The Ethics Of Michael Chertoff

[babylonsister]

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/01/the-ethics-of-michael-chertoff.html

The Ethics Of Michael Chertoff


So the dead ringer for Mr Burns has been all over the media touting new body-scanning machines, and his point is a completely valid one. It would have been nice, though, for him to have acknowledged the following a little sooner, don't you think:

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.

An airport passengers' rights group on Thursday criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.

That's from the news section of the WaPo. Fred Hiatt's section ran an op-ed by Chertoff making the case today. It includes a disclosure.

[spanone]

1. that's what politicians do and it should be criminal.

they cash in on their 'public trust'

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Let's call it The Non-Ethics.

It just makes me sick to hear about these former Bush bots capitalizing on their government ties to make a new fortune.

Shine a huge light on these cockroaches!

K&R

:mad:

[cal04]

3. Jesselyn Radack:Former DHS Secretary Chertoff Abuses Public Trust by Pimping Body Scanners

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/1/821048/-Former-DHS-Secretary-Chertoff-Abuses-Public-Trust-by-Pimping-Body-Scanners

First, I admit up front I have an axe to grind against Chertoff, who made my life a living hell for blowing the whistle on abuse in the case of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh when I was a Justice Department ethics attorney.

But I don't think my disdain of Chertoff changes the objectivity of my assertion that he's abusing the public trust by using his former government position to pimp whole-body scanners in his self-serving Op-Ed in today's Washington Post. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101746.html

He dismisses why would-be Christmas plane bomber Abudulmuttallab was not placed on a watch-list--his ill-conceived brainchild, which was abused to punish political enemies as much as it was to detect terrorists. Chertoff's solution the first time a terrorist used PETN to explode an airplane? Make people take of their shoes!

Then he touts the benefits of whole-body imagers against the "privacy" freaks, without revealing that his firm's clients include a manufacturer of the body-imaging screening machines currently used in select U.S. airports. There are some choice phrases for this: CONFLICT OF INTEREST, ABUSE OF PUBLIC POSITION . . .

The opening sentence of Chertoff's Op-Ed decries that

many have focused on why the alleged terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was not placed on a watch list that would have prevented him from flying.

I call bullsh*t. It's because you, Mr. Chertoff, placed people like me, the late Senator Kennedy, Cat Stevens, anti-war protesters and countless other innocents on the list as political punishment. That's why the list of half a million people is so unwieldy today as to be virtually useless.

Second, you abuse the public trust by using your former government credentials . . .

During my time as secretary of homeland security

. . . to push whole-body imagers as the panacea for airline safety, as you have in dozens of opportunistic media interviews since the attempted Christmas bombing.

You fail to reveal in the Op-Ed that the Chertoff Group, your lame security consulting outfit, represents Rapiscan Systems, which manufacturers these scanners. You have the audacity to say that the would-be airline explosion provided

a very vivid lesson in the value of that machinery.

I can almost hear you thinking how it would have been an even greater lesson if the plane had actually exploded!

How could I ascribe such a horrid thought to Chertoff? Because the guy is a morally bankrupt invertebrate with a Napoleonic complex and power addiction. He was intimately involved in the first case of government torture post-9/11 (that of John Walker Lindh), lied about it before Congress, and is perfectly willing to use his former government position to promote a product that benefits his clients. And the Washington Post gave him what is tantamount to free ad space.

[indepat]

12. Me thinks you might even be a bit charitable to Herr Chertoff 'cause

he's probably worse than you portray. :P

[HowHasItComeToThis]

4. THEY ARE ALL IN IT FOR THE MONEY

[carlsharp]

5. A real patriot, proving that it's possible to be patriotic and

still make a ton of money in the military-security industrial complex.

[spanone]

7. horseshit...take it somewhere else

[scentopine]

8. LOL - Just like Oily North, right? -nt

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. This disruptor is .......HISTORY.

[rateyes]

6. Ethics and Chertoff in the same sentence.

Oxymoronic. (or should I say oxymorAnic?) :eyes:

[TexasObserver]

10. You know who he really is, don't you?

[Canuckistanian]

11. I read the title and thought, "The WHAT of Michael Chertoff?"

HIS ethics died during Katrina, if not before.

[ljm2002]

13. I would not call his point "completely valid" either...

...given that the young man in question could, and should have been prevented from ever flying at all, given the intelligence that was already available on him.

As is usual in such cases, one should start by asking the question, "cui bono"? Who benefits when a known (if hapless) extremist is allowed to fly and causes a security situation? Why, it's the Neocons, it's the manufacturers of whole-body scanners, it's the Republicans, it's the military-industrial-complex.

I'm not saying it was a setup, just that it could be. It could be another case of LIHOP, just look the other way and wait for something bad to happen and then take full advantage. That's what I think was going on.

In different times I'd be willing to accept the maxim about never attributing to malice what can be more simply explained by stupidity, or incompetence. But these days, I truly believe there are dark forces at work, and that there are plenty of people in positions of authority who are more than willing to sacrifice a few pawns in their Grand Chess Game.