If Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook simultaneously came out and published all statistics that the government is not allowing them to publish, and declared that they will continue to publish those as they come in and be entirely transparent about the tracking that the NSA asked of them, would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market?
I don't think so. I think the NSA would fold if those five cards were played simultaneously.
Yep, the NSA is on very thin ice right now and they know it. It's the perfect time to stand up to them. Large tech companies can do more than just release statistics. They can take principled stands against these disgusting programs in their entirety.
Executives who are still playing along at this point are just cowards.
The stock market is a fickle thing. Despite the government-collusion revelations, top tech companies' shares haven't moved an inch in response. It stands to reason that share prices would decrease in the event of a revolt against the US Government, one could even take it a step further and argue that -- through a variety of strategically-placed and secretive investments -- the USG holds stocks in these companies.
Through such an arrangement the USG would be able to exert considerable control. One can enter serious conspiracy territory and speculate that the entire recession recently was orchestrated by the USG to launder billions of dollars to gain influence in a variety of companies and property across the world.
Google and Facebook both have dual-class stock structures that make them essentially indifferent to public stock ownership, since their founders have majority voting control. Push the stock price down and the companies take it as an opportunity for stock buybacks.
Well I hope this is not the case. I am against the NSA monitoring program. I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative.
Lets disconnect this behavior from the specific instance's moral outrage:
If Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell simultaneously came out and ignored all EPA restrictions would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market?
Depends on which law is being broken. In addition to whether the law is moral, there's also the business implications.
Markets serve customers first. If the companies colluded to act morally in their customers interest and against repressive governments, then I don't see it being a comparable issue. They would be rewarded longer term with customer loyalty.
If oil companies collude to ignore safety regulations, that would harm customers, then it's something that would result in a different market response and much greater legal implications from citizen lawsuits, not only from the government.
Who are the "customers" exactly? The public using these free services are not the customers, that's for sure. We are the "users". The customers pay for information about users.
Well if a business depends on "users" to get revenue from advertising or other means, they are still essentially customers and equally influential to the company.
The point of civil disobedience is that those doing don't believe that the official methods for determine what a good thing is are working. Comparing this suggested action to oil companies and the EPA is like comparing Ghandi to the KKK.
Oh come on now, there are extremest libertarians too, and they abhor the idea of environmental regulations. They truly believe that the impact of "market corrections" applies wholeheartedly to the largest of corporations, and environmental damage is certainly detrimental enough to cause consumers to react accordingly.
The fines and environmental regulations imposed against corporations are viewed very poorly by libertarian extremists, so the comparison is apt. Advocates the KKK certainly identify with the likes of Ghandi, too.
Haha, its an absolutist vs. utilitarian moral argument. It is clear that from the absolutist perspective as you've stated, the outcome has potential for abuse. I assume that the precedence set bothers you, corporations were not intended to be a check against the gov't per se. The state of affairs is probably indicative of a larger issue which the failure of our checks and balances in our government.
Utilitarian morality could be that the net effect of the free market demands for an unwatched internet is the correct moral course of action. But as you may have unwittingly hinted at, it is entirely dependent on how the position of the companies and choice of action relate to the benefit of the society. In this case with the NSA the answer is yes, in your example, no, but that should prove that the idea of corporate collusion and interference with gov't isn't intrinsically morally wrong. Just depends on what the companies stand for.
I disagree with you on points, but at least we seem to be operating from a shared logical framework.
I think our fundamental disagreement however is i don't think a company 'stands' for anything but making money. I think further that if commercial entities are allowed to hide behind 'morality' when determining which laws to follow this will lead to extreme abuse, since in my worldview commercial entities do not have a 'moral' code.
If say, mark zuckerberg wanted to do a sit in in front of the NSA knowing he is violating tresspassing laws (for the sake of arguement) then thats his personal moral choice, and as long as he is willing to face the consequences, kudos to him.
But realistically the majority of the american people dont have a problem with the NSA programs. I know it burns a lot of HN up, but as of right now, thats just reality. We know that the elected executive branch, the judicial branch, and the elected legislative branch more or less have signed on to this NSA thing. If perhaps they were in the dark before, this is no longer the case. This is democracy at work people, sometimes the majority of people want something I dont agree with, thats democracy.
