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

Want a barometer of a nation’s moral concern? Check out how frequently the word ethics appears in the news. Last Thursday, anyone counting would have scored a hat trick. On the New York Times front page that day, above the fold, were two sad and tangled tales of ethical lapses. In one, New York Gov. David Paterson quit his re-election campaign. In the other, New York congressman Charles Rangel relinquished the chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. A third piece, appearing in a box at the bottom of the page, involved Eric Massa, a freshman congressman from upstate New York, who resigned his position because of an ethics investigation.

Some readers rightly see these stories as additional nails in the coffin of our collective moral sense — proof that integrity is dead. Other readers, also right, see them as encouraging evidence that iniquity can’t be hidden — that the public cares enough about integrity to demand such exposure of unethical behavior.

But there’s a deeper significance here. Each of these stories is about conflicts of interest — which, simply defined, arise when people seek to exploit public positions for private benefit. The fact that these three public figures fell so easily into such conflicts reminds us that we’re not very good at training our leaders about ethics and integrity. Simply put, we give them few tools to defend themselves against three of the most corrosive influences in human experience — power, fame, and wealth.

These influences, if left uncontrolled, will generate an almost infinite number of conflicts of interest. But our public figures don’t necessarily come into their jobs prepared to deal with these conflicts. By the very nature of the democratic process, we push ordinary people into extraordinary positions — too often without the moral headlights to illuminate the approaching dangers. For all of the leadership training we do, we devote hardly a moment to discussing the conflict-of-interest issues that most easily could wreck their careers. Should it surprise us, then, that they run into the ditch or over the cliff with disturbing regularity?

Notice how it happens. Rep. Rangel did it merely by accepting personal gifts, including Caribbean travel, in situations apparently meant to influence his votes. Gov. Paterson accepted free tickets to the World Series, and tried to squelch an investigation of a top aide in a domestic violence case. Rep. Massa resigned after being accused of sexually harassing an aide. In each case, the positions these men held required of them an impartiality, a loyalty to the office rather than to the self, a judicious use of their influence for the common good. They were, in other words, trusted to do the right thing. When that trust evaporated, their reputations were shattered. It no longer matters that they are smart, savvy, sophisticated, or experienced. Being untrustworthy, they no longer are valued as leaders.

What lessons can we learn? Four come to mind:

• These men each came to grief over issues that, in the grand scheme of things, were pretty small: a few days’ vacation, a couple of phone call, several free tickets, some suggestive language. Conflicts of interest rarely involve high-stakes gambits. Instead, they usually hinge on activities that seem, to the person doing them, to be innocuous, commonplace, even trivial.

• Because of that apparent triviality, the last person to spot a conflict of interest is often the person engaged in it. Conflicts that are perfectly obvious to colleagues, friends, and acquaintances remain shrouded from the view of the actor himself. Such is the power of self-interest that we can see others’ faults far more clearly than our own.

• Conflicts of interest come in two flavors: actual and perceived. The perception of self-dealing can be just as damaging to a reputation as the real thing. That fact can be a curse if the perception is false and the accusation unjustified. But it also can be a benefit if it warns a public figure of a pending conflict and gives her time to avoid it.

• Conflicts of interest are inevitable. The people most suited to public leadership have extensive experience and wide personal networks, so they unavoidably will encounter situations where loyalty comes into conflict with truth. They’ll face dilemmas where their duty of fidelity to others stands at cross-purposes with their duty of integrity to their position. It’s not shameful to find oneself in such dilemmas. The goal is not to avoid conflicts of interest, but to manage these truth-versus-loyalty dilemmas so they do no harm.

How can they be managed? What’s needed is moral courage. To resist the seductive influences of power, wealth, and fame, our leaders obviously need to develop the moral courage to say no to temptation. More important, they need to encourage such courage in others. They need to surround themselves with colleagues who can point out the danger frankly and candidly before an apparent conflict becomes a real one. If Paterson, Rangel, and Massa simply had taken that last step, they might have remained effective leaders.

