Recent Justice Commentaries

Featured image for “The Ethical Take: “Attack on Our Country” Edition”
The Ethical Take: “Attack on Our Country” Edition
What’s going on? I’m gone for only three weeks and… alright, let’s get into it. Mr. Zuckerberg Goes to Washington – And it doesn’t exactly go well for the great Stone Face. After the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal – in which Cambridge created a personality application, posted it on Facebook, then scooped up and used the personal data of approximately 87...
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April 16, 2018
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The “Magnificent” Shkreli
There’s a moment during the first act of Orson Welles’s classic film, The Magnificent Ambersons – a period story about the rise and fall of a local family – where Welles, as narrator, points out what a terror young, self-centered George Amberson Minafer is to all the local citizens. “Someday,” a neighbor angrily remarks, “that boy is going to get...
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March 14, 2018
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Project Trump
Last Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein laid out chapter and verse on how the Russians meddled in our 2016 election, detailing a series of indictments by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III. “The indictment charges 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies for committing federal crimes while seeking to interfere in the United States political system, including the 2016 presidential...
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February 21, 2018
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Alone with Her
“The film starts with Doug seeking out his next prey. He becomes obsessed with a woman named Amy… he’s able to learn details of her life… He meets her at a coffee shop… strikes up conversations with her. The two become friends, but it seems as though Amy isn’t interested in continuing the relationship further.” That bit of opening plot...
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October 16, 2017
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What We Stand For
Have you ever tried handwriting the entire text of the U.S. Constitution? “On Inauguration Day, [artist Morgan O’Hara] went to the [New York Public] library with a small suitcase of pens, a few Sharpies, papers and copies of the Constitution. I brought old notebooks, half-used drawing pads and loose sheets to share with anyone who might show up. I began...
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July 3, 2017
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A Blind Eye?
Graham Spanier, the former president of Penn State University, was found guilty last March of endangering the welfare of a child in the Jerry Sandusky sex assault case. In March, I wrote about my time at Penn State where I spoke on ethics to a variety of students, administrators, alumni and… as it turned out, then-President Spanier. Spanier and I...
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June 7, 2017
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The Cost of a “Judgment Call”
In 2005, I was invited to speak on ethics at a prominent university. I was escorted to a site on campus where the room was packed with students, teachers and administrators. I take my place at a table down in front near the podium for a luncheon that preceded my talk. An official in the room leans over and tells...
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March 27, 2017
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Bad Actor
On Tuesday, WikiLeaks, the Julian Assange-created so-called “whistle-blower” site, released more than 8,700 classified documents and files, known as “zero day” – detailing all manner of cyber tools used by the CIA to gather information on “bad actors” (individual(s) with the intent on doing serious harm) outside the U.S. It is one of the worst thefts to occur since Edward...
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March 10, 2017
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The Korematsu Decision
While President Trump’s Executive Order imposing a temporary travel ban may be decided by the Supreme Court, one argument that might be used to defend the president’s action may come from a portion of a 1944 decision. Not long after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing that all individuals of Japanese ancestry,...
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February 10, 2017
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You’ve got to be Kidding!
Hands down, my wife’s favorite movie – the one she watches till the end, no matter when it started – is Overboard; that over-the-top, can-see-the-ending-a-mile-away romantic comedy starring Goldie Hawn and real-life partner Kurt Russell. Joanna Stayton (Hawn), is a wealthy, stuck-up, supremely bored heiress traveling the world, apparently, on one of the largest private yachts imaginable, because her husband...
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December 26, 2016