Showing papers in "Journal of Information Ethics in 2011"

The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It

Abstract: The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It Jonathan Zittrain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. 342 pages. $30.00.Jonathan Zittrain's book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, discusses the tension between generativity, the "capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from a broad and varied audience" and the security problems inherent in today's personal computers and Internet system (70). This generativity, Zittrain argues, is the greatest strength of personal computers and the Internet and had led to great innovations, including creative software, peer-to-peer networking, blogs and content sites such as Wikipedia, and even the Internet itself. Yet this same generativity has also spawned security, legal, and social problems that may lead to the demise of personal computers and the Internet as they exist today (101). If we do not find solutions for these problems, Zittrain warns, we will be faced with government or corporate control of personal computers and the Internet, similar to current controls of cellular telephones and cable converter boxes, which will effectively shut down the innovations that personal computers and the Internet currently enable (245). Personal computers, according to Zittrain, will become nothing but appliances programmed by the manufacturer, capable only of limited tasks, and stripped of the tools and capabilities necessary for innovation.The first part of the book traces the history of personal computers, mainframes, proprietary servers, and the Internet. This section highlights how differences in technology and administration fostered generativity in personal computers and on the Internet and prohibited innovation on the mainframes and proprietary networks. Yet the innovations made possible by the generative nature of the Internet and personal computers also created its vulnerabilities: viruses, worms, malware, and spyware. Despite his obvious support of generativity, Zittrain admits that the current situation is "not sustainable" (43), but warns that the obvious solutions-such as limited functionality, governmental controls, and censorship-completely undermine the creativity made possible by personal computers and the Internet. The sec- ond part of the book defines generativity and explores its benefits and detriments. Here, Zittrain proposes that information technology functions best when generative, while admitting that we cannot ignore the problems caused by generativity (64), and warns equally of the dangers of controlled appliances: censorships, surveillance, forced legal compliance, and unannounced changes in machine functions. Chapter 6 in this section considers Wikikpedia as a self-regulating generative system that functions imperfectly but well. Part Three proposes technological, legal, and social solutions to the problems discussed earlier in the book.The Future of the Internet intertwines its analysis of current personal computer/Internet problems with current and historical examples from business, law, culture (Internet and otherwise), and technology. These examples, often worthwhile and interesting in and of themselves, underpin Zittrain's analysis rationally and support his conclusions. The examples show that the kind of sledgehammer solutions that Zittrain predicts are not merely possibilities or potentialities, but already have been and are being employed by various companies and governments. Perhaps best of all, Zittrain's use of these historical and current examples avoids the sensationalism often seen in other works that predict governmental and corporate control of options, behavior, and creativity. …

The Privacy Advocates: Resisting the Spread of Surveillance

Abstract: The Privacy Advocates: Resisting the Spread of Surveillance Colin J. Bennett. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. 259 pp. $28.00The author is no stranger to monographs on the topic of privacy either as solo author or as a co-author (most recently, a review of his Governance of Privacy: Policy Instruments in Global Perspective [2003] [written with Charles D. Raab] appeared in the Spring, 2008 issue of the Journal of Information Ethics [pp. 86-87]). Bennett (and at times with co-authors) has made consistent contributions to the literature on privacy. The latest offering, however, differs from his previous efforts, or others for that matter, in that instead of exploring some aspect of privacy rights, protection, invasion, etc., this book focuses on the "individuals and groups that have emerged from civil society" as privacy advocates not "those within the state or the market" nor those members of civil society who have self-identified as such advocates (p. iv). True to his training in political science, Bennett is interested in not only the "who" but the "how": how do these advocates identify problems, strategize, and mobilize responses, etc.? The "data" is drawn from observation, a documentary review of various sources, and thirty key informant interviews (the list of those interviewed appears in several places) with actors from North America, Europe, and Australia.The presentation proceeds logically as if it were an extended journal article or dissertation but it was in fact funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The first chapter identifies the research problem while subsequent chapters discuss the advocacy groups and the contrasting following chapters cover the actors as individuals. The strategies both groups and actors have developed and case studies or "key conflicts" constitute the next two chapters; discussion of how these advocates have formed social networks and whether privacy might in the future become a social movement conclude the seven chapters of the book. A list of the deceptively simple interview questions is included in an appendix. As is typical of the author's work, a detailed bibliography of the relevant literature appears but it also includes, as would be expected given the task at hand, numerous references to popular and news sources that help identify the "key conflicts" and advocacy responses as reported in the mass media.The surveillance grid or typology offered in the first chapter is very useful as is the overview that accompanies it; it is concise, to-the-point, yet referential to selected prior work. Bennett recognizes that to some extent he is studying himself here since he admits that he is a privacy advocate, a "perennial" scholar. Bennett offers a taxonomy of actor categories: activists, researchers, consultants, technologists, journalists, and artists. The exposition offers a refreshing view of the all-too-familiar strands of privacy problems by providing perspectives drawn from the inventory of the advocates themselves. The discussion of privacy groups is organized into those dedicated to privacy or privacy-centric alone (e. …

