Ethics Newsline®

In the aftermath of a massive terror attack, there often arises a curious mix of resilience and resignation. In the wake of last week’s bombings, Londoners did particularly well at the former.

That’s not surprising. Given their experience with Irish Republican Army bombings in London and their famous stoicism during the World War II blitz, they’ve developed a deep reservoir of physical and moral courage. So last week, rescue services swept into place immediately to clean up the carnage. Prime Minister Tony Blair returned briefly from the G-8 meeting in Scotland to bring words of condolence and determination. Prominent Muslims joined leaders of other religions in quick, unqualified condemnation of the bombings. Even the Queen visited the bedsides of the wounded. By the next day, Londoners were getting back on a (remarkably) still-operating underground system and heading to work.

But Londoners, like the rest of us, had their moments of resignation as well. Shocked by something so stunningly brutal, they found themselves telling one another that, in the end, there’s little you can do to stop terrorism. In a physical sense, they’re right. You can’t pat down every bus rider and detain every border crosser. But does that mean there’s no hope? Not at all. What we may be seeing in London is evidence that the terrorist mind-set will, by its very nature, provoke its own demise.

Students of terrorism long have recognized this mind-set as oddly akin to adolescence — not literally in the age ranges of those who practice it (though suicide bombers can be in their teens and early twenties) but stereotypically in the mentality of those who foment it. This mind-set comes with a devil-may-care bravura and believes fanatically in the invulnerability of its cause. It distrusts the settled convictions of its elders and sees its own ego as the center of the universe. Intolerant of ambiguity, it views reality as nothing but a set of fundamentalist, black-and-white polarities, and manifests an I’m-right-you’re-wrong certainty. As such, it is easily preyed upon by those who preach an instant, violent redress of perceived wrongs.

But as is so often the case with revolutionaries, terrorists are better at wrecking than creating. Building a social, cultural, and physical infrastructure is essentially a communal act. Destroying it takes only a few lonely figures. What’s more, building takes time. And time (or, more exactly, patience) is what neither stereotypical adolescents nor terrorists have — the former because they grow up, the latter because they fail unless they take action.

In our moments of resignation, we may imagine that terrorists hold all of the good cards, including patience. But terrorists get no satisfaction from deferred gratification. Unless they can make a difference pretty quickly — a big, deadly, impressive difference — they aren’t fulfilling their mission. That impatience may account for some of their strategic blunders. Had they strategized more carefully in 2001, they would have understood that the 9/11 attacks on the United States were over the top and would harden, not weaken, the will of their opponents. Had they had similar clarity in 2005, they would have let London alone rather than stimulate what may, in coming weeks, turn out to be a stiffened resolve and an uptick of popularity for both Blair and U.S. President George Bush. Put simply, they may have created a public relations disaster.

In our moments of resignation, however, we also tend to think that terrorists don’t need PR — that they have no interest in what the public thinks of them. That, too, doesn’t compute. It’s safe to assume that the London terrorists — unlike American “Unabomber” Theodore John Kaczynski, who was arrested in 1996 after sending a spate of letter bombs to university addresses — weren’t assembling explosives in utter solitude in cabins in the woods. Someone else surely knew the London bombs were being made — and some community, in or around London, supported that effort. But that community is affected by what people think. Once any community recognizes that terrorists and bomb-builders are bad people to have around, it’s only a short step to either their expulsion from the group or a tip to the police.

Terrorism, in other words, depends on secrecy. And that fact may carry the seeds of its own destruction. Why? Because, paradoxically, terrorism also requires publicity. What matters to terrorists is not that the bomb explodes but that the explosion is widely reported — and properly attributed, in the media, to their cause. Hence, at times, their impatience, their hunger for attention, and their insistence on proper credit — all of which, as undercover agents know, are temptations that can wreck your cover and blow your career.

