[martin_k]

I found this part particularly interesting: "Our business is apolitical, okay? We do not generate the intelligence requirements. They're levied on us. And so if there is a requirement for foreign intelligence concerning this issue or this region or whatever, then that is [...] what we are going after. That is the intelligence target we are going after because it is the requirement."

I think as engineers, we have a certain degree of responsibility for how our work is used. To say your work is apolitical when you're in the business of spying on people is quite the statement, especially if "people" is basically everybody. (I am aware that the speaker is probably not an engineer and it wasn't an engineering recruiting program, but the same can be said about their field, I'd assume.)

[DannyBee]

I agree in general, but i disagree it's "quite a statement". People generally won't do jobs they believe morally or other conflict with their values. So they come up with ways (some may say "delude" themselves) to believe they don't, IE "Just following orders".

A good example are prosecutors and defense attorneys.

I've met many prosecutors who believe it's okay to put away people for many years even if they personally have doubts about their guilt.

I've met many defense attorneys who believe it's okay to get people acquitted, when they've confessed their guilt to the attorney.

This isn't because they are amoral people at their core, it's because they have a job, and want to be able to sleep at night while still doing that job, so they convince themselves.

[robbiemitchell]

Attorneys defend guilty people not simply because it's their job, but because they defend the right to due process and a fair trial. Everyone, even (privately) guilty people, is afforded these rights.

[DannyBee]

I'm sorry, what? The purpose of a trial is to determine guilt or innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. If they admit they are guilty, are not insane, etc, please explain what end this serves again?

Let's ignore the edge cases of being committing violations of unjust laws, malum prohibitum crimes, and stick with something like: Client accused of murdering 40 year old woman Client admits to you he murdered 40 year old woman because he felt like it. No police brutality, confession issues, whatever [1].

I'm of course, not saying they should be strung up. But trying to get them off on a technicality serves nothing. If they go free, it serves no overall goal of the system.

[1] Note that for things like the exclusionary rules, this is actually why a number of 'conservative' justices don't like them - they are actually in agreement that stopping police from committing constitutional violations is a worthy goal, but do not believe letting guilty people go free is the way to solve that problem.

[robbiemitchell]

Yes, the purpose of the trial itself is to determine guilt or innocence. I'm suggesting that the purpose of a legal system like ours is to ensure everyone's right to a fair trial in the first place; more generally, our goal is to ensure that innocent people are not put in jail. Defense lawyers make sure that guilt, if determined, is done legally and that sentencing is arrived at fairly.

If a defendant wants to skip the trial and admit guilt, that's a different matter.

[DannyBee]

No, actually, the purpose of our legal system is to have some fair form of crime and punishment system.

A fair trial is not a purpose, it's a means to an end (punishing people fairly). It is not even a necessary component. The only reason it exists at all is because of our inability to objectively determine guilt in most cases. The rest are tacked on (IE determinations of what crime has been committed. Even this would be solved if you could objectively determine what occurred)

However, again, if the defendant admits guilt (even if not in public), but still wants a trial, can you explain how the system is served by a fair trial on guilt or innocence for him, rather than a fair sentencing hearing?

In that case, the guilt or innocence is not in question. The same is true when they only admit guilt to a defense attorney. Defending the client, and trying to get them off during the trial stage, does not serve the ends of the system. It may, depending on how formulated, serve some of the means, but that's kind of irrelevant.

[krichman]

Well let's first assume that the client not only admitted that he did it but also really did it.

The system is best served by not being allowed to randomly put whomever in jail for whatever [1]. So we would require the prosecution present legally-obtained evidence that the defendant has committed a crime to establish that fact. Defence attorneys are to ensure that there is a fair fight because we cannot expect all of the accused to be legally savvy. To make this effective, the defence must be able to speak to them in confidence, ergo attorney-client privilege. So the defendant admits to his lawyer that he killed a woman. If the state is overreaching on charges, let's say murder one when he did it on a whim, he actually should not be convicted of it. Giving a good defence is supposed to ensure that when an accused is convicted they are convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. "Better one thousand guilty walk free..."

Also in that case the defence would likely advise the culprit to admit guilt to a second or third-degree murder.

[1] Although I don't think it's succeeding very well at this due to overreach by the states as far as charging too much to get a plea bargain.

[wazoox]

> No, actually, the purpose of our legal system is to have some fair form of crime and punishment system.

Notice that this is one approach, the traditional (dare I say right wing?) one. It's exemplified in the Saudi's punishment of cutting off thieves hands. OTOH, it's mostly rejected in Europe, where justice is supposed to rehabilitate, not punish. That's why there isn't death penalty, and why there are notoriously comfortable prisons; "justice as punishment" is seen there mostly as backwards and barbaric (probably because of all these socialists there :). has

[tptacek]

It serves no direct purpose to the parties of a criminal case to defend someone you know to be guilty. But doesn't it serve an important indirect purpose in allowing the system to function despite (necessarily) complex laws that laypeople can't navigate on their own?

[PavlovsCat]

To convince oneself against one's better knowledge that something is right when it's not, because one wants to be able to sleep at night of all things is not amoral? To "just follow orders" isn't amoral? Adolf Eichmann wasn't amoral? What, then, is amorality?

[nitrogen]

Are you perhaps confusing "amoral" with "immoral"? "Amoral" means without moral consideration ("pragmatic", "calculating"), "immoral" means in violation of moral consideration ("evil", "malicious").

[PavlovsCat]

No, I'm aware of that, and I mean amoral. Could be the person I replied to confused them, but I actually think amoral is more fitting, since numbing your conscience may be immoral, but effectively makes you behave amorally, no?

Though I do think being amoral is a position on the moral spectrum - wether amoral people want to see it or not - and to me it kinda implies immorality. I find amorality much more dangerous than mere immorality, also because it can often seem benign and go unnoticed much longer.

[md224]

Indeed. Engineers need to understand that the things they build may be "cool," but they have higher-order consequences beyond that. Just because we can build something doesn't mean we should. I mean really, didn't anyone learn anything from Jurassic Park? :P

[baconner]

This is a very good point that I keep coming back to as the NSA scandal continues to unfold. You may think that as an engineer your concern is the engineering and going heads down on technical issues is the end of your responsibility but it is not.

Nothing absolves you of your fundamental responsibility to behave ethically to the best of your abilities. There's a good article on this topic here:

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-architecture-...

There's no such thing as a job where you will never have to make an ethics based decision and you need to be prepared to do the right thing. Philip Zimbardo (sp?)(Stanford prison experiment) talks about the necessity of training people to be heroes before they face ethical conundrums to short circuit our natural instincts and take action. I think this is an important thing to do from time to time - ask yourself if you are compromising your ethics in some way. Look in the mirror and remind yourself that you're going to do the right thing especially when its hard. Make the decision ahead of time so its easier to follow through when it counts.

Here's hoping there are folks at the NSA and elsewhere asking themselves these kind of questions and rereading that oath to protect the constitution.

[maxcan]

Don't hire Newman. But we knew that already..

[meowface]

Quite true. The policy makers and intelligence directors can't have huge spying apparatuses if they have no engineers willing to build them.

[angersock]

"Once the rocket goes up, who cares where it comes down? That's not my department", says Werner von Braun.

[doktrin]

Nitpick : the above almost makes it look as if von Braun made that statement, which he didn't. It's from a satirical song by Tom Lehrer.

[angersock]

Quite right. Lehrer had some fantastic lyrics to his credit.