For more information, see this week’s Research Report.

by Rushworth M. Kidder

There’s something engagingly blunt and muscular about draining a swamp. The metaphor was trumpeted by House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during the 2006 midterm election campaign in an effort to shame her Republican colleagues for failing to reform their ethics. The phrase fairly bursts with a Paul Bunyan swagger. It evokes a world of axes, bulldozers, and big boots taming the frontier. But the trouble with big, captivating metaphors is that they can be mistaken for reality — and return to bite you.

That’s what happened last week when the sorry tale of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) snaked its way back into view. Despite his well-known history of failing to report income, pay taxes, or recognize conflicts of interest, Rangel still occupies a top tax-writing position as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. As further allegations against him uncoiled last week, Republicans reared up like creatures from the bog to accuse Speaker Pelosi of hypocrisy. If, they said, she really intended to “turn this Congress into the most honest and open Congress in history” (as she told NBC’s Brian Williams in 2006), she needed to lash the House ethics committee over the glacial pace of its investigation into Rangel’s activities. Meanwhile, they demanded that she pry her fellow Democrat loose from his powerful chairmanship.

Looking back, you can see why Pelosi got excited by her metaphor. In the 12-month period preceding the November 2006 election, House Republicans mired themselves in all manner of moral muck. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) stepped down over a sex scandal involving House pages. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) resigned over his relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.) went to jail for bribery, fraud, and tax evasion. And Bob Ney (R-Ohio) bowed out on the eve of the election, sucked down by the Abramoff affair. By 2007 Gallup found that the “honesty and ethical standards” of Congress were ranked high or very high by only 9 percent of the public, standing above only advertising practitioners, car salesmen, and lobbyists in their listing.

You also can understand Pelosi’s bewilderment over the Rangel tangle. Compared to the mire of 2006, the current flap seems tame, victimless, and inconsequential. Choosing a what’s-all-the-fuss approach, she determined to let due process take its course, insisting that Rangel is innocent until proven guilty. Good arguments, all — in 2006.

But 2006 might as well be the Middle Ages. It’s been walled off from the present by the Great Wall of the ethics recession. Americans who once shrugged off high-level corruption, deceit, and irresponsibility as discomforting but unimportant now view those things as intolerable. Nor does it matter that the recession is abating. The whole experience has sensitized us to the ethical implications of organizational behavior. In 2006, the scandals focused on Beltway fat cats and left hardly a trace on the lives of ordinary Americans. By 2009, the scandals involved financial kingpins and slammed squarely into the nation’s pocketbook, leaving an ineradicable mark. Now that the ethics alarm has been raised, what would keep our moral outrage from descending wrathfully on any institution, like Congress, that failed to maintain its integrity? Shouldn’t it be clear to Pelosi & Co. that any ethical lapse, however small, is going to generate enormous turbulence? Isn’t there a clear connection between such lapses and another Gallup finding, published last week, showing Congress’s approval rating at only 21 percent — down from 31 percent in September and 39 percent in March?

So where did the swamp metaphor lead us astray? First, politics on either side of the aisle isn’t a dismal swamp. It’s a set of interpersonal relationships. If a few are putrid, many are not. To broad-brush the opposition so contemptuously may win you high-fives from fellow polarizers, but it sets you up for a fierce attack when next they see you compromising — as they saw Pelosi doing in the Rangel affair. Second, as homebuilders know, it’s often harder to change a landscape by draining it than by filling it with the rock, gravel, and sand that eventually displaces the mud. Real change, topographically as well as politically, often comes by addition, not subtraction. Third, in the age of environmentalists who recognize marshes, bogs, and wetlands as vital to our ecology, this is a startlingly unpropitious metaphor. There’s little argument, these days, that wetlands are not something to exploit but to protect.

In one way, however, her metaphor makes a point. It reminds us that the ethical problem in Congress is a matter not of individuals but of cultures. It’s not enough to root out a handful of DeLays or Rangels: Remove one alligator, and another crawls in to take its place. Nor is it enough to send Pelosi packing or goad the ethics committee into action. The entire moral mindset must be shifted.

That’s exactly what the public is waiting to see. Last year made us extraordinarily aware of ethical lapses. Now it’s easier to recognize the elements of a culture of integrity — the values underlying public service, the ethical reasoning required to craft good public policy, and the moral courage that promotes effective action. Which is another reason her metaphor lets us down. You build culture by creating, not just by draining. Faced with ethical lapses, Congress must do more than simply engineer an emptiness. The public wants positive results.

©2009 Institute for Global Ethics

Find this and previous weeks’ commentaries online as a podcast titled Ethicast™ now available on iTunes. Subscribe today!

Questions or comments? Write to newsline@globalethics.org.

“Apple is committed to protecting the environment and the communities in which we operate around the world. We strongly object to the Chamber’s recent comments opposing the EPA’s effort to limit greenhouse gases.”

