Ethics Newsline®

“The executive’s current claim of absolute immunity from compelled Congressional process for senior presidential aides is without any support in the case law.”

– U.S. District Court judge John Bates, rejecting White House claims that President Bush’s top advisers can ignore congressional subpoenas seeking testimony in formal investigations. Bates, appointed by President Bush in 2001, ruled last week that both former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten must cooperate with House investigators looking into the perhaps politically motivated firing of nine federal prosecutors in 2006. Miers, Bolten, and Bush’s former chief political adviser, Karl Rove, have each spurned attempts by Congress to gather information, claiming executive privilege — a stance Judge Bates ruled last week was illegal.

Sources: Washington Post, Aug. 1 — New York Times, Aug. 1.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 26, 2007 — Related Newsline Commentary, Mar. 26, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 19, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 12, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 5, 2007.

“Our country has long turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of our heroes. If you have athletic talent or money or fame, the law is applied much differently than if you are slow or poor or an average American trying to get by. At the same time, all sports have for far too long given the benefit of the doubt to its heroes who seem too good to be true, even when common sense indicates they are not.”

– Newly appointed chief executive of USA Track & Field Doug Logan, urging President Bush in an open letter last week not to pardon disgraced Olympic sprinter Marion Jones, currently serving jail time for “lying to investigators about her use of performance-enhancing drugs,” reports the New York Times

Source: New York Times, July 23.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, July 21 — Related Newsline story, June 9 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 26, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 19, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 8, 2007.

“The Commission’s determination that CBS’s broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast was actionably indecent evidenced the agency’s departure from its prior policy.”

– An excerpt from Monday’s ruling by a federal appeals court overturning a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. over Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” when fining CBS since the punishment deviated from the agency’s longstanding practice of issuing fines only when the content was so “pervasive as to amount to ’shock treatment’ for the audience,” reports the Associated Press. “Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing. But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure,” the court ruled.

Source: AP, July 21.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 12, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 25, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 28, 2005 — Related Newsline Commentary, June 28, 2004.

“It is true that what the AMA did historically was awful. There were AMA local chapters that actually had rules against black members well into the late 1960s, and policies that made blacks not feel comfortable well into the 1980s.”

– Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, talking to the Associated Press about last week’s apology by the American Medical Association (AMA) for its decades-long discrimination against black doctors

Source: AP, July 10.

“Had the toxic waste been cleaned up, the contaminated groundwater would not have happened. Dow was the first crime. The second crime was government negligence.”

– Dr. Mira Shiva, speaking to the New York Times in an article chronicling the groundwater contamination — and severe birth defects — near Bhopal, India, where a pesticide plant owned by U.S.-based Union Carbide released 40 tons of poisonous gas into the air in 1984. That dawn-time disaster killed more than 3,000 people immediately and an estimated 8,000 people within two weeks.

The site has never been cleaned up and is suspected of contaminating the local groundwater, crippling children and poisoning residents in the process.

Michigan-based Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide seven years after the accident, paid the Indian government $470 million to compensate residents, and maintains that it has no responsibility to clean up the contaminated land. “As there was never any ownership, there is no responsibility and no liability — for the Bhopal tragedy or its aftermath,” Dow spokesman Scot Wheeler told the Times. The paper reports that Wheeler “went on to say that Dow could not finance remediation efforts, even if it wanted to, because it could potentially open up the company to further liabilities.”

The article notes that the Indian government expended the original settlement to compensate victims, and now lacks the funds to clean up the site. It fears that pursuing Dow aggressively would harm its chances to attract foreign investment, reports the Times.

Source: New York Times, July 7.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, July 26, 2004 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 24, 2003 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 9, 2002.

EPA documents “showed that the Clean Air Act can work for certain sectors of the economy, to reduce greenhouse gases. That’s not what the administration wants to show. They want to show that the Clean Air Act can’t work.”

