Ethics Newsline®

There’s a quick explanation for the dozen recent sniper-style shootings in the Washington, DC, area: international terrorism, linked to al Qaeda. It’s probably wrong. Terrorism, after all, is a message system, in which killing only serves a purpose if it makes a point. But al Qaeda’s usual points — death to America, down with Israel, purification of Islam — are nowhere in sight. Nor is there an apparent pattern linking victims, choice of crime scenes, time of day, or other symbols. If it’s terrorism, the terrorists aren’t getting their message across.

How, then, to explain the sniper’s motivation? It requires the confluence of four very different trends: the sophistication of weaponry, the prevalence of extreme sports, an acceptability of suicide, and a rising moral vacuity. Each trend is new. Each is long-term. And each needs the others to make this killer succeed.

No question about the weaponry. The long-range accuracy of the sniper’s rifle didn’t exist a century ago. What’s more, this killer is a skilled marksman, suggesting sophisticated training over a long period. In the weapons culture of present-day America, both his tool and his skills are readily available, easy to acquire, and easy to hide.

Then there’s extreme sports. In a culture with few ways for the young to prove themselves courageous (or the old to prove themselves young), extreme sports provides real allure. Why else risk life and limb in harrowing, dangerous activities, except for the thrill of the experience and the satisfaction of knowing you had the courage to endure? Nor must the “sport” be athletic. President Clinton’s Oval Office dalliances with Monica Lewinsky were not the work of someone taking care to prevent discovery, but rather of an extreme-sports mentality for whom the risk was integral to the experience. The sniper, too, exhibits an in-your-face, catch-me-if-you-can bravura.

Add in suicide, and you can explain the sniper’s willingness to consider his own death as the price of admission to this terrible game. The events of 9/11 and the prevalence of suicide bombings in Israel have raised the profile of suicide as a tactic in warfare. They’ve also desensitized us to its horrors. In this mental atmosphere, it’s now easier than ever for a serial killer to accept the risk of his own death. If he wanted less risk, there are lonelier targets than the public (and potentially suicidal) ones he’s chosen.

But the above trends only come into play if there’s a moral chip missing from the sniper’s mental motherboard. Marksmanship and extreme sports are fine if undertaken by ethical individuals who are compassionate, responsible, and respectful of others. And a fascination with suicide has less appeal in a moral culture in which fairness lets every voice be heard and candor speaks up for the marginalized.

So which of these four trends can we control? The weapons genie won’t go back in its bottle, though we can regulate availability and training. Extreme sports — at least those done for little more than derring-do — will be with us until the thirst to prove physical courage is replaced with a comparable hunger for feats of moral courage. Suicide is a tougher issue, requiring a shift of consciousness from “everything to die for” to “everything to live for.”

But moral vacuity can be overcome — slowly and not without difficulty, but steadily and consciously. Corporate ethics training programs, political codes that elevate the tone of campaigns, character education programs in the schools — all of these work. So do strong families, well-run community and religious organizations, and thoughtful public media. In the end, the sniper had to come from somewhere; something had to shape his values. Will those values become models for others, or object lessons in how not to act? How fast can we build a culture that turns them into the latter?

(c)2002 by the Institute for Global Ethics

“This is like Enron all over again. They’re cooking the books, and it’s all to the detriment of the public.”

– Kent Wilkinson, a senior appraiser for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Utah, speaking to the Washington Post. According to agency documents obtained by the Post, “the Bush administration recently agreed to a massive land swap with Utah even though the federal government’s own experts had warned that the deal amounted to a $100 million giveaway by U.S. taxpayers.” That report was apparently corroborated last week by an independent review of the BLM, which found a widespread pattern of abuse and fraud in land deals, causing investigators to call for a moratorium on all land-swap deals, as well as possible civil and criminal prosecution. (“U.S. Ignored Appraisers in Land Deal with Utah,” Washington Post, Aug. 19.)