“As a company, we are working hard to reduce our own greenhouse emissions…. We have undertaken this unilaterally and without government mandate, because we believe it is the right thing to do. For those companies who cannot or will not do the same, Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort.”

– Excerpt from tech giant Apple’s letter canceling its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s most powerful business federation and lobbying group. Apple’s move follows recent high-profile defections by three utility companies, including California’s PG&E, which “announced it was leaving because of the group’s ‘obstructionist tactics,’” reports the Los Angeles Times.

Athletic retailer Nike also quit the Chamber’s board over the issue, “but has chosen to remain a member in hopes of changing the federation’s climate-change policy from within,” notes the San Jose Mercury News.

Sources: San Jose Mercury News, Oct. 7.

For more information, see: Los Angeles Times editorial, Oct. 12 — Text of Apple’s letter (via the San Jose Mercury News) — Politico.com, Oct. 5.

But complex and controversial FTC policy, which allows penalties of up to $11,000, leaves many questions unanswered

WASHINGTON
In a ruling that immediately set off a debate about the ethics of advertising, journalism, and regulation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week issued a directive that bloggers who post reviews of products and services must disclose any freebies they receive.

CBS reports that bloggers who do not disclose such relationships face penalties of up to $11,000.

The new regulation does not apply to “traditional” news sites because, in the FTC’s view, the consumer is assured already of some reliability on the part of established media outlets. The FTC says it wants to protect consumers against bogus reviews that, either explicitly or tacitly, were bought and paid for.

Critics say the 81-page policy is vague, does not clarify whether the rules apply to bloggers who also write for traditional news organizations, or whether it will force Twitter users to cram disclosures into their micro messages.

FTC officials implied that the focus of enforcement would be centered not on individual bloggers but on companies that distribute products to bloggers in anticipation of positive reviews, according to a report from Reuters.

A category of bloggers often pointed to during discussion of the issue is the cadre of so-called mommy bloggers — people who write and edit online sites primarily read by new parents.

As reported in a previous edition of Newsline, mommy bloggers have been criticized for receiving freebies such as formula and diapers while frequently praising those products on their web pages.

Not surprisingly, many mommy bloggers are less than enthusiastic about the new law: ABC News quotes prominent parenting blogger Colleen Padilla as saying that mothers may not completely understand the new law or be able to afford to hire a lawyer.

The FTC regulations mirror similar strictures already in place in the United Kingdom. The Guardian notes that U.K. laws not only require disclosure of any payment or other benefit, but also outlaw a practice called “flogging” in which an advertiser or an advertiser’s agents disguise themselves as a consumer to write reviews.

Sources: Guardian, Oct. 10 — CBS News, Oct. 8 — ABC, Oct. 7 — Reuters, Oct. 5.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 5 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 28 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 21 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 8 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 3.

Justices volley hypotheticals while considering case

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Supreme Court last week engaged in a free-wheeling debate over the legal and ethical balance between free speech and the government’s responsibility to outlaw depictions of illegal and disturbing acts.

At issue are dog-fighting videos that earned their producer a conviction for violating a law outlawing depictions of animal cruelty.

While originally aimed at halting a type of bizarre fetish video that shows the crushing of small animals, the law was applied later to the dog-fighting tapes, reports National Public Radio.

Critics of the law, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, say it could lead to a slippery slope and eventually be applied to banning, for example, Hemingway’s descriptions of gory bullfights, films on fox hunts, the production of pate de foie gras from geese, or legitimate documentaries that show cruelty against animals in an effort to protest such actions.

Animal-rights activists lined the steps outside the Supreme Court to show support for the law, arguing, among other things, that it had nearly eliminated the distribution of “crush” videos.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the case produced some of the most lively crossfire of hypotheticals in recent sessions. Justice Antonin Scalia, an avid hunter, wondered if the law could criminalize a film showing out-of-season hunting, reports the Monitor.

But Justice Samuel Alito, one of the few who seemed supportive of the law, countered with his own scenario, reports the paper: “What if people like to see human sacrifice … live pay-per-view over the Human Sacrifice Channel? Don’t they have a right?”

Central to the dispute is whether animal cruelty is in the same category as child pornography — an act considered so inherently criminal that it deserves no protection under the First Amendment.

Sources: NPR, Oct. 6 — Newsweek, Oct. 6 — San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 6 — Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Aug. 17 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 3 — Related Newsline story, July 27.

President lashes out at critics, saying they simply are “doing what they always do”: maximizing profits at the expense of consumers

WASHINGTON
President Obama waded into the controversy over his plans to protect consumers from what he considers the deceptive practices of some financial institutions by slamming the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for trying to block the measure.

As the administration’s proposal to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency heads toward a showdown in the House, Obama lashed out at those trying to derail it.