Inflexible Bodies: Metadata for Transgender Identities

Abstract: [T]he power relations that characterize any historically embedded society are never as transparently clear as the names we give to them imply.- Gordon, 1997, p. 3While librarians are strongly encouraged to "offer materials from a variety of identity perspectives" (J. Taylor) to make library collections more welcoming to transgender people, the same level of attention is not always applied to terminology used to describe transgender- related topics, and even trans- people themselves. Is it possible for librarians to use controlled vocabulary to accurately describe people's lives? What pieces of identity are leftbehind? In traditional library cataloging models, hierarchical taxonomic and classification structures are used to describe pieces of information. These schemas are lacking in any sort of mechanism to acknowledge people's sometimes amorphous and often fluid identities. This paper will specifically address Library of Congress-based cataloging practices, including classification, and their role in enforcing normative boundaries for queer sexualities and gender. Through the use of inaccurate language in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and problematic classification schemes, catalogers often unwittingly contribute to the creation of library environments that are passively hostile to transgender users.The idea that Library of Congress subject headings do a poor job of codifying reality is not new. Sanford Berman first addressed this issue in the late 1960s. He wrote, in Prejudices and Antipathies:[...] the LC list can only "satisfy" parochial, jingoistic Europeans and North Americans, white- hued, at least nominally Christian (and preferably Protestant) in faith, comfortably situated in the middle- and higher- income brackets, largely domiciled in suburbia, fundamentally loyal to the Established Order, and heavily imbued with the transcendent, incomparable glory of Western civilization (3).He is far from alone in this sentiment; in their 2001 analysis, Hope Olson and Rose Schegl found 68 works discussing negative bias in LCSH. Many of these works were critical of the way the Library of Congress (LC) provides access to materials about women, African studies, people with disabilities, and LGBT people (Olson and Schegl 61). This paper focuses on the latter.Queers or Sexual Minorities?It is simultaneously essential and impossible to extricate transgender identities from lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities; queer- identified transgender people certainly exist, though LGBTQ advocacy work has not always been inclusive of both sexual and gender diversity. As mainstream gay and lesbian groups in the 1950s and 1960s began presenting as "normally" as possible in order to gain widespread acceptance, transgender identities were often considered deviant and misaligned with the groups' goals (Stryker 151). In other decades, such as the 1970s and 1990s, transgender and queer activists often aligned in the hopes of creating "an imagined political alliance of all possible forms of gender antinormativity" (146). Echoes of these tactics are still very common in different types of LGBTQ rhetoric, and controlled library vocabulary is definitely not immune.For the purposes of this work, "queer" is defined as a politicized identity centered on same- sex orientation. The word "queer" has complicated meanings. In the early twentieth century, it was an internal term used by people within the community, only becoming an insult in the 1950s (Shneer and Aviv). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, "queer" regained popularity, representing resistance to assimilative "lesbian and gay" language (Warner xxi). Currently, it still retains some of those radical connotations, threatening "the ground on which gay and lesbian politics has been built, taking apart the ideas of a 'sexual minority' and a 'gay community,' indeed of 'gay' and 'lesbian' and even 'man' and 'woman.'" (Gamson 249). Queer identities do not have an explicit place in LCSH. …

The War on Privacy/Privacy in Peril: How We Are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience

Abstract: This review by Judy Anderson covers two books.The War on Privacy. Jacqueline Klosek. Westport, CT: Praeger. 232 pp. ISBN: 0-275-98891-0 $49.95Privacy in Peril: How We Are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience James B. Rule. Oxford Press, 2007. 232 pp. ISBN: 978-0-19-530783-2 $28.00Information is power. The temptation for control and personal gain from using and/or selling personal data runs a fine line between promoting conven- ience and restricting personal freedom. Surveillance in public areas has become commonplace. The amount of personal data being stored and accessed is mind-boggling. Individuals controlling their personal information promote freedom; gathering and use of that information by government, businesses, and organizations must be weighed more cautiously. Nations and societies vary in their expectations and policies on privacy for their citizenry. Levels and means of regulating who may have access to personal information about an individual's travel, health, financial status, and personal preferences vary a great deal. When industry or governments relied on paper files for their information archive, privacy was a tangible transaction. In the early years of computing, before the Internet went public, privacy could still be controlled, with some degree of certainty, by restricting access to the data. Not so today. The public Internet network has opened a highway for moving data world-wide. Selling personal information for mass marketing, insurance application screening, hiring decisions, bank loan applications and a myriad of other uses make it financially attractive for information holders to consider setting privacy aside in favor of profit; businesses approach acquiring the data as a means for more informed decision-making about anticipating probabilities for an individual's behavior. The utilitarian sees open access to any/all information about a person as efficient, market share advantage, and cost effective. Governments see vast amounts of data collected as a means to protect, restrict, persuade, and apprehend. We consumers run the spectrum of how much personal information we willingly share to conveniently access goods and services. As we become aware of the extent of the data collection and the impact its use has on our lives, our reactions run the gamut-protest, submission, fear, anger, action to petition reform. In each case, we are beginning to realize the power and value of our information. We are coming to grips with different levels of privacy and deciding how to react and what to allow.One means of coping involves combining efforts to promote regulation and awareness. Organizations world-wide are petitioning governments to set up safeguards. They ask to know what information is being collected, for what purpose and by what means that information may be accessed. We consumers are realizing the value of our information and want personal control over it. We expect policies to protect us from having our information sold or accessed by those beyond the original business, agency or organization that collected it, and against governments (1) using their data to restrict individual freedoms without due process of law and (2) using that information to intimidate those holding views not held by their government. We should maintain control over what is collected; it should be ours to distribute and/or sell, but, technology evolves rapidly. It offers new possibilities for tracking individual preferences and conditions, making it very difficult for slow moving policy processes to be in place to protect individual privacy rights. On the positive side, making the effort to promote safeguards does raise awareness and confidence that protections will come.Protecting its citizenry is a responsibility expected from government and privacy protection for its citizens is becoming more common world-wide. The level of that protection varies a great deal among different cultures and government systems. …

Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice

Abstract: Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice Eric Lichtblau. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008. 350 pp. $26.95Despite public unease with the government's expanded surveillance powers, despite the constant onslaught by organizations, including the ACLU, against overzealous and illegal government activity, and despite courts' findings that hastily passed legislation, such as parts of the USA Patriot Act, are unconstitutional, Congress continues to introduce and pass laws that broaden the government's ability to perpetrate un-American, unconstitutional activities in order to combat terrorism. With the singular exception of a handful of barbaric idealogues who wish to achieve their ends (whatever and wherever they may be) to kill, maim, destroy and foment and spread fear and chaos, virtually no one advocates this form of arbitrary and wanton destructiveness. Most good people would like to make certain that property and lives are protected, but they also care about other protections, especially in the United States, which grounds its being in individual and civil rights. To abrogate these in the good fight against terrorism is to capitulate to the basest designs of those who would take pleasure in the metaphoric and physical destruction of America and the principles through and for which it stands.George W. Bush does not care about all this nonsense. He and his helpmates want to make certain that additional acts of terrorism do not occur in the U.S. That hundreds of American military personnel as well as citizens of occupied countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq are killed or maimed every week is apparently of less concern. In order to achieve the administration's goal, laws were both pushed through Congress and perverted, rulings were twisted, torture was defended, habeas corpus was denied, citizens were illegally detained, and prisoners were mistreated, harmed, and murdered.The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Eric Lichtblau has written an encom- passing overview of how the president and his defenders were able to accomplish this. There is no doubt that Bush's Law is a major contribution to our understanding of the unprecedented alterations that have recently occurred within the American judicial system. Jeff Stein offers a positive critique in The New York Times Book Review (June 8, 2008) though Jack Goldsmith (head of the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel) predictably takes Lichtblau (and The New York Times, for which he wrote) to task for revealing classified information, in five long and detailed pages in The New Republic (August 13, 2008). …