HOUSTON
Accounting firm Arthur Andersen was hit last week with five years’ probation and a $500,000 fine — the maximum penalty allowed by the law — for its role in hindering investigators looking into the collapse of Enron.

Last week’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon comes exactly one year after Enron released its third-quarter figures, reporting a $1.2 billion restatement of past earnings, reported the Houston Chronicle.

In June, a jury convicted Andersen of obstruction of justice after hearing evidence of document shredding and email excisions. In August, the firm lost the right to audit publicly traded companies.

With less than 1,000 of the 28,000 employees it had one year ago, Andersen is now a shadow of its former $4 billion self, struggling more to recover its name than its profits, observed the Chronicle.

In last week’s ruling, Judge Harmon sided with prosecutor Sam Buell to give Andersen the harshest penalty possible under existing law.

“Andersen’s conduct in obstructing the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of Enron,” Buell asserted, significantly “contributed to … the historic shaking of the foundations of our markets.”

Andersen said it will appeal the ruling.

WASHINGTON
The White House last week ordered a government review into the possibility of a national database of gun “fingerprints” to be used by police tracing the path of weapons used in crimes like the current killings by a sniper in the Washington area.

The government’s decision follows growing debate over gun control in the United States following 12 sniper attacks near Washington. Over the past three weeks, nine people have been killed and three critically wounded.

A growing number of lawmakers and gun-control groups has renewed calls for a database of all guns sold in the United States. The database would hold the “fingerprints” — images of the distinct marks made on bullets by a gun’s barrel — of all handguns, rifles, and other firearms sold.

Currently, only two states — Maryland and New York — employ such databases, and they only hold information for handguns, not rifles like the one being used by the sniper, reported the Associated Press.

Throughout the early part of the week, the Bush administration, which has enjoyed strong support from the National Rifle Association, dismissed the need for a national database of gun fingerprints, saying they were concerned about gun rights and unconvinced of the system’s effectiveness.

“New laws don’t stop people like this,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said of the sniper.

After mounting criticism, Fleischer later said Bush would set aside his doubts to ask for a review of the proposed database by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A current ATF database of gun fingerprints taken from seized weapons holds 867,000 images and has produced 12,000 matches, according to a study released in May, the paper noted.

While supporters of the database admit it may not provide conclusive evidence in every crime, they say it will give investigators a leg up in the race to catch criminals using registered weapons.

“If you ask any of the hundreds of investigators working to find the sniper, they would very much like to know where the gun first was sold and who first bought it,” Matt Bennett, director of public affairs at Americans for Gun Safety, contended to the Reuters news agency. “If we had a national ballistics fingerprinting system in place, they probably would have that information.”

ROME
The Vatican last week rejected a sweeping set of reforms proposed by U.S. bishops in response to the recent sexual abuse scandal, saying revisions were necessary before the Pope would sign the new rules.

Last June, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops quickly crafted a zero-tolerance policy for alleged abusers after coming under scathing criticism for sheltering abusive priests.

But the Vatican said the zero-tolerance policy used terminology that was too vague and included reforms that were “difficult to reconcile” with church law, reported the Associated Press.

“For these reasons it has been judged appropriate that … a further reflection on and revision of” the U.S. policies are needed, the Vatican insisted.

The Rev. Robert Bullock told the Associated Press that he understood the Vatican’s concerns, saying the U.S. policies “did all the things necessary for victims, but the question is what does it do to due process for priests.”

Catholic reform groups were quick to blast the Holy See for the move, saying the Vatican was dragging its feet and trying to exercise a “line-item veto” over necessary reforms that it simply does not like.

Bishop Wilton Gregory, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he expects a revised document to be drafted by next month, when U.S. bishops will meet again, noted Reuters.

Last week, reform groups urged the United Nations to intervene in the scandal, demanding that the Vatican be punished for allegedly failing to protect children from abuse as agreed in a UN treaty signed by the Holy See.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida
Clergy members may be excluded from juries because they tend to be too sympathetic to criminal defendants, a Florida appeals court ruled last week.

