PERRYGRAPHS

Riffing on Contemporary Ethics

This is turning out very different from where I intended it to go. I envisioned an academic column from my philosophy background discussing ethics – you know, hedonism, utilitarianism, authority, manipulation, even motives. Well some of that is in here, but the piece is much more rambling and personal than I expected. Some preaching sneaked in too. So here are my thoughts, still very much under development.

I have been noticing many new problems arising from changing times and new technology especially. Many of them are being discussed in the intelligent press, but I’m not sure how they interface with traditional ethics. These pieces will be an effort to begin that conversation.

Just this past month, the hacking of the Democratic National Committee came up along with the Clinton campaign organization. These two events remind us immediately of the recent scandal of Hillary’s unauthorized use of a private server as Secretary of State, thus not availing herself of the maximum safety strategies of the US. Look at all the questions these issues raise:

1 – When does hacking become a crime? In the early days of computer development, the geeks developing the technology considered everything fair game. If you could do it, then by all means strut your stuff. But 30 years ago, even 20, none of these events could happen. They were not likely to happen even ten years ago. I remember when Obama became president, he was frustrated that the Secret Service wanted him no longer to use the Blackberry he was accustomed to in order to text.

In the intervening time, everyone stores all sorts of documents on their computers and mobiles. There are even increasing numbers of “cloud” sites that enable one to use the same documents on desktops and mobiles, even sharing them with others.

A.   – There is little disagreement that hacking in order to steal material is wrong, whether social security numbers and other identifiers or documents. “Thou shalt not steal” is virtually axiomatic in every ethical code.

B.   – There is disputed grounds about whether documents, once hacked, should be released. The security clearances of several people did not keep them from releasing to the newspapers all sorts of political and secret documents. Many of those items gave the public a needed and fuller picture of international diplomacy. Much of the material was similar to stories collected in various histories and biographies. But those tales as presented are hearsay and can be discounted. Printing the actual documents however, is another kettle of fish. Yet while the overall result can be counted as salubrious, still these people did violate their oaths of office.

   Note the newspapers also are confronted with an ethical problem. When the New York Times received the stolen emails, they had long discussions prior to deciding to publish. The threat – almost certain – of outlaw websites like Anonymous publishing them seems to have tipped the balance. At least the Times did some selective editing before they published, presumably on the lookout for release of top secret material.

  A May edition of Vanity Fair published an interview with Edward Snowden who leaked so much material to Glenn Greenwald, who in turn furnished it to the NYTimes and a London paper. In the interview Snowden expresses a careful delineation between what should and should not be revealed. Putting people’s lives at risk by publishing their names is wrong. Julius Asange disagrees. Snowden believes in spying and secrecy, but disagrees on what should be secret. (Is this similar to the  discussion re the Clinton emails about what is confidential and top secret?) Wikileaks and Anonymous seems to have not qualms about revealing anything. Snowden says he appreciates the low level people at NSA, but distrusts the top brass. Which raises the question about a private or even a captain questioning a general’s orders. Theoretically a solder can refuse to commit a war crime, but in actual practice…?

*A Basic Issue: What do you do when you strongly object morally to the rules or commands you are expected to obey? Gandhi and King proposed and effectively used a passive resistance technique where to refused to obey and took the consequences. It turned out to be a powerful way to bring change, but only after pain and deaths.

These two are related to the “right to privacy,” which we first heard about in the court affirmation of abortion. I’m an aficionado of cop shows, both in books and tv. For several years now, almost every program or book at some point has authorities turning to security cameras for recorded evidence or to locate someone’s whereabouts.

   Even in small towns, businesses have security cameras, and even households have cameras to record people on the property. What are the ethics of this? It seems ok if I want to put a live camera aimed at my door, so I can see who’s knocking. (Although we’ve gotten by for thousands of years by simply calling out, “Who’s there?”

The trade-off in this area, as it’s developing in some others, is security versus personal control. What right does anyone have to know what store I went to, what I did there, and to whom I talked? Presumably the owner has the right to survey his property. After all, if he were standing there in person, he would see the same thing. But do other parties, like the police or government or hackers also have that right?

The ultimate fear goes back to a tyrannical government controlling its citizens and taking away their freedom. See the novels 1984 and Brave New World.

II. – What about Ad-tracking?

     Yesterday I looked up a book for someone on Amazon. Today on Facebook I saw an ad for that book and another by the same author. This is now normal, if a little spooky at first. FB defends the policy by saying we are going to put up ads anyway so wouldn’t you rather have ads that might interest you? But another way to put the question might be wouldn’t you rather have ads that are more likely to entice you to spend money? Hmmm.

     If you’re not, you should become familiar with computer “cookies.” A cookie is an electronic marker a website places in your computer browser that will identify you the next time you arrive on their site. These can be great. Thus I went on my library account this morning and it recognized me and printed out my card number for me. Likewise Facebook doesn’t require me to sign in, but connect immediately with the correct feed. (I do wish it would let me change the default to “Latest” instead of what their mysterious algorithm thinks is “most important.” On either feed, they are not likely to show a post from a friend who only posts a few times a year. I would argue those are the most important ones I want to see!

    

This is probably too much to read now, so I’ll post and come back later…