Impact of the Code of Ethics on Workplace Behavior in Academic Libraries

Abstract: In information professions, the ability and willingness of those in service to act with integrity and for the cause of the greater good is a point of pride to those serving and an area fundamental to the peace of mind of those seeking assistance. Librarians, in particular, work diligently to serve their communities and advocate the ideals that are crucial to the stability of a democratic society and an informed citizenry: freedom of speech, free flow of and access to information, awareness and protection of intellectual property rights, and equitable treatment of those seeking information. However, while these values are generally upheld by the Library and Information Science (LIS) field, there has always been some contention surrounding the idea of librarianship as a profession in the areas of job function and educational requirements (Edwards, 1975; Salonen, 2003; Smith, 2006; Gordon, 2008; Lonergan, 2009), professional image and status (Lancour and Rossi, 1961; Shaffer, 1968; Wilson, 1979; McDermott, 1984; Arant and Benefiel, 2003; Luthmann, 2007), and relevancy, enforceability and usefulness of the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics (COE), (Goode, 1961; Murray, 1990; Finks, 1991; Hauptman, 2002; Sturgeon, 2007; ALA, 2009). Books about the evolution of librarianship as a profession (Ennis & Winger, 1961; Shaffer, 1968; Budd, 2008) and library ethics (Hauptman 1988; Hauptman 2002; Preer 2008) have been written; and conversations about all of these concerns have found their way into new venues of communication, like web logs (Houghton-Jan, 2008; R. Deschamps, 2010; Deschamps, 2010). Sometimes, ruminations about the COE have been combined with discussions about academic library values (Peterson, 1983; Dole & Hurych, 2001), always with heavy acknowledgement towards parity between meaningful ethical principles and LIS' legitimate claim to professional status.A quick review of the characteristics of a profession (body of theory, professional authority, community sanction, a binding code of ethics, and a professional culture) shows that librarianship still has quite a bit of ground to cover; however, some literature implies that it is librarians-not society-that keep them from enjoying the full benefits of professional status-namely, that the public easily recognizes librarianship as a profession (Schuman, 1990; Adams, 2000). Articles concerned with how librarians are perceived externally (and internally by other librarians) are numerous. Even the ALA's official publication, American Libraries, has a regular column titled "How the World Sees Us." However, upon closer inspection, we find that the negative archetypal image of the librarian may be decreasing (Kroll, 2004; Luthmann, 2007). Where there was once an old Caucasian spinster with a petty penchant for quiet and patron condescension, there is now the helpful guide on the side and bold adventurer. This change in public perception is crucial as we delve into issues of ethical behavior, not only because LIS professionals are in the public eye more often, but because that publicity stresses the importance of principled behavior with our communities and each other.In 1968, Rothstein noted quite bluntly concerning the COE that "[L]ibrarians, like any other professional group, need some kind of statement which will indicate who they are and what they stand for. Indeed, we need such a statement more than most other professional groups, because we librarians have always had trouble in identifying ourselves to the general public-and even to ourselves" (p. 157). In turn, the trouble librarians have explaining their role in society has been linked to how they choose to adhere to their profession's core values (Usherwood, 1980). While discussions about the COE's pitfalls have always held the spotlight in LIS literature, Hoffman's 2005 survey of Texas librarians is the only one that begins to address COE knowledge and links to professional association membership. …

The Significance of a Suitable Information Ethical Code: A Case Study of the Chinese Morality Perspective

Abstract: IntroductionComputers and electronic communication facilitate a detached form of interaction among people, and are media through which people are able to send and receive information in an unpremeditated way, leading to changes in interpersonal relationships. Moreover, they represent a quick, low cost communication mechanism through which the copying and printing of intellectual property is easily done, making the violation of patent rights, residuary rights, copyright, and piracy rife, and the interception of messages and invasion of privacy commonplace. Such a communication channel provides considerable freedom and space for the innovative use and diffusion of information. The concept of information sharing runs counter to that of complete confidentiality and partial accessibility. For this reason, the principle of information ethics always contravenes the important value of freely accessible information. In view of this, the electronic age requires legal authentication to render unnecessary paper authorization and legitimization. Therefore, due to the unique difficulties and challenges of the IT developments outlined above, the principle and application of ethics must be adapted to accommodate the needs of information technology (IT) (Weiss, 1990; Martin, 2001; Davison et al., 2006).A well-designed code will help to educate several communities. If a code is sufficiently detailed, it will help to educate clients and society, and reduce the developer's tendency to take short-cuts. A detailed code can be used as a foundation for a malpractice suit against developers who intentionally fail to meet the standards specified in a code. A code also serves to educate its membership and potential membership about the standards of the profession (Gotterbarn, 1998). The Center for Business Ethics (1986) found that 83 to 93 percent of companies have an ethical code (Berenbeim, 1992), the manager of those companies believing that the code is instrumental in the prevention of unethical conduct among employees (Manley, 1991). As employees recognize the ethical code as a form of law and rule, it helps clarify the definition of the range of behavior unacceptable to the company, thus helping both to prevent computer abuse and to influence the moral judgment of employees (Bequai, 1983).The ethical code of NASW (National Association of Social Workers, 1996) includes a series expectant of the normative description of workers' attitude and behavior, most of which is context dependent. Due to the inhibitions of code, to resolve the conflict between situation factors and code, rule and standard should refer to the context. The hypothesis of the code is individuals of good character will behave responsibly in good faith. For this reason, social workers should consider cultural habits and adopt a flexible interpretation of the behavior of professionals (Goldstein, 1999).Although a number of scholars have studied information ethics (Schlegelmilch, 1989; Langlois and Schlegelmilch, 1990; Swinyard et al., 1990; Berenbeim, 1992; Whitman et al., 1998; Guillen et al., 2002; Wood et al., 2004; Davison et al., 2006; Mele et al., 2006; Hui et al., 2007), studies from the cultural perspective using longitudinal and qualitative methods are still scarce (Chang, 2009). According to Mason (1 986) there are four aspects to informational ethics (PAPA): privacy, accessibility, property, and accuracy. In light of this, the present paper aims to explain the different reactive processes of MIS professionals in CHSyst (pseudonym) in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China, and to interpret these reactions from the perspective of Chinese morality (Hwang, 1998) and Mason's PAPA (1986). It aims to provide fresh insight into the Chinese morality perspective, and to create a new direction for ethical codes in Chinese enterprises.The structure of the paper is as follows: The first part reviews the body of literature on the theory of the importance of ethical codes and the Chinese morality perspective. …

You Can't Polish a Pumpkin: Scattered Speculations on the Development of Information Ethics