Observers say the case points out two problems: the stereotyping of clergy members’ beliefs about justice, and prosecutors who may use false pretenses to eliminate jurors on the basis of race.

Last week’s decision comes in the case of Jason Rodriguez, who appealed his 2001 battery conviction after learning that a black juror, Rev. Robert Cook, had been disqualified because he was a pastor.

At the time of Rodriguez’s trial, prosecutor Alan Johnson had asked for Cook to be disqualified without specifying the reason.

Under U.S. law, race cannot be used as a factor in challenging a juror, and if race is a suspected factor, opposing attorneys have the right to demand an explanation of a juror’s peremptory disqualification. When Johnson failed to articulate his rationale for Cook’s disqualification, the judge in the case offered a reason for him: Cook’s religious faith.

“We do know that pastors for the most part — and ministers and rabbis — have a tendency to be sympathetic” to criminal defendants, judge Howard Berman offered, according to a report from the New York Times.

Last week, a Florida appeals court upheld that line of reasoning, ruling that Rev. Cook’s strong religious beliefs made him too likely to be lenient, rejecting Rodriguez’s appeal.

That view has previously been upheld by both the Ninth and Fifth U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, which have agreed that there is “a legitimate concern that ministers are uniquely forgiving.”

Observers say such rulings are troubling because they cast a wide net over religious officials, inferring a person’s political beliefs because of their profession — a practice Florida’s Supreme Court has ruled illegal.

Others say the religious arguments may be a cover to keep blacks off juries — a practice ruled illegal in 1986 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which recently has been asked to clarify its decision.

“There are plenty of ministers who have hearts of stone,” Bruce Rogow, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, contended to the Times. “If you had a white, Christian, fundamentalist minister, I don’t think he would have been excluded.”

Rodriguez’s lawyer said his client will not appeal last week’s ruling.

DETROIT
In a ruling that may add new legal implications to abortion cases, a Michigan appeals court ruled last week that a pregnant woman has the right to kill her attacker if she fears the abuse would imperil her fetus, even though her own life is not directly threatened.

The 3-to-0 decision by the Michigan Court of Appeals overturns the conviction of Jaclyn Kurr, a woman pregnant with quadruplets, who stabbed her boyfriend to death after he punched her twice in the stomach.

Kurr, who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the case, is serving five to 20 years in prison. Kurr, who suffered a miscarriage in prison, now faces a retrial.

At the heart of Kurr’s case is Michigan’s “defense of others” law, which allows people to use deadly force to protect others from physical attack, reported the Detroit Free Press.

In October, Kurr was convicted after Judge Richard Ryan Lamb ruled that she could not use the “defense of others” argument with relation to her fetuses, which were not viable because she was only 17 weeks pregnant.

The court said that fetuses are considered viable — able to live outside the mother’s womb — only after 22 weeks, reported the Free Press.

Last week, the state’s appeals court overruled Judge Lamb, saying the “defense of others” provision should “extend to the protection of a fetus, viable or nonviable, from an assault against the mother.”

While the court said its ruling applies narrowly and only in assault cases, observers say the decision is likely to spill over into the wider fight over when a fetus becomes a person protected by the law.

In overturning Kurr’s conviction, the appeals court referred to her fetuses as “her unborn children,” effectively equating conception with personhood — a position supported by the Bush administration and some congressional lawmakers opposed to abortion.

The court’s ruling in this case applies only to “unlawful bodily harm against another” — a classification that would exempt abortion clinics from prosecution, since abortion is currently legal, noted the Free Press.

NEW YORK
Viacom Inc. last week pledged to put its vast media empire to work against AIDS, announcing a two-year international effort aimed at fighting the spread and stigma of the disease.

The $120 million effort will include public service announcements (PSAs), billboards, radio spots, and story lines woven into Viacom’s TV and film holdings, company president Mel Karmazin said last week.

