#16: Engineering and the military-industrial complex

The purpose of the ethics paper is to help you recognize that often times there are important ethical issues related to the development and usage of technology. Below are suggestions for major topic areas listed in random order. Under each topic area are subtopics posed as questions. Your ethics paper can address one or more of these questions, or you can use these suggested ideas to help develop your own question to investigate in your paper. In each case, it is important to examine the ethical issues related to the topic. This can include adding your own opinion about the ethical issues. Remember the paper should be 3-5 pages long and written in your own words. Include your name, course number, date, title of paper, and number each page. Single Space. The format and citation style, please see sample .

16. Engineering and the military-industrial complex. The U.S. military-industrial complex is a huge multi-billion dollar industry and engineering is key to its success.
16a. How has the military-industrial complex affected the U.S. economy and encouraged the growth of new technologies?
16b. What are some of the recent noteworthy engineering accomplishments that have arisen from the military-industrial complex in the U.S.?
16c. How has engineering and technology changed modern warfare and what changes might we expect to see in the future?
Student Name
Ethics Paper
EE496 – Capstone II
Dr. Advisor
12/08/13
Catch-22: The Dilemma of Whistleblowers in Engineering

“To be or not to be? That is the question.”
? Hamlet
In recent months, US public relation with other countries has continued to worsen, part of which was directly caused by the actions of American whistleblower Edward Snowden during the National Security Agency spying fiasco. To some, Snowden is a treacherous traitor, while to many others, he is nothing short of a martyr standing up to the unethical misconduct carried out by the authority above. Whichever case Snowden appears to be, the underlying question always will be whether his action was justified to begin with. Is it within the moral standards of one’s rights to speak out against unethical wrongdoings that were being carried out by one’s colleagues, supervisors, and/or upper management? What about the non-disclosure commitment that one is obliged to the moment he or she joined an organization? The old saying usually goes that “no good deed goes unpunished”; what are, then, the consequences of whistleblowing once the whistle is blown? This paper, thus, is aimed to examine and weigh the validity of such an action and to provide current and future engineers with general expectations, pros, cons, and the resulting costs associated with whistleblowing. Being wellinformed will at least, in part, prepare these engineers to make the appropriate decisions relative to them should predicaments like this ever arises.
In order to explore this notion further, a firm grasp of “whistleblowing” must first be established. Whistleblowing is an act of a public or private employee disclosing information, internally and/or externally, that he or she reasonably believed “showed a violation of law, gross mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public safety or health” [1]. Since a majority of whistleblowers report misconduct on a fellow employee or superior within their company, internal whistleblowers are more prevalent and will be observed closely under an engineering perspective. Under this light, the reasons for whistleblowing then closely align with those expressed in the Code of Ethics of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). This is especially true for the first two IEEE’s principles, which state that an engineer should always disclose conflicts of interest and any information that would, when withheld, jeopardize the safety, health, and welfare of the public
[2]
. In practice, all engineers are strongly encouraged by the IEEE to blow the whistle, and that civic and ethical duty trumps the duty to the employer, but at what cost?
To protect whistleblowers from employer retaliation, the government has established laws such as the Whistleblower Protection Act [3]. However, such protection scheme provided for whistleblowers remains in the grey area of the law all around the world, and thus does not always guarantee against retributory actions from the employer. For instance, according to reports published by the European Environment Agency, cases where “early warning scientists” get harassed for bringing up inconvenient truths about impending harm to public and authorities are not uncommon [4]. There have also been cases of young scientist being discouraged from getting involved for fear of harassment. Obtaining protection is one thing, but with the current legal process, most of the time whistleblowers could not file for protection long after they have been terminated by their employers, and are forced to ensue lengthy legal battles against powerful and cunning corporate lawyers. In the US, some states permit at-will employment laws, which legally allow companies to let go of employees for virtually no reason at all [5]. To combat these loop-holes, private organizations are set up with large legal defense funds, such as the prominent National Whistleblowers Center for all that need their help [6]. Consequently, when making the decision to speak out, engineers must always expect some or all forms of retaliations by the accused parties, while also realizing that help and protection are accessible should they need them.