That’s not to say that eradicating terrorism will be easy. But it does suggest that in proportion as we help strengthen and reform the communities that currently sustain terrorists — through a practiced ethic of justice, respect, compassion, candid exploration of grievances, and responsible and consistent promise-keeping — we make communities less willing to offer terrorists the secrecy they need. Slow process? Sure. Building always is. But time and patience are on the side of those who build rather than those who tear down.

©2005 Institute for Global Ethics

“If you look from an African perspective … there is good news here in aid and debt relief. (But) there are questions on whether Africa can absorb the aid, and on the donor side, on transparency. The aid business itself really needs to be refined. It can be a good thing, but corruption remains the number one issue.”

– Ross Herbert, director of South Africa’s Institute for International Affairs, discussing last week’s agreement by the Group of Eight — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom — to write off the debt of 14 African nations and collectively more than double annual aid to Africa (“G8 Aid, Debt Relief Not Seen as Panacea for Africa,” Reuters, July 10)

WASHINGTON
New York Times reporter Judith Miller was sent to jail last week after refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating whether government officials illegally exposed the identity of a covert CIA agent.

Miller has been fighting a subpoena by federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, saying that testifying would force her to violate a critical tenet of the free press — a promise of confidentiality to her sources. Fitzgerald argues that uncovering possible criminal acts by government officials trumps such concerns.

The Supreme Court refused to consider the case last month, leaving Miller with no recourse but to face jail time as demanded by federal judge Thomas Hogan, reported the New York Times.

Hogan last week belittled Miller’s arguments for preserving her promises of confidentiality in the face of the grand jury subpoena, characterizing her refusal as a “child saying, ‘I’m still going to take that chocolate chip cookie and eat it. I don’t care.’”

“I have a person in front of me who is defying the law,” Hogan said, ordering Miller to be taken to a detention center in Virginia.

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller last week defended Miller’s decision.

“The law presented Judy with the choice between betraying a trust to a confidential source or going to jail,” Keller said after the hearing last week. “The choice she made is a brave and principled choice, and it reflects a valuing of individual conscience that has been part of this country’s tradition since its founding.”

In an editorial published last week, the Times warned that “if Ms. Miller testifies, it may be immeasurably harder in the future to persuade a frightened government employee to talk about malfeasance in high places, or a worried worker to reveal corporate crimes.”

A second reporter facing similar pressure from the grand jury — Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper — likely will not face prison after he agreed at the last minute to testify, saying he had received last-minute permission from his source.

Cooper’s decision came shortly after Time announced that it would turn over his notes for his July 2003 article that said “some administration officials” had exposed Valerie Plame’s identity.

Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC similarly have acceded to Fitzgerald’s subpoenas after receiving permission from sources promised anonymity, noted the Times.

Unlike those reporters and the imprisoned Judith Miller, Robert Novak, the columnist responsible for first exposing Valerie Plame’s identity, remains at liberty and refuses to answer questions about his role in the scandal, including whether he has identified his anonymous sources to the grand jury.

Miller, who did background research but never published a story about Plame or Novak’s leak, was sentenced to remain in prison until she reveals her source or until the current grand jury term expires in October.

WASHINGTON
Fresh from beating criminal charges related to his company’s $2.7 billion accounting fraud, former HealthSouth head Richard Scrushy soon may face civil charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SEC last week filed papers seeking permission to pursue Scrushy, seeking $786 million in penalties and a lifetime ban from Scrushy’s serving as an officer or director of a public company.

U.S. District Judge Inge Johnson must give the government a green light for the case to proceed — permission that may be unlikely following Scrushy’s complete acquittal last month on 36 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and money laundering.

Last week, Johnson ordered the SEC to show cause why their civil case should not be dismissed, reported the Washington Post.

“Judges generally don’t like the government taking multiple shots at people on the same set of facts,” Washington lawyer Gregory Bruch, a former SEC lawyer, told the Post. “It’s extremely rare that this situation happens, and it’s something nobody at the SEC will be happy about.”

The government claimed Scrushy is guilty of overseeing the seven-year fraud at HealthSouth, which has brought guilty pleas from 15 former executives, including five former chief financial officers.