Viewers of TV networks BET, CBS, MTV, and UPN should start to see signs of the campaign by season’s end on shows such as “Frasier,” “The District,” and “Star Trek: Enterprise,” reported the Associated Press.

While the company is asking its writers, directors, and programmers to join the effort, Karmazin stressed that participation is not compulsory and that executives would not dictate editorial content.

While TV networks have long worked to raise the public’s awareness of certain issues, Viacom’s campaign breaks new ground by pitting a conglomerate’s vast sprawl of media resources against a single issue — especially one often deemed editorially dangerous by corporations.

Admitting that the AIDS-awareness campaign may raise some eyebrows and ire because it tackles a disease often linked to sex and drug use, Viacom said the two-year effort is worth the potential trouble.

More expensive than the cost of the campaign is the cost of doing nothing, Viacom chief spokesman Carl Folta told the New York Times, noting that if current trends continue, 100 million people will die of AIDS by 2020.

“There are still 40,000 new cases of AIDS every year in the United States, so people still are not getting the message,” Folta said. Blacks and heterosexual women are particularly at risk, according to figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Viacom, whose MTV network began airing AIDS-related PSAs seven years ago, said the time is right to unite its resources in a coordinated campaign.

“AIDS is more severe now than it has ever been,” Imara Jones, director of the initiative at Viacom, told the Reuters news agency. “It is something that is not curable, but it is preventable if people have information, and we believe that we are uniquely suited, along with other media companies, to provide that information.”

Also pitching in is the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which is donating $1 million and helping Viacom develop the PSAs, which will be made available at no cost to other media outlets.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

OTTAWA
The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that Canadian government officials are warning that there could be another major Canada-U.S. trade war looming if the U.S. Congress passes a pending energy bill before it recesses for the November 5 midterm elections.

Included in that bill are measures to heavily subsidize a natural gas pipeline from Alaska that runs through western Canada.

The proposed pipeline, estimated to cost about $20 billion to construct, is the largest energy project in U.S. history and is designed to promote energy security in the light of Middle East tensions.

However, the congressional bill, if passed, would seal the fate of a much cheaper all-Canadian pipeline option that would take the Alaska gas and run it through the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, and Alberta.

However, the Assembly of First Nations, a national lobbying group supporting native inhabitants, and other representatives from Canada’s Yukon who support the Alaska pipeline — which would bring benefits to their part of northern Canada — have criticized the Canadian opposition to the Alaska pipeline. They argue that because Canada will have to approve the Canadian part of the Alaska pipeline route, federal officials may be using it as leverage for getting concessions on the other trade wars with the United States, especially with regard to softwood lumber exports from Canada.

WASHINGTON
The Bush administration last week sided with the auto industry in a fight against fuel efficiency standards adopted in California’s bid to clean its air, saying the state has no right to set mileage requirements.

California, long given a liberal hand to rein in smog and pollutants, recently mandated that at least 10 percent of auto sales in the 2003 to 2008 model years be electric or “zero-emission vehicles.”

In a bid to make the tough measure more palatable to automakers, the state added compromise language allowing manufacturers to meet part of the target by selling hybrid cars using both electricity and gas.

Automakers took that carrot and made it into a stick, hitting California with a lawsuit complaining that the compromise language effectively — and illegally — dictates fuel-efficiency standards, reported the New York Times.

Last week, the U.S. Justice Department joined in the fight, filing a brief arguing that the state has no right to set fuel standards — a prerogative accorded only to the federal government.

California counters that their law falls under an exception allowed by the federal Clean Air Act — an argument soon to be heard by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

“The major issue isn’t the substance of the brief but the fact of the brief,” Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club’s global warming and energy program, complained to the Times, which notes the Bush administration’s need to woo Michigan’s auto industry voters, and White House chief of staff Andrew Card’s former role as chief lobbyist for General Motors.

The Justice Department insists it is simply upholding Congress’s will.

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) should immediately stop all land exchanges with private landowners and submit to civil and criminal investigation, according to an independent review that found egregious abuse of sales practices at taxpayers’ expense.

