Professions

Why Professionalism Is Essential: TSA Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
The man behind the curtain is pointing and laughing....

The man behind the curtain is pointing and laughing….

Taking Sense Away is a fascinating blog operated by a former TSA screener. It is essential reading for air travelers, libertarians, critics of the TSA and anyone else interested in the strange, often infuriating  airport security procedures that have evolved since the events of 9/11/2001. His perspectives are not universally accurate in all cases (he reminds us frequently), but it can’t make air travelers happy to read the following, which he recently revealed as part of his answer to an inquiry from a reader about the unseen aspects of screening:

“Now, the I.O. Room (the image operator room, where your nude images are viewed at airports that still use the backscatter x-ray full body scanners), that, my friend, is a whole different story. In the image analysis room, no one is permitted to leave or enter without ample warning (part of TSA’s promise to the public that officers “would never see the passenger whose nude image they just viewed,” although I did occasionally witness this being violated, see Confession #1) and, like the private screening room, recording devices of any kind are prohibited. So in summation: what you have are one to two to three TSA officers locked in a room, viewing nude passenger images, with a guarantee that no one can barge in on them, and that no surveillance cameras can legally be present.

“Just use your imagination on the stories among TSA officers of what has gone on in the I.O. room. Personally, in the I.O. room, I witnessed light sexual play among officers, a lot of e-cigarette vaping, and a whole lot of officers laughing and clowning in regard to some of your nude images,  dear passengers.  Things like this are what happens (at the very least) when you put people who are often fresh out of high school or a GED program (although there are actually a few TSA screeners with PhDs, which I guess is sad on so, so many levels) with minimal training and even less professionalism, into the position of being in charge of analyzing nude images of people in a hermetically sealed room.”

Nice, huh? Continue reading →

Sen. Inouye And The Duty To Leave

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments
A distinguished life, missing one important act of leadership

A distinguished life, missing one important act of leadership

Washington D.C. and Hawaii are awash in tributes to the late Senator Daniel Inouye, who died last week, in office, at the age of 88. This is as it should be. Inouye was a historic figure in his state, a war hero (a Congressional Medal of Honor recipeient, in fact) , a statesman, in in all respects, from every source I’ve seen, the epitome of an honorable U.S. Senator and a good man.

But he stayed too long at his job. This is an obvious statement, since he dropped dead while still committed to filling his position for four more years. In 2010, Inouye ran for office knowing that he would be 92 when he finished his term. In this he was irresponsible, just as his former colleagues Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and many, many others were irresponsible before him. Senator Inouye even allowed himself to become President pro tem of the Senate, placing him third in line to succeed to the Presidency, after the Vice President and Speaker of the House.

We do not need term limits: if the voters, as they do, choose to keep electing representatives on the basis of nostalgia, or laziness, or fear of change, or loyalty, that’s democracy, just as it’s democracy that they elect officials for no better reasons than the fact that they had popular or successful grandfathers, parents, and spouses. The presumption in democracy is that we elect leaders who are better qualified to assess our best interests than we are, and that means that we should be able to trust them to know when it’s time to take themselves out of the active process of governing, and to remove from us the opportunity to irresponsibly confer power on those who are no longer fit to wield it. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Case of the Maybe Killer Lawyer

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Tough one! Are you ready?

Convicted killer and lawyer too?

Convicted killer and lawyer too?

Richard Buchli, a Missouri lawyer who was convicted of beating his law partner to death, was getting a new trial after it was revealed that the prosecution had illegally withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. There was some strong evidence supporting his conviction, such as the fact that the partner’s blood was splattered on Buchli’s clothes in a manner consistent with a beating death. (Buchli argued that he got bloody trying to revive his partner.) The court, however, frustrated with the prosecution continuing to drag out discovery and failing to deliver all the evidence to Buchli’s legal team, threw out the conviction completely and barred all the evidence in the case, effectively making Buchli, who had been in prison since 2002, a free man.