“They’re doing what they always do, descending on Congress, using every bit of influence they have to maintain the status quo that has maximized their profits at the expense of American consumers, despite the fact that recently a whole bunch of those same American consumers bailed them out as a consequence of the bad decisions that they made,” Obama said Friday at a White House gathering of key lawmakers, administration officials, and other supporters, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Obama reiterated his claim that the agency is needed to protect consumers from the “ridiculously confusing contracts” used by financial institutions, according to the BBC.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes the plan, notes TIME magazine, saying they “disagree that a massive new federal agency with unprecedented powers over vast segments of the business community will be good for consumers, for America’s job creators or for the economy.”

Obama took a swipe at a recent ad that claimed that the agency will over-reach into the operations of every business that extends credit — even the local butcher.

The President characterized that ad as “completely false,” BusinessWeek reports.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, Oct. 9 — BBC, Oct. 9 — BusinessWeek, Oct. 9 — TIME, Oct. 9.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Sep. 21 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 14 — Related Newsline Commentary, Aug. 3 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 3 — Related Newsline Commentary, July 13.

Among the dilemmas: questions over whether Obama can re-gift his Nobel Prize money, the growing problems faced by Rep. Charles Rangel, a Canadian whistle-blower site that lets the chips fall where they may, and embattled Sen. John Ensign denies violating ethics rules

VARIOUS DATELINES
Ethics were featured in a variety of top political stories last week. They included:

• The unexpected news that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize carried with it an equally unexpected ethical dilemma: what to do with the $1.4 million he will receive as part of the award. Politico.com reports that Obama said he will donate the entire amount to charity. Government ethics experts, however, have warned that the charity approach might be unwise, noting that it may be illegal for him to even accept or re-gift the money. Politico.com quotes various compliance experts as saying there is some question as to whether it is legal to accept the money because federal employees are prohibited from accepting gifts related to their official position. One way around the dilemma, says former White House ethics counsel Richard Painter: Have the Norwegian government donate the money to charity directly, rather than have the cash pass through the president’s hands.
• Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel’s (NY) ethics problems are looming larger, according to MSNBC. The House ethics committee announced last week it will expand its months-long probe of what it called Rangel’s “tangled personal finances” to include the circumstances surrounding the August discovery of a half-million dollars in assets not previously disclosed. Rangel is under investigation for allegations he underreported income and improperly used his position to raise money.
• A Canadian whistle-blower site is raising legal and ethical questions, reports the Canadian Press. The site, Wikileaks.org, says it promises anonymity to anyone submitting secret documents, often papers dealing with governmental issues, which the site puts online for the public and journalists to see. According to the report, the site’s administrators say they take steps to verify the authenticity of the leaks, but that the chips then fall where they may. “Once we have verified (a document), there is no more judgment from a moral or ethical perspective,” Daniel Schmitt, who helps review documents for Wikileaks, told the Canadian Press. “That’s not because we don’t feel that maybe there is an ethical question to some material, it’s more that the moment that we would decide what is worthy of being published, what is relevant, what is ethical, we would actually be in a censoring position.” But the report notes that Wikileaks has been criticized for not offering any indication of who offered the documents or why, an important part of the larger context that a reader might get from a traditional news service.
• Republican senator John Ensign (Nev.) told CNN last week that he did not break Senate rules by helping to get a lobbying job for the husband of a woman with whom Ensign had an affair, apparently in an effort to appease the husband. “I think it’s pretty clear. I said in the past, I recommended him for jobs just like I’ve recommended a lot of people,” Ensign told CNN. “But we absolutely did nothing except for comply exactly with what the ethics laws and the ethics rules of the Senate state.” The Senate has launched a preliminary ethics investigation into the incident, according to CNN.

Sources: MSNBC, Oct. 9 — Politico.com, Oct. 9 — Canadian Press, Oct. 9 — CNN, Oct. 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Sep. 21 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 8 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 17 — Related Newsline story, July 28 — Related Newsline story, May 3.

Social networking and Google’s Street View continue to be at center of controversy

VARIOUS DATELINES
Some interesting ethical angles from the week’s technology news:

• More than half of U.S. firms do not allow employees to visit social networking sites at work, according to a new survey of 1,400 companies conducted by Robert Half Technology. Fifty-four percent of chief information officers said sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter were off limits during working hours, according to a summary of the findings, reports the Agence France-Presse. A representative of the firm that conducted the study told the AFP that the apparent reason some companies condone the use of social networks is that the sites are often exploited as business and marketing tools.
• While social networking sites are popular with students and teachers alike, the intersection of those two groups online is becoming a dangerous place, according to a report from the Salt Lake Tribune. The report notes some teachers effectively use social networking as an instructional tool, but it also can be a minefield when teachers discuss their private lives online. Writes the Tribune’s Lisa Schencker: “Some inappropriate uses of social networking sites for teachers are obvious: posting pictures of illegal activities, pornography, using the sites to sexually pursue students. The tougher areas are those in between. Should teachers be friends with their students on Facebook? Can they use curse words on their personal pages? Should they post political views?”
• Google’s controversial Street View program went live in Vancouver and several other Canadian cities last week, but not without a stream of protests over privacy issues. Street View, which gives users a street-level panoramic virtual tour based on photos taken by specially equipped vehicles, has prompted protests from city and national governments worldwide. In the latest dust-up, the Canadian privacy minister complained that Google’s “blurring technology,” which automatically renders faces and license plates indistinguishable, reportedly failed in several instances.