©2010 Institute for Global Ethics

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– Peter Kauffmann, communications director for New York Gov. David Paterson, explaining his sudden resignation last week after being interviewed by prosecutors from the New York attorney general’s office, “which is investigating the administration’s response to a domestic violence case involving another top aide to the governor,” reports the New York Times.

Kauffman said he could no longer serve Paterson, explaining to investigators “that he had come to doubt the veracity of what he was being instructed by the governor to say to reporters,” according to the Times.

Source: New York Times, Mar. 5.

VARIOUS DATELINES

Ethical angles were components of the top news from U.S. politics last week. Among the stories:

• Embattled New York governor David Paterson said he has no intention of resigning and vowed to clear his name while remaining in office. ABC News reports that Paterson’s declaration came on the same day that a poll indicated that less than half of New Yorkers say he should finish out his term. Paterson is facing two ethics scandals: charges that he helped cover up a domestic violence claim involving one of his aides as well as allegations that he lied about accepting free World Series tickets.

• Supporters are urging New York congressman Charles Rangel to seek re-election this fall, reports the New York Daily News, but many are not sure that Rangel, who was forced to give up his high-profile Ways and Means Committee chairmanship because of an ethics scandal, will be content to return as a rank-and-file member of Congress. Among Rangel’s other challenges, reports the News, is that he is paying several lawyers to defend him from the ethics charges, and his fundraising clout has been diminished since losing his chairmanship.

• Western New York freshman Rep. Eric Massa, under pressure from other House Democrats, last week announced his pending resignation in the wake of a sexual harassment accusation from a staffer. Massa cited a reoccurrence of cancer as the reason for his resignation, but acknowledged that an ethics investigation also is part of the cause, reports TIME magazine. Massa denies the harassment claim, saying instead that his “salty language” may have offended the staffer.

• The debate over the world economic crisis seems to be overlooking the ethical angle, according to an analysis from the Reuters news agency. Politicians seem unable to come up with a plan to reflect voters’ moral unease, claims a group that is, according to the Reuters report, trying to jumpstart an ethics debate. “People have strong emotions about right and wrong — that sense of justice is hard-wired into the way we view the world,” says Madeleine Bunting, one of three founders of the Citizen Ethics Network, which launched in London last week. “Our politics have lost the capacity to connect with that kind of emotion…. Politics has become very technocratic and managerial, all about who’s going to deliver more economic growth.” Political leaders in Britain were quick to endorse the project, with Conservative opposition leader David Cameron commenting that politicians have shied away from moral questions for “fear of seeming judgmental,” noting that it is “vital we find a way of talking about these issues without people feeling preached at.”

• Several watchdog groups are calling for a reworking of congressional ethics rules after a House ethics panel cleared more than a dozen lawmakers in two separate investigations, according to a report from USA Today. Some of the controversy centers on the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which vets complaints before sending them on to the House Ethics Committee. Critics say the independent office is ineffective and lacks subpoena power. And, say watchdog group spokesmen interviewed by the paper, when complaints do reach the full ethics committee, they often are dismissed. “It is stunning to us that the ethics committee is blatantly closing cases when the OCE has raised the red flag,” Mary Boyle of Common Cause told USA Today. Boyle’s remarks came after the ethics committee cleared seven lawmakers of wrongdoing in an investigation of their relationship with a now-defunct lobbying group, according to the report.
• Reacting to the current spate of scandals in congressional politics, House speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the Democratic Party’s record on ethics and said she has taken strong steps to clean up the House of Representatives, according to a report from McClatchy Newspapers. McClatchy’s William Douglas and David Lightman write: “Watchdog groups say, however, that Pelosi’s actions have fallen woefully short of House Democrats’ promise to ‘drain the swamp’ of unethical behavior, a vow they emphasized when they won control of the House in 2006 after Republican corruption scandals centered on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Now Republicans see an important campaign issue emerging for November’s congressional elections.”