While it is important to recognize the available options are there once the act is committed, it is equally crucial to weigh the pros and cons of whistleblowing before committing to it. Ineffective whistleblowing benefits no one, and thus being truly effective requires a lot of effort and time in the decision making process. Of course, not all engineers think the same way, and their conceived judgment and perception likely varies from situation to situation and person to person. In an academic setting, whistleblowing can be as simple as reporting to people in charge, in this case the prospective engineer’s professors or teacher assistants, when their peers are plagiarizing or cheating to ensure academic integrity. While it is most likely that all prospective engineers view this act as unethical, how many would really act out against it? In this situation, one might blow the whistle because of their unwillingness to sacrifice their own success at someone else’s poor choice. Although intending to preserve academic integrity, the whistleblower in this case had actually acted, albeit unknowingly, in self-interest, much like the writ quim tam being used to accuse the actual ethics of the whistleblower in question. Qui tam permits a private individual who assists in a successful prosecution of wrongdoings to receive all or part of any penalty imposed [7]. Whistleblowing in academia also differs than that at a corporate level in that the authority being reported to tend to always side with the whistleblower, and the wrongdoers usually faced outright stringent penalties, such as forfeiture of the course or even expulsion from their school. At this level, the decision to expose is strictly based on personal standards and ethics, and inaction often stems from empathy for the wrongdoers and the unwillingness to jeopardize their academic careers.
On the other hand, whistleblowers have a much harder decision to make in a work setting. Depending on the circumstances, it is not at all too uncommon for whistleblowers to be exposed to early termination, demotion, suspension, harassment from fellow employees, and/or discrimination from future employers. In fact, according to Brian Martin, an Engineer expert in the matter who has interviewed hundreds of whistleblowers over the year, “hardly any have been successful in both not suffering reprisals and leading to a change in the situation” [5]. One of such recent evidences points to the 2011’s Japanese nuclear disaster of Fukushima following the catastrophic tsunami and a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. The failed cooling system at the nuclear plant resulted in a triple meltdown that forced 90,000 people to be displaced from their homes and leaked radioactive chemicals onto the Pacific Ocean. Kunihiko Shimazaki, a seismology expert and cabinet committee member on offshore earthquake, warned Tepco, the operator behind the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, of the eventual tsunami’s destruction and asked that they put up immediate countermeasures and backup generators [8]. The other 13 committee academics, having close ties with Tepco, immediately shot down Shimazaki’s warning as too “speculative” and “completely ignored [him] in order to save Tepco money.” Although his warnings passed on deaf ears, Shimazaki was still more fortunate than Setsuo Fujiwara, a former reactor designer and inspector, in that he did not lose his position on the committee or his job. Fujiwara clashed with his supervisors in 2009 when he refused to approve a routine test by the Tomari nuclear plant’s operator Hokkaido Electric Power (HEP) [9]. While claiming that the test was flawed, he was summoned by his supervisor to correct his written report in favor of HEP, at which point he firmly refused again, leading to the termination of his contract. Currently unemployed, he is now suing the inspection agency for wrongful termination in order to get his job back, although the legal battle still rages on with no end in sight for Fujiwara, who will be 65 in 2015. Should the case ever settled, he will more than likely not be able to get his job back due to his age and potentially be blackballed by other prospective employers. In both of these cases, the advantage of blowing the whistle is clearly the potential to preserve precious human lives. Both men risked their reputation and careers in order to do what they thought was inherently right, and one of them paid dearly for it. The decision to blow the whistle at the professional level, thus, all depends on the willingness of the engineer to sacrifice for the greater good of the public, something Shimazaki’s and Fujiware’s colleagues and supervisors were afraid to do.
Professional ethnics and civic duty are the fine lines that the whistleblower must carefully think about when found in this predicament. Ultimately, as long as they know what their values are and stand firmly by them, the decision should not be a fairly difficult one. There is not, nor ever be, a right and wrong decision, since dilemma as unyielding as this is not simply black and white. The answer is all relative to the whistleblower’s values and as such, when committed it is essentially a form of self-sacrifice. In the end, whistleblowers can blow either before or after some terrible catastrophe happens, but the consequences are usually the same:
isolation, condemnation, and often the loss of a job or even a career. Ultimately, their only compensation is the knowledge that, at least for them, they did the right thing.
Bibliography [1]
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<http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html> [3]
"5 USC § 1221 - Individual Right of Action in Certain Reprisal Cases." LII. Cornell University
School of Law. Web. 05 Dec. 2013. <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/1221> [4]
"Late Lessons from Early Warnings: Science, Precaution, Innovation." European Environment Agency, Report No. 1/2013. EEA. Web. 07 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/late-lessons-2> [5]
Kumagai, Jean. "The Whistle-blower's Dilemma." IEEE Spectrum. IEEE. Web. 07 Dec. 2013. <http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-whistleblowers-dilemma> [6]
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<http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1709> [8]
Fackler, Martin. “Nuclear Disaster in Japan Was Avoidable, Critics Contend.” NYTimes.com.
New York Times. Web. 07 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/world/asia/critics-say-japan-ignored-warningsof-nuclear-disaster.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0> [9]
Hayashi, Yuka. “Former Inspector Complains of Regulators’ Practices.” WSJ.com. The Wall Street Journal. Web. 07 Dec. 2013.
<http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303654804576346821727192 828>




“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
? Master Yoda, Stars War