Now Buchli, who was disbarred in 2005 (killing your law partner is considered unethical), wants his law license back. Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz Question:

Should he get it? Continue reading →

Hey Corey Clark, This Streisand Effect’s For You!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
Remember Corey Clark? Neither do I.

Remember Corey Clark? Neither do I.

For those of you fortunate enough to have forgotten about Corey Clark: he had a brief fling with celebrity after he was kicked off American Idol in 2003 and later accused then-Idol judge Paula Abdul of secretly helping him advance in the show while they were having a clandestine, and obviously unethical, sexual relationship. He did this, class act that he is, two years later while he was promoting an album release.

I didn’t remember Corey Clark either, until a typical reputation-cleaner (that is, dishonest and threatening) called me on the phone yesterday, misrepresenting himself as working for Clark’s lawyer, and told me that Clark was engaged in litigation regarding “defamatory” material published about him. He said that a post on Ethics Alarms’ predecessor, The Ethics Scoreboard, had “defamed” Clark in 2005 by stating that he had been convicted of a felony, and this was a demand that I either retract that post or take it down.

This, is, of course, approaching the patented territory of Ken at Popehat, whose specialty is opposing creeps who try to censor opinion on the internet by threatening spurious but expensive litigation against bloggers. As I told Clark’s paid lackey, who spouted erroneous legal theories and had a rudimentary understanding of defamation at best, I was only recounting what I had read in published reports at the time. There could be no defamation, as 1) Clark was, at the time, a public figure, 2) I wrote what I thought was true and accurate and 3) there was no malice involved. He asked me for my source, prompting me to say that I would have been able to supply him with one and would have done so gladly if his employer’s client hadn’t waited seven years to bring the post to my attention. The Scoreboard has not been active since 2009. Continue reading →

Lisa Long’s Unethical, Despicable Bargain: Betrayal For A Blog Post

/ Jack Marshall / 90 Comments
No silver for this mother's betrayal...just blogging fame..

No silver for this mother’s betrayal…just blogging fame..

I hope free-lance writer Lisa Long enjoys her brief notoriety as a result of her blog post on The Blue Review that was  re-published on the Huffington Post and  Gawker, guaranteeing millions of readers. That should be worth at least a few more published articles for her, and maybe even a cable interview or two. After all, it would be a pity  to deliberately and callously burden the life of her emotionally disturbed son and get nothing out of it at all.

One thing she is already getting as the result of her sensationally-titled essay “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother” is harsh criticism for making such a cynical and self-serving bargain. In her post, Long relates the harrowing tale of her life with her 13-year-old son, whose erratic behavior and emotional outbursts terrify and dismay her. In the most quoted portion of the post, she proclaims his equivalence to well-known serial killers:

“I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.”

Gee, thanks Mom! Continue reading →

Musings On A Judge’s “One Time Accidental Mistake”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments
"All right now, boys---smile!"

“All right now, boys—smile!”

From the ABA Journal:

“A Philadelphia traffic court judge has been removed from the bench for showing a female court clerk photos of his privates. In a one-sentence ruling on Thursday, the Court of Judicial Discipline took action for what it called judicial misconduct. However, a lawyer for former judge Willie Singletary called the incident a ‘one-time accidental mistake’ and said the judge had resigned from office in February…According to attorney John Summers, the judge accidentally displayed photos of his genitals for a period of seconds and he and the court clerk were sharing innocuous cellphone content with each other. A legal ethics complaint contended the judge also asked her ‘Do you like it?’ at the time.”

Some thoughts: Continue reading →

Naked Teacher Principle Update: The Streaking Teacher Variation

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
Pro Tip: This is not the way to hold on to that "Teacher of the Year" award.

Pro Tip: This is not the way to hold on to that “Teacher of the Year” award.

The Naked Teacher Principal has a growing number of variations. I think my favorite is still the Butt-Painting Teacher With A Bag Over His Head Variation, but this one is pretty good.

