Ethics Newsline®

As the calendar turns, journalists are overtaken by the urge to put a “wrapper” around the events of the previous twelve months, and those of us at Ethics Newsline™ are no exception.

So what follows are stories I believe had the highest ethics impact in 2005 — and will continue to blink on the ethical radar screen throughout 2006.

(Note that the criteria for selection center on the ethical dimension of the stories, which sometimes manifests itself blatantly, sometimes subtly.

For example, when business executives are jailed for looting their firms, the ethical issue involved is fairly straightforward. But in other top ethics stories, such as those dealing with anti-terrorism legislation, the dilemma involves the delicate balance of competing “right” values — for example, protection of the individual versus protection of society.

Note, too, that that there are no concrete criteria for judging the relative importance of ethics stories and many readers may disagree and will let me know why. That, of course, is half the fun of making up a Top-10 list.)

So here, ranked from tenth most important to first, are the Top 10 Ethics Stories of 2005, followed by a few links to the most recent and relevant stories from the Newsline archives.

#10. Deep Throat Surfaces. The revelation that 91-year-old Mark Felt was the legendary source in the Washington Post’s Watergate probe answered one question but raised many others. The fact that Felt was the No. 2 man at the FBI prompted a debate on the ethics of whistle-blowing, with some saying Felt did his civic duty by leaking secrets while others charged that as a government official he betrayed a public trust by passing secrets to a newspaper. Also, there were ethical questions about Felt’s motives: Was he retaliating against Nixon for passing him over for the FBI’s top job?

Related Newsline stories: June 6, 2005 — Commentary, June 6, 2005.

# 9. Massive Corruption in the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food Program. The so-called Volcker Report found that more than 2,000 firms involved in the United Nation’s Oil-for-Food Iraq relief program — almost half of all companies involved — paid kickbacks and illegal surcharges to the government of Saddam Hussein. While the U.N. immediately announced various reform measures, the ethical implications of such widespread looting and mismanagement of a humanitarian aid program remain important, newsworthy, and troubling.

Related Newsline stories: Oct. 31, 2005 — Sep. 12, 2005 — Aug. 15, 2005.

#8. The U.K.’s Tough Line on Terror and the Resistance to Tough Legislation. Strongly backing military intervention in Iraq and suffering terrorist bombings on its subway and buses at home, Britain became a primary European test ground for trying to balance individual rights with collective security. Tony Blair’s government met stinging and unexpected opposition on a number of fronts, including the defeat of a proposal to extend the period that suspected terrorists can be held without charges.

Related Newsline stories: Nov. 14, 2005 — Nov. 7, 2005.

#7. The “Perfect Storm” of Ethics Scandals that Rocked Washington. The president’s poll numbers plummeted late in 2005 as prominent Republican lawmakers and White House officials found themselves under scrutiny for a variety of alleged ethics transgressions. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Texas) was indicted on campaign finance charges, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) was subpoenaed by the Securities and Exchange Commission over a profitably timed sale of stock held in a blind trust, Congressman Randy Cunningham (Calif.) resigned after admitting taking an astonishing $2 million in bribes, and top White House adviser Karl Rove found himself in the midst of a probe into who leaked the name of a covert CIA agent. With Democrats roundly criticizing the GOP for “cronyism and corruption,” the ethics issues of 2005 are certain to be front and center in the upcoming midterm elections.

Related Newsline stories: Dec. 12, 2005 — Dec. 5, 2005 — Oct. 31, 2005.

#6. The Courts Play Hardball with Pilfering CEOs. In a case featuring tales of a $6,000 shower curtain and a $2 million birthday party, former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison for looting the company. Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was given a 25-year stretch in connection with the $11-billion accounting fraud that drove his firm into bankruptcy. John Rigas, the 80-year-old founder of Adelphia Communications Corp., was sentenced to 15 years in prison for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the cable company he founded. And former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was indicted and awaits trial in January on 11 criminal counts related to the accounting fraud that imploded his company.

Related Newsline stories: Sep. 26, 2005 — July 18, 2005 — July 12, 2005.

#5. As Terri Schiavo Passes Away, Right-to-Die Issues are Resurrected. While Terri Schiavo died after her feeding tube was removed last spring, the moral controversies lingered. Ethical repercussions echoed from several fronts: religious groups arguing that the government exceeded its power, elected representatives leading a backlash against the judiciary and then backpedaling from their rhetoric, and spokespersons for the disabled who said the case raised fears that anyone with a severe impairment is “one ER visit away from becoming the next Terry Schiavo.”

Related Newsline stories: Apr. 4, 2005 — Mar. 28, 2005 — Commentary, Mar. 28, 2005.

#4. Wiretapping and the Patriot Act Stir Unease. It was an ethical issue classic in U.S. politics: the belief that terrorism must be fought with powerful intelligence-gathering — but countered with a profound concern about invasion of privacy. The Patriot Act was given only a short reauthorization after it foundered on questions such as the government’s right to conduct roving wiretaps and conduct secret searches. Meanwhile, the revelation that President Bush authorized a number of secret wiretaps on terror suspects sent the White House into defensive mode and constitutional scholars thumbing through their law books.

Related Newsline stories: Dec. 19, 2005 — Dec. 12, 2005 — Aug. 29, 2005.

#3. The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Raises Questions of Fairness, Competence, and Survival. As the floodwaters receded and the wreckage was washed away, profound ethical questions remained standing. Some charged that New Orleans was shortchanged in the rescue effort because so many residents were poor minorities. Other critics claimed there were ethical shortcomings in the process that selected the nation’s top emergency-management executives. And in the midst of the chaos, many were forced to reevaluate the ethics of theft: If you steal because you’re starving, is it looting or survival?

Related Newsline stories: Research report, Dec. 5, 2005 — Oct. 31, 2005 — Oct. 24, 2005.

#2. Korea’s Stem Cell Research Crumbles. Only a few months ago, Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk was on the fast track to a Nobel Prize, and South Korea was planning a massive effort to become the worldwide hub of stem cell research. But one by one, the threads of his research began to unravel under scrutiny, and today it appears that the incident may be one of the most stunning cases of scientific fraud in history. It’s no longer about the science — it’s about the ethics. In an endeavor where trust is the glue that binds research worldwide, the revelations were devastating.

Related Newsline stories: Dec. 19, 2005 — Dec. 12, 2005 — Dec. 5, 2005.

#1. Torture Becomes a Question of Public Policy. After months of debate, President Bush reversed course and agreed to a rider on a massive defense-spending bill that would ban cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of terror suspects. The premise that the United States could be advocating some forms of torture not only sparked furious debate domestically but throughout the rest of the world as well, coming to a crescendo after the Washington Post alleged that the CIA maintained secret interrogation sites in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, using allied air bases to secretly shuttle prisoners.

Torture thus became the preeminent ethics issue of 2005: it exemplified the wrenching moral tug-of-war between the individual’s right of to be free of brutal government coercion and the need for society to collectively protect itself from a deadly enemy.

Related Newsline stories: Dec. 19, 2005 — Commentary, Dec. 19, 2005 — Dec. 12, 2005.

©2006 Institute for Global Ethics