and know nothing about patent law. I help companies and individuals protect their brand names around the world, and register them with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other foreign equivalents. So, if someone is using the famous LEXUS brand as the name of their business and they are not affiliated with Toyota, I'll send them a letter and tell them to stop. It's just one example, there are lots of other factors in the trademark equation.
We had young pioneers :)
visualhistory. livejournal. com/277672.html
One of the most famous stories by de Maupassant is "Boule de Suif". The plot is rather simple: respectable people flee from Rouen sharing the coach with a prostitute. They don't like her: she is so immoral! But they are hungry and she has food! So they love her: they like her food. At some moment they are arrested by Prussian officer who want to share a bed with the prostitute -- alas, she won't sleep with Prussian! All the respectable people try to convince her to do this for the sake of all them: officer won't let them go until he gets what he wants. But... When they continued the travel, they completely ignored her (especially when the food was concerned: now they had food, not her): how French girl could sleep with the enemy?
There is no reason for adults to discuss moral: everyone has it from childhood and won't change it easily :) Nekrasov has good poetry, I didn't find it in English, you may try to read in Russian: http://nekrasov.niv.ru/nekrasov/stihi/021.htm
For me doing morally right thing (or even logically right) is definitely better than agreeing with everything the boss says.
Edited at 2013-07-01 10:15 am (UTC)
http://youtu.be/GQy7S853w5M
But I , for instance, could never understand the doctors surgeons. and I could dissect the corpse.. it does not mean that I am "good" or "bad". or "undeveloped".. "All the people are very different and we are all one family, said Segal,Ринчопе" ))
Edited at 2015-12-16 08:21 am (UTC)
Santoro Catholics.. that they are "thunder stones" is a fetish. "spaceships"