Now just because democracy 'failed' doesn't mean I want some small cabal of very rich and powerful folks to decide they will not have to follow the laws of this country because they have the power to do so.
Soylent Corporations are made of people. Human beings do have moral authority to choose which laws to break, which includes accepting the consequences of their actions. They are then judged based on the validity of that moral choice in the public eye, which is admittedly subjective and ineffable, if not volatile. But pollution and mass spying are unlikely to be seen as principled civil disobedience in the same way as releasing evidence of law-breaking, sharing an NSL, etc.
Still, both are examples of corporate leaders standing up to government thugs. They're only different because of how american culture treats those two different topics.
If you're strictly judging by lawfulness, its a problem - but if you judge it by the public being exposed to harmful externalities during the normal operations of any of these businesses, and that preventing that is a positive, then this might be a solution.
The negative externalities are pollution and secret monitoring of customers. Polluting more doesn't reduce or eliminate either of those for the public, while informing the public of how it is being monitored does.
That being said, it would be a protest, and all useful protests against government are unlawful.
> I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative.
It happens all the time, though, if you look at the financial, banking, insurance and oil industry - even without the slightest (moral) excuse. And nobody goes to jail, just some ridiculous fines to pay.
This time, there is a very serious moral imperative.
Corporations have morals now? Just seems like a bad idea to root for, actually it sounds very similar to the argument that there is a serious moral imperative for the govt to ignore the 4th amendment to stop terrorism.
Why would you assume that Thoreau, Gandhi and King would be against my position?
Individuals banding together for civil disobedience is completely different from commercial entities banding together. Hoping for commercial entities to break laws because you hope to happen to benefit from this rule breaking in this particular instance seems to be ill advised from my perspective.
"Despite wide use by politicians, judges and academics, the rule of law has been described as 'an exceedingly elusive notion' giving rise to a 'rampant divergence of understandings ... everyone is for it but have contrasting convictions about what it is.'
"At least two principal conceptions of the rule of law can be identified: a formalist or 'thin' definition, and a substantive or 'thick' definition. Formalist definitions of the rule of law do not make a judgment about the 'justness' of law itself, but define specific procedural attributes that a legal framework must have in order to be in compliance with the rule of law. Substantive conceptions of the rule of law go beyond this and include certain substantive rights that are said to be based on, or derived from, the rule of law."
If believing in the rule of law that you are defining here means that one would believe that one should absolutely follow all laws at all times, then I'm not a believer in the rule of law.
Honestly, if you going to selectively pick lines out of an information source that defend your argument then all hope of intelligent discourse is lost. Let me just say, I don't disagree with the source your quoting just with your selective quotation. Why don't we quote the whole thesis instead of the caveats after the main thesis?
'The rule of law (also known as nomocracy) generally refers to the influence and authority of law within society, especially as a constraint upon behavior, including behavior of government officials.[2] This phrase is also sometimes used in other senses.[3]
In its general sense, the phrase can be traced back to the 16th century, and it was popularized in the 19th century by British jurist A. V. Dicey. The concept was familiar to ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, who wrote "Law should govern".[4] Rule of law implies that every citizen is subject to the law. It stands in contrast to the idea that the ruler is above the law, for example by divine right.
Despite wide use by politicians, judges and academics, the rule of law has been described as "an exceedingly elusive notion"[5] giving rise to a "rampant divergence of understandings ... everyone is for it but have contrasting convictions about what it is."[6]
At least two principal conceptions of the rule of law can be identified: a formalist or "thin" definition, and a substantive or "thick" definition. Formalist definitions of the rule of law do not make a judgment about the "justness" of law itself, but define specific procedural attributes that a legal framework must have in order to be in compliance with the rule of law. Substantive conceptions of the rule of law go beyond this and include certain substantive rights that are said to be based on, or derived from, the rule of law.[7]'
That's probably the best idea right now - uniting.
Will they? They're of course competitors, they could be played off against each other by the government. Anyways, such talks would have to remain ultra-secret.
I don't think so. I think the NSA would fold if those five cards were played simultaneously.