Abstract: In the opening of his Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, the French philosopher Alain Badiou (2001, p.1) remarks that "Certain scholarly words, after long confinement in dictionaries and in academic prose, have the good fortune, or the misfortune ... of sudden exposure to the bright light of day," unexpectedly catapulting such words to "centre stage." Ethics, Badiou contends, is undoubtedly one such word. And although we wish to resist the banal and tiresome process of academic list- making, the word information indubitably and unequivocally belongs next to ethics in and under the spotlight of post- modernity. Of course, Badiou plucks "ethics" from the darkness of philosophical obscurity only in order to show how the post- modern obsession with ethics simply reflects and reinforces "the logic of a capitalist economy" (2001, p.4). Similarly, the current essay attempts to rescue "information" from those who would reduce its essential contestability to so many "semantic quirks" (Machlup 1983, p.641). In so doing, it attempts to make explicit the proposition put forth by Robbins and Webster (1988, p.70) that "information is not a thing, an entity; it is a social relation, and in contemporary capitalist societies it expresses the characteristic and prevailing relations of power." And so, despite the many recent attempts at theoretical illumination the only point that seems to have been clarified is the essential contestability of both these concepts. Yet taken together, especially in Library and Information Science (LIS), information ethics is understood in a very general sense to be a self- verifying good and as such something that must be unquestionably defended, supported and promoted.The purpose of this essay therefore is to highlight the manifold limitations of information ethics in the specific context of Library and Information Science (LIS). In particular, we wish to suggest that in a world characterized by the commodity form of information an ethics of information is at once both imperative and impossible. This impossibility and this necessity originate from the very same source: capital-the definite social relation by which the means of production are transformed into the means of exploitation. Although information ethics is purported to analyze the "relationship between the creation, organization, dissemination and use of information and the ethical standards and moral codes governing human conduct" (Reitz 2004, p.356) this has not led, on the whole, to any sustained process of consideration of the social meaning of the production and commodification of information. While there have been a smattering of exemplary and engaging critiques (Frohmann 2004; Stiglitz 2000; Schiller 1997; Enright 2008) dealing with the implications flowing from the generalization of the commodification of information, very few attempts have been made to comprehend the impetus that underpins the ceaseless movement toward ever more commodification. That is, the commodity form itself tends to be treated unproblematically as a pre- given category that emerges as if from nowhere. There is a tendency then for those who identify as "critical librarians" to take the emergence and even the analytical priority of "information ethics" as simply a given, the starting point of any properly radical theory. The temptation here is to reiterate a portion of Stahl's (2008, p.348) critique insofar as he suggests that information ethics can lead to the "closure of debate and reification of meaning and understanding" but certainly we can assert that in resisting, or at the very least problematizing "information ethics," we are not witnessing any return to the "neutrality" of which information ethics was a critique, even a necessary critique (Hauptman 1988). Though neither does it seem useful to accept the implications of, for example, a version of "information" that exists in abstraction from the specific capitalist social relations that give rise to its very existence, a counter- productive version of political history inasmuch as it entails a division and classification which collapses political and theoretical criteria into an almost moralizing simplicity. …

Global Information Ethics in LIS: An Examination of Select National Library Association English- Language Codes of Ethics

Abstract: Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right.-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)Ethics, or moral philosophy, derived from ethos, is the principle, character, and behavior of knowing and doing what is right and just. Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the science of morals; the department of study concerned with the principles of human duty" and "the rules of conduct recognized in certain associations," professional ethical responsibilities have long been expected of many professions including teaching, medicine, finance, and law, yet formal ethical standards for library and information professionals have only recently, relative to the age of the profession, been considered, developed, and published.Information ethics in library and information science, a term first expressed in 1988 (Hauptman, 1988, p. 3; Capurro, 1998), refers to the "production, dissemination, storage, retrieval, security and application of information within an ethical context" (Hauptman, 2002, p. 121). The ethical and moral obligations, challenges and conflicts which may result when people, information, and facilitators (i.e., librarians) interact, demonstrate the need for ethical standards to guide the facilitator, and indeed to ensure the optimal conditions for information to be created, used, and preserved. They are statements to guide and define ideals and standards of librarianship in the particular societal contexts in which they are formulated.Yet, information ethics standards must first be governed by national, federal, and local laws, covering aspects such as labor standards (what is a librarian required to do, or to not do?), technology (what technology can be used/ accessed, and how, especially at the tax-payers' expense?), information laws (what limits have been placed on access to information about potentially controversial subjects?), audience (who may or may not access a library's services and why? and how (or is) the privacy of the user ensured?). The American Library Association (ALA) Library Bill of Rights, for example, provides an ideal statement of principles, and refines those principles to refer specifically to intellectual freedom in the Code of Ethics; however, any conflicts, challenges or obligation in ensuring those standards and ideals would be governed by American law, making the code unenforceable (Wiegand, 1996, p. 84) at the professional level, and thus remaining hopeful ideals. The importance of recognizing ethical standards is not in question, yet the need for often unenforceable codes must be examined; why are formal codes necessary, what makes a code effective, and how can rhetoric, rights, responsibility, and reality be reconciled in the context of information ethics in library and information science?The ALA Code of Ethics includes the following in its short preamble: "...we recognize the importance of codifying and making known to the profession and to the general public the ethical principles that guide the work of librarians..."; can library and information professionals move beyond the ethical ideals in principle to mindful application and implementation? Many formal ethical codes of national library/librarians associations refer to a national charter, constitution or similar document, and sometimes directly or indirectly to global human rights and some specifically to elements of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). While also not legally binding, the UDHR can be used to morally or politically influence those states, nations, leaders or governments which violate the principles of the declaration, though the language of the document is subjective. Should codes of ethics be based on the UDHR, even though it has no legal authority? Can a code be applicable to all information (Baldwin, 1996), regardless of the technology or format? Can a code accommodate as yet unknown privacy or security concerns (Moor, 2005)? Can a code exclude anyone for some reason? …

