Ethics – Page 322 – Public Intelligence Blog

Michael C. Jensen; Harvard Business School; Social Science Electronic Publishing (SSEP), Inc. November 29, 2009; Rotman Magazine: The Magazine of the Rotman School of Management, pp. 16-20, Fall 2009 Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper No. 10-042; Barbados Group Working Paper No. 09-04

Abstract: This paper is an interview of Michael Jensen by Karen Christensen on the topic of integrity. There is confusion between integrity, morality and ethics. In our much longer paper on the topic (see “Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics and Legality” (available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=920625)) my co-authors, Werner Erhard and Steve Zaffron, distinguish integrity, from morality and ethics in the following way. Integrity in our model is honoring your word. As such integrity is a purely positive phenomenon. It has nothing to do with good vs. bad, right vs. wrong behavior. Like the law of gravity the law of integrity just is, and if you violate the law of integrity as we define it you get hurt just as if you try to violate the law of gravity with no safety device. The personal and organizational benefits of honoring one's word are huge — both for individuals and for organizations — and generally unappreciated.

Keywords: Values, Integrity, Morality, Ethics

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Phi Beta Iota: INTEGRITY is our core word.

See Especially:

Reference: Integrity–Without it Nothing Works II

Reference: Integrity–Without It Nothing Works III

Integrity @ Phi Beta Iota

2009/12/232009/12/23

Journal: Anthropology 101–Not Being Listened To

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Policies, Threats

Full Story Online

To Beat Al Qaeda, Look to the East

By SCOTT ATRAN December 13, 2009

Scott Atran, an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, John Jay College and the University of Michigan, is the author of the forthcoming ‘Listen to the Devil.'

Confidence is important, but we also have to recognize that the decision to commit 30,000 more troops to a counterinsurgency effort against a good segment of the Afghan population, with the focus on converting a deeply unpopular and corrupt regime into a unified, centralized state for the first time in that country's history, is far from a slam dunk. In the worst case, the surge may push General McChrystal's ”core goal of defeating Al Qaeda” further away.

What binds these groups together? First is friendship forged through fighting: the Indonesian volunteers who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan styled themselves the Afghan Alumni, and many kept in contact when they returned home after the war. The second is school ties and discipleship: many leading operatives in Southeast Asia come from a handful of religious schools affiliated with Jemaah Islamiyah. Out of some 30,000 religious schools in Indonesia, only about 50 have a deadly legacy of producing violent extremists. Third is family ties; as anyone who has watched the opening scene from ”The Godfather” knows, weddings can be terrific opportunities for networking and plotting.

Understanding these three aspects of terrorist networking has given law enforcement a leg up on the jihadists.

. . . . . . .

Continue reading “Journal: Anthropology 101–Not Being Listened To”

2009/12/222009/12/22

Journal: United Nations–Death to Pets, Cows & Sheep

Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Key Players, Policies

NEWSWIRE: United Nations (New York). The Secretary General of the United Nations today called for the death of all pets, but especially dogs and cats. He also called for a 20% reduction in all livestock grown for consumption for each year until all humans adopted a vegetarian diet, citing Francis Lappe Moore's book Diet for a Small Planet as the single most authoritative reference in any language written in all time.

Below is the principal scientific finding, every bit as robust and indisputable as the science of the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Secretary General is reported to have said “Now that ClimateGate is old news, it is time for PetGate.”

Full Story Online

Polluting pets: the devastating impact of man's best friend

PARIS (AFP) – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

But the revelation in the book Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

Combine the land required to generate its food and a “medium” sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) — around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4×4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

. . . . . .

And pets' environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.

With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.

Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faeces cause high bacterial levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.

And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo — owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.

Continue reading “Journal: United Nations–Death to Pets, Cows & Sheep”

2009/12/192010/01/12

Reference: Walter Dorn on UN Intelligence in Haiti

01 Poverty, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Academia, Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, United Nations & NGOs

UPDATE: Superceeded by final published version a tReference: Intelligence-Led Peacekeeping

Phi Beta Iota: Dr. Walter Dorn is one of a tiny handful of truly authoritative academic observers of UN intelligence, a pioneer in his own right, and perhaps the only person who has followed UN intelligence from the Congo in the 1960's to the creation of new capabilities in Haiti and elsewhere in the 21st Century. He is the dean of UN intelligence authors. See also Who’s Who in Peace Intelligence: Walter Dorn.

2009/12/192009/12/19

Reference: Life-Cycle Costing–A Question of Value

Analysis, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Key Players, Methods & Process, Monographs, Policies, Threats

2009/12/192009/12/19

Journal: Well-Intentioned Idiocy Abounds….

Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Mobile, Reform

Headlines Only:

Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes (Updated)

Spytech Agency Wants Software Brains to Connect the Dots

Training For The Civilian Surge

TSA Cannot Order Sites to Take Down Sensitive Manual

Headlines and Snippets Below the Fold with Phi Beta Iota Comment

Continue reading “Journal: Well-Intentioned Idiocy Abounds….”

2009/12/192010/01/01

Journal: Director of National Intelligence Alleges….

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Methods & Process, Policies, Reform, Strategy, Threats

Shifting Gold Bars Sank the Rust Bucket — Original Op-Ed Online

Strengthening Our Nation's Front Line Of Defense

By Dennis C. Blair

Friday, December 18, 2009

Phi Beta Iota: This is a seriously misleading article, our comments are provided after each paragraph.

The legislation authorizing post-Sept. 11 intelligence reform — the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 — was signed into law five years ago this week. We are often asked whether the new organizations, authorities and additional resources have made a difference. The answer is yes.

Phi Beta Iota: In combination with the Patriot Act, which was not read before passage, the legislation has perpetuated all of the bad practices of the past and poured gasoline on the fire by giving incompetent intelligence managers more money. America is less safe today because of the combination of $75 billion a year wasted on a system that still does not process more than 10% of what it collects, still cannot do machine speed multi-lingual exploitation, and still cannot do multinational human engagement and multi-lingual open source.

To be clear, the task of reinventing our intelligence structure and integrating the capabilities, cultures and information technologies of 16 diverse intelligence agencies is massive, and it is incomplete. Problems persist in our technologies, business practices and mind-sets. I have no illusions about how challenging they will be to overcome. But there is an ocean of difference between difficult and impossible.

Phi Beta Iota: Every single criticism in ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (AFCEA, 2000) remains valid today. NOTHING HAS CHANGED in the way of fundamentals. The clandestine service is still full of cowboys under official cover; there still is no processing; the CIA analysts are babies and the DIA analysts are brain dead; technical sources are too big, too late, and too expensive; the list is long. Analysts still spend a quarter of their time trying to access the disparate classified databases at the same time that the Open Source Center remains a national disgrace, unable to do multinational engagement and totally out of touch with the 80% of the information we need that is free, open, and in 183 languages we do not speak. Note: Blair has a set of Steele's book in his possession, he obviously has not read them or this article of his would be completely different. He has no power, no authority, no vision, and with the possible exception of Andy Shepard, no one with a proven track record of knowing what is actually needed–Shepard knew in 1992 and has had to wait 17 years to be heard.

Continue reading “Journal: Director of National Intelligence Alleges….”

Category: Ethics

Reference (2009): Integrity–Without it Nothing Works