Sources: ABC News, Mar. 5 — Time, Mar. 5 — New York Daily News, Mar. 5 — Reuters, Mar. 4 — USA Today, Mar. 4 — McClatchy, Mar. 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 1 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 1 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 19 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 11 — Related Newsline Commentary, Oct. 12, 2009.

VARIOUS DATELINES

Allegations of graft dominated headlines in stories from several nations last week. Among the coverage:

• Guatemala is reeling from a corruption scandal that has prompted the Obama administration to hold the nation up as an example of how graft can subvert the rule of law. According to the Associated Press, Guatemala’s chief drug enforcement official and police chief were arrested last week and charged with stealing cocaine from traffickers. U.S. officials said the events show how a country with weak institutions and safeguards can be overtaken by the world’s multibillion-dollar drug industry. U.S. secretary of State Hillary Clinton added that “a number” of Latin American nations are “not taking strong enough stands against the erosion of law because of the pressure from drug traffickers,” according to the AP.

• Widespread corruption could turn Uganda’s recently discovered oil reserves into a curse, says the country’s World Bank representative. The Bank’s Kundhavi Kadiresan said that graft, which currently costs the government hundreds of millions of dollars a year, must be addressed before the country joins the league of African oil producers, reports the Wall Street Journal. Kadiresan warns that if the world community does not have confidence in the government, oil purchases and international donors may steer clear of the country and its products.

• A tribunal last week ordered the arrest of four Jordanians, including a former finance minister, on bribery charges, according to the Agence France-Presse. Public prosecution of cases involving corruption charges are relatively rare in Jordan, but prosecuting graft has become a part of the platform of the new government of prime minister Samir Rifai, reports the AFP.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Mar. 4 — AP, Mar. 4 — AFP, Mar. 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 1 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 8, 2009 — Related Newsline story, June 22, 2009 — Related Newsline story, July 2, 2001 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 1, 1999.

VARIOUS DATELINES

The intersection of ethics and technology continued to be fertile ground for news stories last week. Among the coverage:

• Boston’s Logan Airport became the first of 11 U.S. airports to receive full-body scanning devices purchased with federal recovery funds, reports PCWorld. Privacy advocates continued to express reservations about the scanners, saying the revealing images, which have been likened by critics to “a virtual strip search,” are intrusive. Airport officials told the Globe that travelers who object to the scans have the option of submitting to a traditional pat down and metal-detector pass-through. But alternate options were not available to two women who refused to submit to a scanner at London’s Heathrow, reports the Times of London. One woman, a Muslim, claimed religious objections based on the revealing nature of the scan, and another said she feared health effects. The Muslim woman forfeited her ticket to Pakistan, reports the Times.

• Britain, characterized by some critics as a “nanny state” because of its purported high level of social control and surveillance, is in the midst of another controversy involving monitoring of garbage cans, reports Sky News. Many local governments have been installing monitoring chips in municipally distributed trash bins. The chips match cans with owners and can be used to track the weight of the bins, leading opponents to fear that Britain eventually will move to a pay-as-you go system, which they claim will discriminate against large families. Various local authorities interviewed by Sky News say the chips eventually will be used to give incentives to those who don’t throw away much trash rather than fining those who do. So far, reports Sky News, most municipalities have not activated the chips, apparently fearing public backlash.

• Advertisers are walking a fine line separating appropriate content from the overly intrusive on Facebook, according to an analysis from the New York Times. Reporter Brad Stone notes that while the social networking service offers what usually are plain-vanilla ads from big companies, the “site’s pages are also home to countless ads from smaller companies that can be funny, weird or just plain creepy — those suggesting you are, say, eligible to get a free iPad because you are exactly 26 years old, or entreaties to see what your offspring would look like if you had a child with a celebrity.” Stone reports that ads using scraps of information about you can, if the strategy is carried too far, become, in the words of a marketer interviewed for the article, “not only creepy but off-putting.”