– A senior official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), speaking to the New York Times last week about White House efforts to water down findings supporting the regulation of greenhouse gases. The EPA emailed its original analysis to the White House last December after the Supreme Court ordered the agency to determine any danger posed by greenhouse gases. The White House refused to open the email, replying that the EPA’s findings would not be acknowledged. After six months of pressure from the White House, the EPA’s original findings have been slashed and weakened, eliminating “large sections of the original analysis that supported regulation, including a finding that tough regulation of motor vehicle emissions could produce $500 billion to $2 trillion in economic benefits over the next 32 years,” reports the Times.

* * *

“I find it troubling, not only that the Department of Defense is in flagrant violation of final orders issued by the EPA, but that DOD is now attempting to circumvent the law and Congress’ intent by calling on the Department of Justice and the Office of Management and the Budget to intervene. The EPA is the expert agency charged by Congress with enforcing our environmental laws, and the Administration needs to allow them to do their job to protect the public health and safety.”

– Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a statement criticizing the Pentagon for refusing to cooperate with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in cleaning up toxic and pollution-ridden sites that pose “imminent and substantial” dangers to the public health and the environment. The Department of Defense (DOD) has refused to sign agreements, known as final orders, requiring the cleanup of 12 military sites, and is resisting cleanup orders for three other badly damaged sites, asking the Justice Department to block enforcement efforts by the EPA, reports the Washington Post.

Sources: Washington Post, June 30 — New York Times, June 25.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 29, 2007 — Related Newsline story, June 13, 2005.

“If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”

– CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman, speaking to military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Guantánamo, Cuba, in 2002, according to minutes from the meeting. “The document, one of two dozen released by a Senate panel investigating how Pentagon officials developed the controversial interrogation program introduced at Guantánamo Bay in late 2002, suggests a larger CIA role in advising Defense Department interrogators than was previously known,” reports the Washington Post.

Source: Washington Post, June 18.

* * *

“We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] is around. It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques.”

– Now-retired military lawyer Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, as recorded in minutes from an October 2002 meeting at Guantánamo Bay. According to McClatchy Newspapers, newly released documents show that the “U.S. military hid the locations of suspected terrorist detainees and concealed harsh treatment to avoid the scrutiny” of the Red Cross.

Source: McClatchy, June 17.

* * *

“They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify. Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn’t going to do that.”

– U.S. Army official Charles Smith, talking to the New York Times last week. Smith, who oversaw the U.S. government’s multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the Iraq war, says he was summarily removed from his post after threatening to withhold payments and bonuses to KBR over the company’s inability to justify more than $1 billion in questionably charges. Smith says KBR refused to act on his warning until he directed one of his deputies to hand-deliver a letter to the company. Two days later, Smith and the woman who delivered the letter were both summarily removed from their jobs and reassigned. They were replaced by a contractor, RCI Holding Corporation, which approved the payments and bonuses for KBR, once a subsidiary of Halliburton, the firm formerly run by U.S. vice president Dick Cheney. This spring, both KBR and RCI were awarded new contracts, notes the Times.

Source: New York Times, June 17.

“Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm and has no place in our country.”

– Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, publicly apologizing to the nation’s native peoples last week for the “longtime government policy of forcing their children to attend state-funded schools aimed at assimilating them,” according to the Associated Press. “From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indian children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into Canadian society,” notes the report. At the schools, many of the children were physically or sexually abused — a tragedy for which Harper also apologized.

Source: AP, June 11.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Feb. 18 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 10, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 13, 1999.

“It’s clear that some of the information Major League Baseball and the players union gave the committee in 2005 was inaccurate. It isn’t clear whether this was intentional or just reflects confusion over the testing program for 2003 and 2004. In any case, the misinformation is unacceptable.”

– Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in a written statement last week addressing new concerns over the accuracy and honesty of Major League Baseball’s steroids testing program. Waxman’s committee, which investigated doping in baseball in 2005, last week learned that baseball officials failed to disclose during their testimony that “the 2004 testing, with its significantly lower positive test results, had been partly shut down for much of that season,” reports the New York Times. “As a result, players who apparently tested positive in 2003 were not retested in 2004 until the final weeks of the season, and might have been notified beforehand, perhaps skewing the overall test numbers for that year.”