After years of complaints about how the BLM undervalues public lands and inflates valuations of private holdings to be swapped with the government, the agency asked a congressionally sanctioned consultant to look into its practices.

Last week, the consulting organization — the Appraisal Foundation — released its report, accusing the BLM of “abuses of the public trust” in managing its more than 260 million acres of public land, most of it in the West, reported the New York Times.

In response, the BLM transferred one lands program senior official and agreed to move its chief appraiser.

The foundation specifically examined the BLM’s mechanism for swapping protected federal lands with private landholders who want to develop the tracts.

In many cases, the government gave private parties sweetheart deals, sacrificing the public’s trust at taxpayers’ expense, the independent review asserted.

In one case, a Nevada developer worked a deal with the BLM to acquire 70 acres of public land for $763,000, then sold it the next day for $4.6 million, noted the Times.

Such abuses warrant an immediate moratorium on land exchanges, as well as a Justice Department investigation into BLM practices, including possible civil and criminal prosecution, the Appraisal Foundation noted.

Last week, BLM deputy director James Hughes was largely dismissive of the evaluation, saying the BLM would adopt a 90-day hold on land exchanges, but that a broader moratorium was not currently necessary.

DAVENTRY, England
A British business founded to make a difference is doing exactly that — and making a healthy profit in the process, according to a profile last week from the BBC, which spent a working day with Goodness Foods.

Goodness Foods, which manufactures and distributes health foods, operates on a democratic model, divvying up company ownership through shares and giving each worker a chance to weigh in on corporate decisions.

In addition, the company pays the same amount to each of its 70 staff members, from warehouse workers to company execs, many of whom have come to the firm after facing hard times, reported the BBC.

“Here we employ people who have been homeless, those who’ve had drink and drug problems, ex-cons, and asylum seekers,” marketing director Lesley Cutts told the BBC. “We train them to use a fork-lift truck, and they can take these skills elsewhere. It’s a mobile environment where people choose to work.”

While Goodness Foods is operated by a close-knit group of born-again Christians, they insist their work ethic does not include converting customers to their point of view, according to the company’s Web site.

All profits are rolled back into the company or given to local charities.

“We are all about using profits for charitable causes and making life better for other people, rather than just putting money in directors’ pockets,” Cutts told the BBC.

The BBC notes that while the company’s model may seem like a long shot, it is paying off handsomely for Goodness Foods, which has become one of Britain’s biggest distributors of health foods.

“We’re here to prove it can be done, and that it works financially,” Cutts added.

From Harris Interactive:

“The corporate scandals — from Enron and WorldCom to Global Crossing and Adelphia — have had a big impact on public attitudes toward top business managers, in general, not just those in the companies under investigation. Fully, 87 percent of all adults believe that most top company managers are paid more than they deserve, and that they become rich at the expense of ordinary workers.

“Most (85 percent) of those who think top managers become rich at the expense of ordinary workers are angry about it, and 46 percent are very angry.

“One major indication that attitudes toward business leaders have become more hostile as a result of the recent scandals is that two-thirds (66 percent) of all adults believe that rewards in the workplace are distributed less fairly today than they were five years ago….

“While anger at the unfairness of top managers pay and perks is widespread, it is particularly strong among the 37 percent of the public who say they are worse off today than they were five years ago…. In general the older people are, the more likely they are to say they are worse off, and to feel angrier….

“This big difference among the different age groups has important political implications. Only about a third of all adults will vote in the elections this November, and they will be disproportionately older. Indeed, about half of them will be over 50 (about 80 percent of whom are ‘angry’ that top managers have become rich at the expense of their employees).

“This issue would therefore seem to be an easy one for Democratic candidates to use against a Republican administration whose tax cuts have mainly benefited the rich. But, with impending military action against Iraq dominating the news, the Democrats have not yet exploited this issue….”

“No power is strong enough to be lasting if it labors under the weight of fear.”

–Cicero (Roman statesman, orator, and author, 106-43 B.C.)