Mark Bringhurst, a fifth-grade teacher for eight years at Winslow Elementary School in New Jersey, and the Vineland School District’s 2011-12 teacher of the year, has been fired for streaking naked through an apartment complex parking lot. He was arrested in March after his mad dash and charged with public lewdness.

Bringhurst told police he did it on a dare from someone he met online (?), and that he had made the same nude run a year earlier. There was no indication that strong spirits were involved, which raises the interesting question: who would you consider more trustworthy, someone who runs around naked in public when he’s had too many, or someone who does it stone sober? Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: The ABA Journal

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments
"I just know we're forgetting something! "Effects"? No, that's not it..."Ethanol"? No, no..."Prosthetics"? Arrrgh! What IS it?

“I just know we’re forgetting something! “Effects”? No, that’s not it…”Ethanol”? No, no…”Prosthetics”? Arrrgh! What IS it?”

This is as disheartening and it is shocking. The American Bar Association Journal, the monthly magazine of the nation’s largest lawyer organization and in many ways the face of the legal profession in the United States, just announced its 6th Annual Blawg 1oo, its reader-chosen list of the best law-related blogs on the web. There are many excellent blogs honored, of course; indeed all of them are useful or entertaining. I’ve visited most of them, and some, like Popehat, the Legal Professions Blog, Above the Law, the Volokh Conspiracy, Scotus Blog,  the New York Personal Injury Law Blog, and Over-Lawyered, I check on several times a week. There is a remarkably wide range of blog topics covered, including superhero law, practicing law in China and zombies. Guess what’s not covered?

Legal ethics. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Matt Lauer

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments
It's lucky you're dead, Dave, because this would kill you...

It’s lucky you’re dead, Dave, because this would kill you…

Matt Lauer, as the primary host of the “Today” show, reigns where once distinguished journalists and professionals like Dave Garroway, Bryant Gumble, Tom Brokaw and Frank McGee made the show a morning oasis of news and pleasant banter. Yesterday Lauer, who has already revealed himself beyond any reasonable argument as a hack (yes, “Today” has had other hacks), showed himself to be an unmannerly creep as well. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Hypocrisy!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

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Fox News reporter Jesse Waters in his spare time

Fox News reporter Jesse Waters in his spare time

Hypocrisy is a concept that is widely abused by critics, who misidentify it with startling regularity. Someone who has engaged in conduct that he now opposes is not necessarily a hypocrite, for example. It is not hypocrisy to reform or change one’s mind. Nor is it hypocrisy for someone to criticize conduct that he or she knows is wrong, but cannot control in his own life. Someone who opposes official approval of status that the individual secretly holds is not necessarily a hypocrite either. A closeted gay public official who publicly opposes gay rights may be self-loathing, but not hypocritical. A gay public official can plausibly believe that gay marriage is not necessary, or that marriage is a tradition that can only refer to a couple of opposite genders: holding a sincere position that is self-critical or against self-interest isn’t hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is a lie, not mere inconsistency. It is knowingly posing as something you are not, pretending to believe something you don’t believe, demonstrated by not making an effort to meet the standards you insist that others follow. D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, lecturing children about the evils of illegal drug use while smoking crack in his spare time, was a hypocrite. Law enforcement officials who intentionally break the law are hypocrites. Rep. Joe Walsh,  the Tea Party, “family values” Congressman who refused to meet his own child-support obligations, stands out among the many hypocrites in government.

Then there is Fox News correspondent Jesse Watters. One week after President Obama was re-elected, Watters told Fox Head Bloviator Bill O’Reilly that the Obama voters were mindless zombies who supported the President “as long as there was Obamacare, gay marriage and abortion on demand.” Now Federal Election Commission records have surfaced showing that Watters himself contributed $500 to the President’s re-election campaign.

Yes, he is a zombie. Continue reading →