Sources: Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 10 — AFP, Oct. 9 — Vancouver Sun, Oct. 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 5 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 28 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 9 — Related Newsline Commentary, Aug. 24 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 3.

Its namesake was accused of tax fraud

TAMPA, Fla.
An award for moral courage, offered annually by Hillsborough County in Florida, has been tarnished after a scandal that emerged after the namesake died, the Wall Street Journal reports in a page-one article.

According to the Journal, county commissioners last year voted to name the award after Ralph Hughes, a recently deceased anti-tax campaigner.

The naming prompted protests because Hughes was known for funding the elections of county commissioners, and, according to the Journal, the purpose of the award is to honor people with the temerity to fight the county commission.

The commission stood its ground, but then, writes the Journal’s Barry Newman, the plot thickened: “Just as nominations for this year’s Ralph Hughes Moral Courage Award were due a few weeks ago — it turned out that Mr. Hughes may have been tax-averse in a more personal way.”

“In July,” Newman writes, “the Internal Revenue Service sent his estate a bill for unpaid taxes amounting to $69.3 million. In August, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit claiming that a company Mr. Hughes controlled owed more, bringing the tab to $299.3 million. While the trustees of his estate say Mr. Hughes didn’t owe a cent and blame any omissions on an associate, the revelations left Hillsborough County with a moral dilemma.”

After it became apparent that the case would drag on, Hughes’s son asked that his father’s name be taken off the award, saying, “My dad would have called it a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

The commissioners reluctantly complied, reports the Journal.

Incidentally, the committee that vets the nominees decided that in the latest annual round, none qualified, so there will be no moral courage award in Hillsborough County this year.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Oct. 1.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 19 — Related Newsline story, July 27 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 31, 2007 — Related Newsline story, May 21, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 8, 2007.

“New report shows corrupt business costs billions, hurts commerce, development, and consumers”

From Transparency International:

“The massive scale of global corruption resulting from bribery, price-fixing cartels and undue influence on public policy is costing billions and obstructing the path towards sustainable economic growth, according to a new report released today by Transparency International (TI).

“The Global Corruption Report 2009: Corruption and the Private Sector (GCR) shows how corrupt practices constitute a destructive force that undermines fair competition, stifles economic growth and ultimately undercuts a business’s own existence. In the last two years alone, companies have had to pay billions in fines due to corrupt practices. The cost extends to low staff morale and a loss of trust among customers as well as prospective business partners….

“The report documents many cases of managers, majority shareholders and other actors inside corporations who abuse their entrusted power for personal gain, to the detriment of owners, investors, employees and society at large. In developing and transition countries alone, companies colluding with corrupt politicians and government officials, have supplied bribes estimated at up to US $40 billion annually, according to the GCR.

“Research in the report also shows that half of international business executives polled estimated that corruption raised project costs by at least 10 percent. Ultimately, it is citizens who pay: consumers around the world were overcharged approximately US $300 billion through almost 300 private international cartels discovered from 1990 to 2005.

“Another concern addressed in the report is how the sheer economic power of some companies and business sectors translates into disproportionate and undue leverage on political decision-making….

“Revolving doors between public office and the private sector, another practice documented in the report, provide a smooth path to deceitful public procurement deals where non-competitive bidding and opaque processes lead to immense waste and unreliable services or goods.

“The extent and multifaceted ways in which private sector corruption is manifested greatly surpasses the few companies that actually employ systems to stop this abuse of power for illicit gain. Almost 90 per cent of the top 200 businesses worldwide have adopted business codes, but fewer than half report that they monitor compliance, according to the report….

“Corporate integrity pays. Companies with anti-corruption programmes and ethical guidelines are found to suffer up to 50 percent fewer incidents of corruption and to be less likely to lose business opportunities than companies without such programmes. The tools for corporate anti-corruption action are broadly and readily available but companies must pick up the pace in applying them….”

For the full press release from Transparency International, Sep. 23, as well as links to the full report, click here.

“Let him who expects one class of society to prosper in the highest degree, while the other is in distress, try whether one side of his face can smile while the other is pinched.”

– Thomas Fuller (English clergyman and author, 1608-1661)