A Passport to Trouble: Bureaucratic Incompetence as Censorship

Abstract: IntroductionAccess to government issued identity documentation (ID) is not readily available for all Canadians. Trans- identified Canadians1 are one particular group that has a significant amount of difficultly accessing ID. The ramifications of the barriers to obtaining ID are significant and far reaching; and for transidentified people, can function as a justification for other forms of exclusion and violence based in transphobia. Transphobia consists of actions, behaviors or beliefs that are driven by an understanding (consciously or not) of the trans-body as less real than the non- trans body (Prosser, 1998). These actions, behaviors and beliefs function as forms of violence, whether explicit or implicit, intentional or otherwise, that are often thought to stem from fear. "Common sense" assumptions about gender-that everyone identifies as the sex they were assigned at birth and that norms of masculinity and femininity naturally follow these birth assignments-are used to justify transphobia in the form of stigmatization, discrimination, and various types of violence (Spade, 2008). Thinking about transphobia in this way, it is easy to see that policies that enact barriers to ID access for trans- people are an excellent example of institutional transphobia.Barriers to ID access for trans- people in Canada occur in a myriad of ways, and this article will look specifically at access issues in relation to passports. As trans legal scholar Dean Spade (2008, p. 749) notes: "the literature has thus far failed to look at the range of administrative gender reclassification policies and practices-including birth certificates, DMV policies, policies of sex- segregated facilities, and federal identity document policies-side by side, which has meant that the significance of the incoherence of these policies as a group has been obscured." This article will not go so far as to attempt such a lofty endeavor; however, through an examination of the barriers to information regarding gender reclassification, this article offers a different trajectory towards a similar goal. While the significance of these incoherencies is incredibly important, so too are the erasures of gender reclassification policies that occur through the lack of access to information regarding them, and the impact these erasures have on the interconnected government policies that affect trans- people (such as access to ID, placement in sex- segregated facilities, and access to healthcare). Moreover, these erasures perform a significantly more important function than simply an extension of institutional transphobia; they also function to naturalize and reify "common sense" assumptions about gender that underpin both the policies and transphobia, as well as various forms of misogyny.Through a consideration of the relationship between legal discourses and citizenship discourses as they relate to the transsexed body and the passport, this article undermines the commonsensical assumptions that underpin social justice and human rights issues. By explicitly considering how a lack of access to information functions to produce certain bodies as possible and others as impossible, while simultaneously producing different forms of citizenship for these (im)possible bodies, government issued ID becomes the ground from which the horizon of institutional transphobia and the naturalization of gender difference becomes obvious. Exposing this institutionally imbedded transphobia is merely an initial step in the much larger project suggested by Spade, as the significance of the incoherencies between policies is also obscured by the barriers to access of the very information contained in these policies. Moving through a critical and rigorous examination of a single Passport Canada form, this article uses the formal and informal archive produced by this form, ethnographic stories, and the mandate and understanding expressed by Passport Canada to expose the inaccessibility of information regarding gender reclassification. …

Truth in Nonfiction: Essays

Abstract: Truth in Nonfiction: Essays David Lazar, ed. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2008. 195 pages. $19.95.In a perfect world, there would be no need for this book. Those authors who indicate through genre or substance, implication or adjuration that they tender truth would do so, unquestionably. But the world, even the diminutive portion inhabited by writers, is very far from perfect, and authors, including those with good intentions, mislead and conjure. They trick the reader, and a deceived reader is often unappeasable, especially when dealing with extreme issues such as addiction or the Holocaust. Although many writers go out of their way to defend exaggeration or constructed reality (their own or their peers'), some readers do as well. Naturally, David Lazar has collected what authors rather than readers have to say, and they say it frequently and potently. The 20 people who are presented here are, for the most part, (auto)biographers and memoirists and they have a much greater stake in their personal articulations than a chemist might have in his formulae. And this leads to a peculiarity that is easily understandable, when one realizes both that Lazar operates out of a literary orientation and that there is a plethora of material available here without crossing disciplinary boundaries. Thus, the emphasis throughout is placed exclusively on veracity in personal narrative or film. The abrogation of truth in science through falsification or fabrication, its metaphorical distortion in history through plagiary, and its subversion in psychology or clinical trials through deception are never mentioned by any of these often well-known authors. Even Oliver Sacks, a professor who specializes in neurology and psychiatry, ignores scientific misconduct (i.e., the abjuration of truth) and discusses false memory instead. Lazar insists that in addition to the purposeful distortion foisted upon readers, other less obvious forms are equally important; he is correct: self-deception, psychological manipulation, and unworthy or false epiphanies are harmful but they do not excuse deliberate deception; they merely augment it.Paul Lisicky ("A Weedy Garden") summarizes the self-affirming position taken by many of these authors: "Once we hold memoirists to the standards of journalism and privilege agreed-upon truths to emotional interpretation, the whole genre falls apart...." Vivian Gornick ("Truth in Personal Narrative") sings a similar tune-as if repetition can alter reality: "memoirs belong to the category of literature, not of journalism." She explains: "What mattered most to me was not the literalness of the situation, but the emotional truth of the story." But what matters most to me (and other readers) is that truth is not compromised; an author's creative quest for perfection may not be won at the reader's expense. Despite debacle after debacle, ethical imbroglios with dire consequences in all areas and disciplines but especially in the memoir (Wilkomerski, Mench?, Frey), these auto-biographers seem incapable of grasping the fact that professional critics and lay readers expect the truth when the truth is promised. If one is inventing or reinventing a life, then the memoir is the wrong genre to practice. Memoirists apparently want their cake (they wish to imply that they are merely reciting, even imaginatively recreating, personal experience), but also want to consume it (they distort the truth, and then offer theoretical conjectures to support why this is acceptable in a non-fictional, narrative account). …

Looking Back, Looking Forward, and Transformation in Information Ethics

Abstract: This issue represents a unique perspective in information ethics at this moment in time. There is a change occurring; indeed, a transition has been under way for some time, from those who set the path, those who defined this field, to a newly minted body of scholars who see the context for the parameters of information ethics in a vastly different way. We, this field of information ethics, still grapple with the same fundamental definitions of information ethics as were presented in the 1980s, the "inception" of this discipline. We still think about issues of creation, access, control, and dissemination of information. Yet, what constitutes the definition of "information" and what constitutes those activities around information is dramatically different. James Moor was one of the first to call attention to the different nature of "computer" data, describing it as greased and malleable; he called attention to the "policy vacuums" and "conceptual muddles" created by digital data. Those characteristics articulated in the 1980s have indeed proven true, and even Moor may be surprised at the extent to which those very characteristics have transformed not only research and scholarship but individuals and societies themselves. We have seen such arguments for "everything is miscellaneous," and "the world is flat"-those are indicative of the collapsing parameters resultant from the ways in which we create, use, and disseminate information in this moment. This forces us to a broader question.Where is the discipline of information ethics? It is increasingly diffused. It is, simultaneously more important and less important than ever. It is ever important because every discipline essentially grapples now with information ethics issues, and because of that, its "significance" as a "stand- alone discipline" is called into question. Scholars from across an array of disciplines are engaging more directly with issues of data integrity, ethical research practices, privacy, autonomy, identity, trust, reality, data sharing, data manipulation, fragmentation, orientation. Information ethicists have made these issues explicit over the years, but increasingly, disciplinary specificity is collapsing and these issues certainly do not reside in any one clear domain. This is happening because of the nature of digital data which is causing every scholar, researcher, bureaucrat, and individual to think differently about their relationship with the world, in both physical and virtual realms. Information ethics scholarship is changing, pushing boundaries in its scope and reach. A physicist, Vlatko Vedra, recently described the theory of quantum information, that everything, the universe itself, is information. Information is superior. If we follow his lead, everything, then, is information ethics? With that, one might also argue that nothing is information ethics, a stance I do not support.Information ethics has co- existed along with other "ethics" for many years: computer ethics, business ethics, bioethics. Each of these has a corresponding "disciplinary home." Information ethics has had a rocky home in library and information studies, and it is notable to consider Enright's perspectives on this. It is also notable to consider the numbers of LIS programs that still have no ethics course; there is an implicit assumption that because of accreditation standards, ethics will be interwoven across the curriculum, an assumption I question. Ethics is often seen as an afterthought in professional programs, accreditation standards notwithstanding. Other disciplines, for example, those in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), debate heartily what mode is best for ethics education-stand alone courses or infusion models. I have not seen the same curricular debates in LIS. More commonly, LIS ethics are introduced through the standard codes of ethics. Professional ethics are symbolically embodied in codes-codes of ethics, as Zaiane, presents, are universal guiding documents, but do not ensure ethical behavior or professionalism. …