Source: New York Times, June 9.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, May 27 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 18 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 17, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 19, 2007.

“There’s been a certain amount of market segmentation going on, but this is the first time we’ve seen a lender, especially as large as Citibank, saying, ‘We don’t want to do business with you.’… There’s a fundamental issue of fairness and equity that’s certainly not being addressed in this. But short of completely revamping the way that financial aid, especially loans, is being delivered to students in this country, I don’t know that we have any easy answers.”

– Samuel Collie, director of financial aid at Eastern Oregon University, talking to the New York Times about cutbacks in loans being offered to his school’s students. The Times reports that powerful lenders such as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, PNC, and SunTrust are closing their doors to students at community colleges, for-profit universities, and other less competitive institutions. “These institutions, which are a stepping stone to other educational programs or to better jobs, often draw students from the lower rungs of the economic ladder,” notes the paper. According to the Times: “The practice suggests that if the credit crisis and the ensuing turmoil in the student loan business persist, some of the nation’s neediest students will be hurt the most. The difficulty borrowing may deter them from attending school or prompt them to take a semester off. When they get student loans, they will wind up with less attractive terms and may run a greater risk of default if they have to switch lenders in the middle of their college years.”

Source: New York Times, June 2.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better. It’s very difficult for us to get out and vet each and every one of the applicants as well as we should.”

– James Wong, an internal affairs agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, speaking to the New York Times about mounting concerns over collusion and corruption within the Border Patrol. As the Times‘ piece puts it: “The pattern has become familiar: Customs officers wave in vehicles filled with illegal immigrants, drugs or other contraband. A Border Patrol agent acts as a scout for smugglers. Trusted officers fall prey to temptation and begin taking bribes.”

Source: New York Times, May 27.

“After all these years, I cannot give you any excuse whatsoever. It is just one of those things that occurred. I have to some extent harmed you.”

– Dr. Tapas Das Gupta, a highly respected cancer surgeon of 40 years, recalling his apology to a patient from whom he mistakenly removed the wrong piece of tissue to examine. The New York Times reports that Gupta and other physicians are moving toward a practice of quick admissions of their mistakes. “By promptly disclosing medical errors and offering earnest apologies and fair compensation, they hope to restore integrity to dealings with patients, make it easier to learn from mistakes and dilute anger that often fuels lawsuits,” reports the Times. Despite some fears that such disclosure would prompt even more medical malpractice actions, “hospitals are reporting decreases in their caseloads and savings in legal costs,” the Times notes.

Source: New York Times, May 18.

“With the attendant publicity that’s emerged over the last few years, there is an ethical question raised that some candidates don’t want to be associated with.”

– Dr. Jerry Polinard, a political science professor at the University of Texas-Pan American, talking to the New York Times about the practice of paying people to round up votes for primaries and other elections. Defenders of the practice — called paying “street money” — say it’s simply a traditional part of getting out the vote. Critics say it smacks of buying votes, with canvassers negotiating with “rival campaigns to get the best price before deciding whom to support,” notes the Times.

Source: New York Times, May 13.

“FDA’s working hypothesis is that this was intentional contamination, but this is not yet proven.”

Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the drug center at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in written testimony provided last week to the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The House committee is investigating allegations that a Chinese company deliberately adulterated a crucial blood thinner, heparin, with massive amounts of a substandard but cheap chemical in order to save costs. The contaminated end product, distributed by Baxter International, has caused 81 deaths, reports the New York Times. Chinese officials have disputed the FDA’s contention, notes the paper.

Source: New York Times, Apr. 30.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline Commentary, Aug. 20, 2007 — Related Newsline story, July 16, 2007.

“The information I have received suggests an emerging pattern of political violence, inflicted mainly, but not exclusively, on rural supporters of the opposition M.D.C. party.”

