If you want to fire up your neurons here at year-end, I recommend reading over the now annual release of “emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology” from the University of Notre Dame’s Reilly Center.
Mark P. Mills
(Full disclosure, I’m on the Center’s Advisory Board – and though I wish I could take credit for it, I had no input on the list.)
Even though the list from Notre Dame is more provocative than IBM’s, each and every technology has already been demonstrated or deployed. So while for the uninitiated some of the following may seem like science fiction, there is the old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction.” In fact, much of what’s on this list has inspired novels and movies. And the Reilly team has helpfully provided links to articles and resources to dig deeper into each domain’s state of affairs.
Following, the Reilly top 10 along with a sampling of their associated ethical questions posed.
This is one of the more egregious senior official screw-up cases. Most of them seem to be zipper issues or misusing airplanes or misusing travel or misusing staff or things like that. This one involves counterintelligence risk and potential international incident. Summarized: monumental dumb-ass.
I have occasional chance contact in the gym with a very senior Air Force JAG familiar with this case; he told me that when the Report of Investigation (attached) was released I'd see the level of basic stupidity involved. Read the report; it makes a pretty clear case.
Having read the report, my gut tells me that the Air Force leadership took some extraordinary measures to protect this guy. First, Air Force IG rather than DoDIG ran the investigation. Had DoDIG run it, I suspect they would have come to similar conclusions but would have processed the case in ways designed to pressure Secretary of the Air Force to hammer the SUBJECT. As it is, all that seems to have happened is that he was relieved of command and I think Strategic Command did that. He's still an Air Force General Officer, I've heard nothing about him processing for retirement, and, as a GO, I'm sure he still has a TOP SECRET clearance with all of the special accesses he would have had in Strategic Command: SCI and NC2/SIOP-ESI at a minimum. Everybody has their own opinion, but, IMHO, this turkey placed the U.S. at greater potential risk, by a wide margin, than did Army LTG-Ret (formerly GEN and Cdr, AFRICOM) Ward, who essentially embezzled a bunch of bucks through misuse of travel and airplanes, Ward was forced to retire at a reduced rank and to repay several thousand dollars for unauthorized travel. And I thought HE got off easy.
Phi Beta Iota: The “system” has improved but is still terribly unfair. Low ranking individuals who lose their rifles or get a security violation have their lives ruined — generals that lose wars and make public asses of themselves, perhaps committing treason in passing, get a slap on the wrist.
Media report below the line with yellow highlights.
Off the Grid’ on Ora TV will feature ex-wrestler and former pol opining on current events and U.S. politics
By Todd Spangler
Jesse Ventura is set to host “Off the Grid,” a daily talkshow on Internet-video site Ora TV that will feature the ex-wrestler, former Minnesota governor and libertarian rabble-rouser sounding off on a range of current events.
The show, to debut in January, will cover topics ranging from Obamacare to the NSA spying scandal — focusing, Ventura said, on the hypocrisy of America’s political leaders.
I met Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in 1987 when I was creating a series for public television called In Search of the Constitution, celebrating the bicentennial of our founding document. By then, he had served on the court longer than any of his colleagues and had written close to 500 majority opinions, many of them addressing fundamental questions of equality, voting rights, school segregation, and — in New York Times v. Sullivan in particular — the defense of a free press.
Those decisions brought a storm of protest from across the country. He claimed that he never took personally the resentment and anger directed at him. He did, however, subsequently reveal that his own mother told him she had always liked his opinions when he was on the New Jersey court, but wondered now that he was on the Supreme Court, “Why can’t you do it the same way?” His answer: “We have to discharge our responsibility to enforce the rights in favor of minorities, whatever the majority reaction may be.”
Although a liberal, he worried about the looming size of government. When he mentioned that modern science might be creating “a Frankenstein,” I asked, “How so?” He looked around his chambers and replied, “The very conversation we’re now having can be overheard. Science has done things that, as I understand it, makes it possible through these drapes and those windows to get something in here that takes down what we’re talking about.”
That was long before the era of cyberspace and the maximum surveillance state that grows topsy-turvy with every administration. How I wish he were here now — and still on the Court!
When you think about it, Santa Claus and the NSA have a lot in common—both can tell when you’ve been sleeping and know when you’re awake…
So our civil liberties elves here at the ACLU decided to make an NSA version of that classic holiday tune, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” taking a cue from Santa’s own secret surveillance program. And as one of the more than 35,000 supporters who signed our petition to Congress to rein in the NSA, we want you to have the first peek at the hysterical new music video!
This new video is the perfect way to show your friends that while Santa’s spying operation may be magical, the NSA’s is very real—and why we should all care.
The NSA has used every excuse from here to the North Pole to justify their unlawful spying operations, but we’re not buying it. And after all their deception, we’re not trusting them with a program so open to abuse of power.
There’s already good legislation pending in the House and Senate—we just need to get as many people as possible to stand with us and push Congress to pass it now.
MEB remains, in our view, the greatest US-based information broker of all time, along with Reva Basch now fully retired. Below is her 13 November 2013 presentation to the Special Library Association.