Teaching Other Tongues: Addressing the Problem of "Other" Languages in the Library

Abstract: Language-the words we use, our syntax and our grammar-is always deployed in a context. We might refer to a collective group as y'all in one context (casually, among friends) but simply as you in another. When students enter our library instruction classrooms, they also enter a new discursive context, this one marked by Boolean syntax, arcane controlled vocabularies, and Aristotelian classification structures that divide the universe of knowledge in ways foreign to the naive user. For example, nothing about using Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) or SocINDEX database descriptors is natural, nor is the use of and and or as formal structures. Students who seek use of library resources inevitably must learn to navigate these strange new linguistic worlds.Library instructors must balance the demand to teach students how to search successfully in these formal linguistic contexts against a desire to respect the languages and modes of thought students bring from elsewhere into the classroom. As advocates for equity of access to materials, librarians must negotiate the realities of dominant, standard structures of language and organization-often our discursive homes-with the diversity of linguistic and cognitive approaches of our students. These politically and ethically impelled negotiations require us to teach library research as a context in which language struggles take place, rather than as an arena where some words and phrases are simply and acontextually correct. Indeed, when students are taught that only one language variety is "correct," instructors consciously and unconsciously reinscribe systems of linguistic dominance that allocate access, opportunity, and reward unevenly among social groups.Composition Studies has long explored this difficult balancing act. In the pages that follow, this article articulates the work done by composition scholars to understand and politicize the problem of multiple discourses in the classroom, as well as conceptualize a potential solution. Rather than arguing for or against the use of different language varieties, Composition Studies has used the concept of the contact zone to imagine the classroom as a space of dialogic struggle where no single language is "better" or "correct." Instead, the classroom and the blank page become sites of interpretive struggle for meaning.Following this discussion of the contact zone in the writing classroom, I suggest that teaching librarians might re-conceptualize the contact zone in our own field. Library advocacy work on the problem of standardized language has primarily worked to perfect and change that standard language so that it better reflects a pluralist embrace of the language of our users. While a vital part of an ethical linguistic practice, the focus on "correcting" library language reinscribes the idea that any language can ever be "correct" outside the context of its use. Curiously, the library field has paid less attention to conceptualizing the concrete spaces in which these linguistic struggles take place: the search boxes inside our databases and OPACs. Particularly when we teach students to grapple with their own vocabulary and the controlled vocabularies of library resources, we are already teaching in a contact zone. By articulating and conceptualizing a concept of the database search interface as a contact zone, this article suggests that teaching librarians might work to interrupt the power of dominant language and knowledge schemes rather than re-inscribe them as correct through our teaching practice. In deploying a critical approach to the contact zone, library instruction can be a site of productive struggle between our users and the dominant discursive systems we might all seek to change.Language Varieties in the College ClassroomStudents entering college for the first time are entering more than just new physical facilities. They also enter new discursive communities. One of the primary roles of college teaching is to introduce students to these particular discourses. …

Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism

Abstract: Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism Thomas B. Kohnstamm. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2008. 273 pp. $13.95 (pb)When it comes to those details, what I can't plagiarize, I can always make up.-Thomas KohnstammWe like to travel. The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert; Odysseus managed to waste much of his life sailing the few miles from Troy back to his home in Ithaca; the Vikings marauded as far as Canada; Marco Polo crossed half the world to locate spices; Durer betook himself to Italy to learn about Renaissance art; and Americans have enjoyed the European tour for centuries. Thomas Kohnstamm had traveled and enjoyed it, so when he discovered that working for a living is boring, he decided to revisit the places that had given him pleasure but at a publisher's expense: He would revise a Lonely Planet guidebook. This sounds reasonable and worthwhile, but the author is an unusual person and things do not always work out as the reader might hope.Kohnstamm is a cynical malcontent. His many life goals include skiing and surfing, getting high in the Amazon, winning or losing a bar fight, and sleeping with a woman from each continent. In order to celebrate his departure, he gets drunk and has a horrible physical fight with a friend, a medical school student. Some percentage of this books follows this pattern: Vast quantities of alcohol and drugs as well as physical harm seem to inform and confuse much of this "business" trip.* Kohnstamm is an egotistical hedonist and so instead of concentrating on his demanding task, he enjoys himself, wastes time and money, and gets into trouble-smoking, selling drugs, sleeping with prostitutes, failing to pay the rent: He leads a life that should be abjured. Nevertheless, he, his agent, and his editors seemed to think that all of this was worthy of a travel account (something that many serious travelers like to produce), and here it is. The very unpleasant and ironic aspect to it is that it is well-written and enticing so it seduces the reader while simultaneously repulsing, especially since Kohnstamm fudges his appointed task, which is to scrupulously revise and update the Lonely Planet guide for northeastern Brazil. He must visit many cities, towns, and inaccessible villages; investigate the local restaurants, hotels, beaches, and cultural attractions; and record the results in a precise and demanding format. …

Privacy from a Saudi Arabian Perspective: The Case of Students in a Private University