Many of the admitted felons say that Scrushy knew about the fraud — testimony that the jury in Scrushy’s criminal trial ultimately rejected in acquitting him.

Also last week, Scrushy signaled that he may pursue legal action against HealthSouth’s board of directors, complaining that he was illegally terminated, reported the Los Angeles Times.

“He had an employment contract with the company, and he would assert that he was illegally fired from his job under the terms of that contract,” Scrushy spokesman Charles Russell told the Times. “He will pursue his options under that contract.”

Current HealthSouth CEO Jay Grinney said the company was ready for any legal action, saying Scrushy would not be welcome back.

“I can tell you I’m not hiring him to any position,” Grinney said last week. “Might he launch some legal challenge? We don’t know, but we’re certainly ready for any legal challenge that might come.”

Gregory Taxin, chief executive of a San Francisco proxy advisory firm, last week told the Times that whether Scrushy is innocent or not likely will be unimportant to shareholders.

“The issue of whether Scrushy was guilty of fraud isn’t the point,” Taxin said. “The mere fact that he missed the massive fraud going on under his nose is going to be enough for shareholders to reject him as a director.”

FRANKFURT, Germany
German prosecutors last week said they will need several months to complete their investigation of Volkswagen AG, which has experienced several high-level resignations related to alleged bribery and corruption.

After an internal audit at VW found evidence of apparent kickbacks, the company filed a criminal complaint against Klaus Schuster, who resigned from the board of VW’s Czech unit last month.

Also targeted is Klaus-Joachim Gebauer, a Volkswagen human-resources employee who was fired for allegedly setting up dummy companies to win business from VW.

Gebauer’s boss, personnel chief Peter Hartz, last week offered his resignation, saying he accepts “political responsibility for the irregularities of individual employees,” reported MSNBC.

The criminal charges come amidst a broader investigation into VW’s management practices, with prosecutors probing allegations that the company plied workers’ labor representatives with favors and bribes in order to win their support on management decisions.

VW board member Klaus Volkert last week resigned as head of VW’s workers’ council after 15 years at the post. He has denied any wrongdoing.

In addition to the outside investigation by German prosecutors, VW has hired auditing firm KPMG to look into the charges.

WASHINGTON
The American Psychological Association (APA), responding to recent accounts that some members have assisted with coercive interrogations at the Guantánamo Bay detention center, last week released a report attempting to clarify ethical boundaries for mental health officials.

The report recognizes a legitimate role for psychologists in acting as consultants to interrogators but warns against using their knowledge “to the detriment and safety of an individual’s well-being,” reported the New York Times.

Psychologists involved in questioning detainees should be “mindful of factors unique to these roles and contexts that require special ethical consideration,” the APA said.

The APA report prohibits psychologists from utilizing torture or other inhumane methods to obtain intelligence from the detainees.

According to the testimony of former interrogators, some mental health professionals, who may have been psychologists or psychiatrists, helped “break” prisoners by increasing stress levels, using such tactics as capitalizing on their fear of darkness or desire to see their mothers.

Leonard Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, criticized the new APA report for failing to unambiguously outline appropriate behavior for mental health professionals.

“In view of what has happened at places like Guantánamo, we need clarity, and what’s lacking here is an explicit commitment not to participate in coercive interrogations,” Rubenstein told the Times.

DURBAN, South Africa
Jacob Zuma, the sacked — but still widely popular — deputy president of South Africa, appeared briefly last week in court to be scheduled for trial on the two counts of corruption that led to his firing.

Zuma was fired two weeks ago by President Thabo Mbeki after being implicated in bribery and kickback scandals involving businessman Schabir Shaik, who has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The Durban Magistrate’s Court ordered Zuma to return to court in October to defend himself against allegations related to Shaik’s conviction. He was released on bail of about $150, reported the Reuters news agency.

Zuma has denied any wrongdoing and asked for a speedy trial that he says will clear his name.