Sources: PCWorld, Mar. 6 — Sky News, Mar. 5 — Times of London, Mar. 4 — New York Times, Mar 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Feb. 8 — Related Newsline Commentary, Feb. 1 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 1 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 11.

VARIOUS DATELINES

• Ethics featured in several top news stories about business last week. Among the coverage: Goldman-Sachs officially admitted that widespread public anger over lavish pay packages for its executives poses a “risk factor” for its ability to transact business, according to a report in the London-based Guardian. In its annual report, the firm includes “negative publicity” about executive compensation in a list of potential liabilities, alongside more traditional factors such as market volatility and regulatory uncertainty.
• Two powerful members of Congress last week pressed Toyota for more transparency, calling for the company to release more information on electronic components and any possible link to sudden acceleration, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Henry Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Bart Stupak, the head of the subcommittee on oversight, say they want more details on which cars will get a fix on the system that cuts power when the brake is pressed, and whatever “black box” data is stored on electronic devices that, in a similar manner to flight recorders on airplanes, record data on the cars’ performance.
• U.S. Supreme Court justices, hearing matters related to the appeal of former Enron executive Jeff Skilling, last week expressed concern about the selection process for the Houston jury that eventually sent Skilling to prison. Part of Skilling’s appeal argues that it was impossible to find an impartial jury in Houston following the spectacular crash of the firm, reports the Houston Chronicle. Several justices said they were troubled by the jury selection, but according to the Chronicle report, appeals based on venue problems face a high hurdle since the High Court has been reluctant to make decisions that impinge on trial judges’ discretion regarding where and how to try cases. The court is not expected to rule on the matter until midsummer.

Sources: Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 6 — Houston Chronicle, Mar. 4 — Guardian, Mar. 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 1 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 22 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 22 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 10, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 13, 2006.

From Harris Interactive:

“A new Financial Times/Harris Poll of adults under 65 finds support for increased security measures after the attempted bombing of a plane on Christmas Day. Majorities of those surveyed in the United States (64%), Great Britain (62%), Italy (58%), France (58%), and Germany (53%) as well as 46% of Spaniards and 44% of Chinese all agree that body scanners that X-ray the fill [sic] body should be introduced at airports….

“The support changes depending on country for other security measures. Seven in ten Italians (71%), two-thirds of Chinese (67%), over three in five Spaniards (63%), half of French adults (50%), just under half of Germans (48%) and 43% of Britons all agree that governments should increase security checks in public places such as parks, shopping centers, and other places where large groups gather. Americans are more divided. While two in five (40%) agree with this idea, 35% do not and one-quarter (26%) neither agree nor disagree.

“The public is more divided when it comes to the amount of surveillance of individuals by the government already. Two in five Spaniards (40%), French adults (39%), Britons (39%), and Germans (38%) agree there is too much surveillance by governments…. Among the Chinese, while 34% agree there is too much surveillance already, 22% disagree and over two in five (43%) neither agree nor disagree. Americans are the most split on this issue. Just over one-third (35%) feel there is not already too much surveillance by the government while 32% agree there is and 33% neither agree nor disagree.

“The Wearing of a Burqa

“A French government commission has proposed a ban of the Muslim burqa veil which covers the entire female body from head to toe. While a very strong majority of adults in France (70%) are in favor of such a ban, majorities in the other European countries are as well. Almost two-thirds of Spaniards (65%), 63% of Italians, 57% of British adults and 50% of Germans all would like to see such a ban implemented in their country….

“Security is an issue that divides people. Clearly, one needs to feel safe and secure when on planes and in public places. At the same time, there is the concern that governments may be going too far with the amount of surveillance they currently have in place…. ”

For the full release from Harris Interactive, Mar. 10, click here.

– Chinua Achebe (Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic, 1930- )

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