Abstract: IntroductionTo say that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has affected Saudis tremendously is an understatement. This is because ICT has in actual fact revolutionized every aspect of their lives including the way they communicate, the way they conduct business, the way they learn, and the way they work.There is strong evidence particularly from the local Saudi media that suggests that ICT has in fact subjected people in Saudi Arabia to circumstances they have never previously experienced and as a result challenged their understanding of how to behave ethically amidst competing demands from self, employer, clients, friends, and community. The invasion of privacy, for example, which employees suffer when their employers use video cameras to systemically monitor them without their consent or even knowledge, is considered by many employers in Saudi Arabia, even the most religious, as acceptable and not wrong and unethical.The massive rise in the adoption of ICT has seen the birth of many unethical behaviors including the use of Bluetooth on mobiles to spread obscenities or blackmail women, the use of Facebook to cyber-bully teenagers, the use of email to spam people, and the use of web-based forums to offend people or spread rumors. These of course are in addition to other typical unethical behaviors like the setting up of insecure networks, the delivery of software products that are behind schedule, over budget, and incompatible with customer requirements, the violation of intellectual property rights, and the use of bit torrent software to download copyrighted materials, among other things.The biggest ethical problem, however, that information and communication technologies have created is probably invading people's privacy through the use of these ICTs. The use of mobile cameras to photograph women or film them in ways that invades their privacy is a good example of these unethical behaviors. What has become a serious problem for Saudi women in recent times, as reported in the media, is when criminals threaten women to either submit to their sexual desires or face the consequences of having their photos or video clips posted on the internet or distributed publically using Bluetooth on mobiles causing serious damage to their family reputation. The recent case of an immigrant computer technician who discovered some personal photos of a female when he was fixing her computer and then blackmailed her is an example of these cases of extortion. It should be noted that the male honor and family reputation are to a large extent in the hands of the female members of the family. If it was discovered and became public that a woman committed adultery, for example, or engaged in an illicit sexual relationship with a man or just met secretly and privately with him in the real world, the family honor and reputation would be destroyed.Ethics is the cornerstone of the Islamic religion and there is no doubt that the Muslims' sacred book, Al-Quran, and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed (saw), which complement it, provide adequate guidance for Muslims in what to do in every situation they encounter. However, the issues created by the latest ICT have generated new possibilities for human actions, as suggested by Jim Moor (Tavani, 2007), an American computer ethicist, and thus these issues need to be examined, clarified, and put into context before they can be assessed from both moral and religious perspectives.Western nations are fully aware that people's religion and upbringing alone are not sufficient to deal with the complexities that the new technologies have created. They also understand that ethics awareness is important in clarifying the problems that emerge as a result of the introduction of new technologies in the school, home, or workplace. For this reason they integrate ethics awareness in their education systems, university curriculums, and computing professional bodies' websites and also support and encourage research in this area. …

The Road to Big Brother: One Man's Struggle against the Surveillance Society

Abstract: The Road to Big Brother: One Man's Struggle against the Surveillance Society Ross Clark. New York: Encounter Books, 2009. 140 pages. $21.95.Ross Clark's The Road to Big Brother begins by asking questions about Middlesbrough's automated close-circuit television system, installed as a detriment to "anti-social behavior" (1): how such a system would work, what would trigger the system's response, how the system would respond, and what consequences an anti-social offender would face. He discovered, in fact, that the system did not work, thus leading to his central thesis: "Modern Britain is one big panopticon," where one believes that one is being watched without having to be so (5). But along with his thesis, Clark raises two critical questions: "Does it matter? And, equally to the point, does it actually work?" (5). Later, he adds, "But how did we get to this position, where everything we do seems to be watched by the state? Did we ask for it, do we want it? Or has it just crept up on us?" and "[H]ow much state surveillance is justified, how much is plain nosiness, and how much is actually dangerous?" (8, 9).The Road to Big Brother attempts to answer these questions in nineteen short, readable chapters, each tackling a different aspect of modern surveillance of civilian populations, mostly in Great Britain (but with some reference to the United States and European countries). Most of these forms of surveillance, such as supermarket loyalty cards, are so much a part of our everyday existence that we fail to notice that our lives are being monitored and tracked. But that is part of Clark's point. We should notice, Clark argues, if for no other reason than that the innocuous forms of surveillance, when linked to each other, invade our privacy unnecessarily and may lead to unwarranted governmental control and knowledge of our lives, and errors in surveillance records may seriously disrupt our lives. The more overt surveillance used in law enforcement, on the other hand, "gives the impression that everything is under control, when in fact it isn't" (87).Chapter 1 ("The Talking Lamp-Post") discusses the use of closed circuit television (and immediate verbal response) to deter "anti-social behavior" in some British towns, including the author's amusing experiment to get the system to work (1). Chapter 2 ("My Big Day Out") recounts Clark's experiment to get from his home in East Anglia to Southend without being caught by closed circuit television. Chapter 3 ("Me and My Mug") continues this discussion and explores new forms of government surveillance: aerial surveillance, computer equipment trained to flag suspicious or deviant behavior; closed circuit television in private homes; closed circuit television images on the Internet and television; and use of covert closed circuit television by police. Chapter 4 ("A Brief History of Surveillance") offers a timeline of developments in surveillance, but includes other facts as well. Chapter 5 ("Me and My Genes") examines Britain's National DNA database its legitimate uses, and its possible abuses. Chapter 6 ("Me and My Good Name") discusses the inherent difficulties of several large British databases, which, despite intentions, have failed to deter crime, track criminals, or prevent abuse and whose errors have cost people jobs and reputations (40-46). In Chapter 7 ("Me and My Secrets"), Clark details the use of telephone, fax, and e-mail surveillance by the British government. Chapter 8 ("Me and My ID") deals with Britain's national identification card program. Chapter 9 ("Me and My Pockets") discusses random police searches of people in airports and elsewhere. Chapter 10 ("Me and My Travels") continues with this theme and talks about airport security and other means of monitoring travel, both in Britain and the U.S.With Chapter 11 ("Me and My Computer"), Clark begins to move more and more into the realm of individual surveillance technologies and daily surveillance of individuals. …

Things in Themselves: A Prolegomenon to Redefining Intellectual Property in the Nano-Age