– Louise Arbour, the United Nations’ top human rights official, in a statement last week, as reported in the New York Times. Press reports indicate widespread beatings, killings, burnings, and displacement of Zimbabweans believed to support candidates opposing incumbent president Robert Mugabe. Mugabe’s party has suppressed the results of last month’s presidential vote, prompting an international outcry that has been criticized by many as weak and ineffective.

Source: New York Times, Apr. 28.

For more information, see: New York Times, Apr. 27 — U.K. Sunday Times, Apr. 27 — New York Times, Apr. 26.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.’”

– Former Fox News analyst Robert Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret, speaking to the New York Times about Pentagon efforts to assemble a team of retired military officials who would promote the administration’s views as military analysts in broadcast news on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and CNN. The Pentagon used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance,” reports David Barstow of the Times. “Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves.”

* * *

“The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people.”

– Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, rejecting the substance of the Times’s piece, and insisting that the Pentagon program was not psyops that converted ex-military officials into “puppets of the Defense Department.”

Source: New York Times, Apr. 20.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 17 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 5, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 21, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 31, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 20, 2004 — Q&A with Times reporter David Barstow, Apr. 21.

“Anybody who looks at the two cases will see that there is an enormous difference between the two of them. The people that are trying to draw comparisons to the two cases are people who’ve never agreed with me on important issues like immigration and other things.”

– Sen. David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, rejecting comparisons between his patronage of a DC prostitution ring and the similar scandal that recently ended the career of New York governor Eliot Spitzer. Vitter, who was identified last June as a repeat client of the DC prostitution ring, has declared the matter settled on the grounds that he had “asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife.” Since the statute of limitations has expired, no criminal charges are expected against Vitter, and his party’s leadership to date has taken no action against him. The trial of the woman running the ring is wrapping up this week. Vitter was not required to testify, notes the Associated Press.

Sources: AP, Apr. 14 — Observer, Apr. 11 — Independent Weekly of Lafayette, Louisiana, Mar. 19.

“The judgment was made by the pharmacokeneticists at the time that in doing the calculation, it was probably appropriate to make that correction. Later on when people looked at it in a different time frame, they concluded that probably the correction shouldn’t be applied.”

– Johnson & Johnson lawyer Bob Tucker, talking to the New York Times in an article examining what should happen when the FDA approves drugs whose flaws were either hidden or unknown during the approval process. Johnson & Johnson is fighting a lawsuit accusing the company of obscuring unfavorable test results while seeking FDA approval for its popular Ortho Evra birth control patch. The drug was approved and now Johnson & Johnson, in a position supported by the Bush administration, says the public should not be able to sue over an FDA-approved drug that only later was shown to be harmful, a standard known as pre-emption. The Times notes that the Supreme Court “is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted.”

Source: New York Times, Apr. 6.

“There are times when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me.”

– Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, announcing his April 18 resignation on Monday. Jackson, who took the post after accompanying President Bush from Texas to DC, is under investigation by multiple agencies for multiple allegations, including steering contracts to friends, illegally influencing contracts, and taking retributive steps against the city of Philadelphia for refusing to transfer a valuable property to one of his friends, reports the Washington Post. Earlier this month at two Senate hearings, Jackson refused to answer questions about his role in the matter. President Bush accepted Jackson’s resignation, saying he still believes Jackson to be “a strong leader and a good man.”

Source: Washington Post, Mar. 31.

For more information, see: Wall Street Journal, Mar. 31 — New York Times, Mar. 31 — AP, Mar. 31 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 17 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 3 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 27, 2007 — Related Newsline story, June 11, 2007.

“Under reasonable scenarios, assuming we don’t pull out rapidly, we may only be halfway through. Even in direct budgetary costs, it’s quite easy to get up on the order of $1 trillion for Iraq alone.”

– Steven Koziak, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, a nonpartisan research group, speaking to the New York Times about the cost of the Iraq war. As the U.S. engagement in Iraq marks its five-year anniversary, the Times examines a range of views on why most estimates of the war’s cost were vastly wrong, how much the entanglement ultimately may cost, and the motives of those providing the estimates.

Source: New York Times, Mar. 19.