Despite being fired from his post, Zuma has retained his position as deputy president of the African National Congress political party, according to Reuters.

LONDON
Britain last week continued debating the merits of slapping misbehaving people with antisocial behavior orders, or “Asbos,” which assign penalties and restrictions in an effort to make the streets safer.

The debate over the effectiveness of the Asbos program comes after a new report charting a steep uptick in the number of Asbos issued in the past year, reported the Guardian.

The U.K. Home Office last week reported that 768 Asbos were issued in the last quarter of 2004 — a 116% jump over the same period in 2003. Since 1999, a total of 4,649 Asbos have been issued, with more than half targeting youths aged 10 to 17.

While the government defends its Asbos system as an important tool to curbing violent and intimidating behavior, others say the program is failing to reduce misbehavior, curbing important civil rights, and targeting people who simply do not fit the norm.

Asbos can restrict someone from being in a certain area or committing any act specified in the order.

The Home Office report noted that more than 40 percent of Asbos recipients now violate their restrictions. Such breaches can incur penalties ranging from five years in jail to fines of $5,000, according to the Guardian.

The government last week put into effect changes meant to make Asbos more effective, including a $500,000 boost in funding for Asbos-related treatment programs such as anger management and drug treatment, noted the BBC.

It also loosened rules to allow local media to report on Asbos offenders and adopted measures to let witnesses testify from behind screens or through intermediaries in order to minimize the likelihood of retaliation by those hit with Asbos.

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida
A Florida man accused of illegally logging onto his neighbor’s wireless Internet connection will face a pretrial hearing this week in one of the nation’s first criminal cases involving wireless fraud.

Police arrested Benjamin Smith III in April on felony charges of unauthorized access to a computer network after a man called police to report that Smith was suspiciously hunched over a laptop computer in a vehicle outside of his home.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement cannot produce statistics relating to unauthorized use of someone else’s wireless network because the problem is so new, but experts say it is common.

More than 10 million U.S. homes now are equipped with high-speed Internet routers, emitting signals over 200 feet, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

Hackers have capitalized on unprotected household wireless systems to download child pornography, send threatening emails, and steal financial information.

“The information age is over. The information is out there,” Jim Guerin, a city technology director in Florida, told the Times. “Now it’s the connectivity age. It opens up a whole new area for ethics, legal boundaries, and responsibilities. It’s a whole new frontier.”

From the U.K. government’s Department of Trade and Industry:

“A sweeping change in the way that employees balance work and family responsibilities is revealed today with the publication of one of the most comprehensive studies of the British workplace.

“Equal opportunities have grown in importance, and employers now have a much greater understanding of the need for flexible working than when the survey was last conducted in 1998.

“The 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS 2004) also finds … a substantial increase in the availability of flexible working and leave arrangements in British workplaces since 1998, including: homeworking (28 percent, up from 16 percent in 1998); term-time only working (28 percent, up from 14 percent); flexi-time (26 percent, up from 19 percent); job-sharing (41 percent, up from 31 percent); parental leave (73 percent, up from 38 percent); and paid paternity leave (92 percent, up from 48 percent).

“This increase in provision was also reflected in managers’ greater understanding of employees’ responsibilities outside of work — 65 percent of managers believe that it was up to the individual to balance their work and family responsibilities, compared with 84 percent in 1998.

“More workplaces now have equal opportunities polices (73 percent, up from 64 percent in 1998), with policies on religion, sexual orientation, and age all featuring highly. However, there has been little change in the proportion of workplaces where women are under-represented in management (72 percent, compared with 73 percent in the previous survey)….

“Employment Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said: ‘The picture emerging is one where people have more choice and control over their working lives. Government policy has lead to significant changes in the way people work in Britain, particularly the availability of flexible working arrangements. We have long argued that flexible working opportunities benefit everyone: employers, employees and their families, and today’s findings show that these arguments have been embraced in the modern workplace.’…”

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

– Isaac Asimov (U.S. author (Russian-born), 1920-1992)