Abstract: We have been confronted in the last hundred years with a rapidly changing technological environment. This environment has brought with it great wealth and prosperity, and there is no doubt that emerging concepts and applications of intellectual property (IP) have aided our scientific, technological, and economic expansion. Copyrights and patents offer monopolistic rights to authors and inventors over their creations, ensuring profits for fixed terms, and providing fortune as well as fame for the most successful inventors and authors. Monopoly rights are strong incentives to create both utilitarian and aesthetic works.Recently, emerging technologies have challenged traditional IP theory and practice. Consider the rise of computerized phenomena, and the proliferation of software and instantaneous communications through the Internet. Software has been considered a kind of hybrid, treated both as a patentable invention and as copyrightable expressions. In my first book, The Ontology of Cyberspace, I consider how software has revealed that our distinctions between copyrightable and patentable objects are artificial and illogical. I argue that all intentionally produced, man-made objects are expressions, and that computerization has merely revealed how one expression is very much like another. More recently, I have considered the question of patenting un-modified genes. In the course of that discussion, I further criticize the application of existing IP to genomics and genetics, at least where patents have issued for unmodified genes or l ife-forms. In all of my work, I have sought to uncover the ontologies (descriptions of the objects and relations involved) of the underlying objects. I have done this believing that once we reveal the nature of things (like expressions, machines, software, and genes, as well as relations and social objects like property, ownership, and intentions) we could then sensibly sort out logical errors and inefficiencies in public policies.We are now on the cusp of a new engineering breakthrough that will once again challenge our relation to our technological world, and likely pose new challenges to the application of traditional IP. Nanotechnology involves the construction of materials and objects at the ?nano-scale,? beginning at the molecular level. Theoretically, this will mean cheap and abundant objects of any size and shape, more-or-less instantly created, with little-to-no waste, and constructed anywhere and at any time. The science-fiction notion of simply dialing up an object and having it constructed on the spot, molecule-by-molecule, may well be decades away or further, but it is the end-goal of many who pursue nanotechnology research. Even so, we will begin facing unique challenges about the nature of intellectual property as the dividing lines between ideas and expressions further blur, and matter itself becomes programmable.Intellectual property has become a major force economically and culturally, impelling in part our hyperbolic economic and technological growth in the past century, and influencing both cultures and economies world-wide. Historically, the emergence of intellectual property as a class of objects is relatively new. This class of objects, which includes things that are patentable, copyrightable, and trademarkable, has evolved since its inception both significantly and rapidly. Let's look briefly at the evolution, form, and purposes of intellectual property law, and then consider how and to what extent new material technologies will challenge current notions of IP.The Emergence of Intellectual PropertyIntellectual property is often mistakenly thought to protect ideas in much the same way that ordinary property law protects things. In fact, there never has been any legally-recognized protection for ideas themselves, but only for various forms of expressions. Beginning around the time of the Renaissance, in Britain and Italy, the first legally-sanctioned monopolies over inventions and works of authorship were created. …

Beyond a bad attitude? Information workers and their prospects through the pages of Processed World

Abstract: It is now thirty years since the first issue of Processed World (PW) hit the streets of San Francisco. Hunt around on the net, and you can find a snippet of film footage showing three editors of PW pacing the Financial District sidewalk, dressed in outlandish costumes (a computer terminal, a can of nuts, and something else-a punch card? the corporate ladder?), waving copies of their magazine (Shaping San Francisco 1982). A year or so later, the PW collective would organize a lively bus tour of Silicon Valley, visiting points of interest that made plain the military connections and dubious management practices of the rising computer industry. But to fail to look beyond this, dismissing PW as no more than a zany eighties "anti- tech" revisiting of the Merry Pranksters (Besher 1984), is to misunderstand the project altogether. From its inception, the journal "with a bad attitude" worked to promote workplace rebellion among "the majority of the work force, i.e., information handlers" (Cabins 1983a, p. 9), employed-typically in an office setting-to "file, sort, type, track, process, duplicate and triplicate the ever expanding mass of "information" necessary to operate the global corporate economy" (Athanasiou 1981, p. 16). While ultimately failing in its goal, PW proved to be an innovative undertaking on a number of levels, from its critical account of information work for capital and the resistance this engendered, to the ways in which the journal sought to mobilize the printed word and graphic design to its ends.Within the space of a few short years, as the Reagan era ushered in a new phase of conformity in both workplace and society, it became clear to editors and readers alike that the premises that had originally inspired Processed World were more and more difficult to realize in practice, at least in the short term. Without abandoning either its leftlibertarian stance or its concern for the sphere of paid work, its editors chose to broaden their field of view in search of what one of them would call an "aesthetics of resistance" (Med- O 1986, p. 53). Issues continued to appear into the nineties and beyond, although with decreasing regularity (the latest was published in 2006, after a five year hiatus, and may have been the last).Processed World's circulation may never have topped 5,000 (Gee 1993, p. 245), although that figure was respectable for a publication positioned outside the mainstream culture and media of its time. A continuing if subterranean influence within leftlibertarian circles in North America and beyond, the journal has since been remembered as part of "a little- recognized punk culture golden age for alternative publishing" (Solnit and Schwartzenberg 2000, p. 35), and as a "legendary magazine [that] covered the growing pains of white- collar office work in the pre-Internet information economy throughout the 1980s" (Ross 2003, p. 267). In terms of its contributions to popular visual culture, Processed World can also lay claim to hosting some of the earliest work by cartoonists such as "Tom Tomorrow" (Dan Perkins) and Ted Rall. Yet Processed World is not simply of historical interest. Examined from the perspective of 2011, it can be argued that many of the questions around information work and workers raised in the early years of the publication continue to be relevant, making their revisiting timely.1 For not only have information and information technology continued to infuse present day work settings, but that sense of ambivalence-ambivalence concerning one's identity, the prospect of a "career," communication with fellow employees, indeed the very possibility and/or desirability of finding fulfillment in paid work-underpinning the flow of words in the pages of Processed World remains an all too common feature of information work today (Armano 2010).This article will explore the images of office workers that emerge in the first fifteen or so issues of Processed World, as its editors and readers attempted a collective self- portrait, centered upon the new generation of temporary staff(temps) then being recruited to the swelling ranks of white collar employees. …

Informing Information Ethics: Select Essays

Abstract: This fall 2011 issue of JIE presents the words of nine writers who each prompt us to explore our understandings, assumptions, and presumptions about the field of information ethics. Advocacy is a term that surfaces in many of the contributions. The body of work presented raises questions about library and information (and related) rhetoric, practice, activism, and neglect. The scholarship begins with the musing of an information ethics pioneer, Dr. Martha M. Smith, in which she looks back to the early years of information ethics from the perspective of her new career as a hospice chaplain in the USA. Marti also discusses several IE models she developed and her first education in biblical studies and ministry, offers thanks to those people who influenced her work, and makes suggestions for future areas of inquiry. The journal issue closes with a thought piece by a next generation, equally formidable information ethicist, Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan, who encourages and invites new and critical contributors to the field in her role as Director of the newly minted Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Between these two remarkable contemplations are nestled a series of short to long essays in which some authors set their sights on information ethics more or less squarely; one contributor, in part, writes off information ethics; several others come at it quite unconsciously. A short introduction to each article is presented below.From Canada, a well traveled and new member of the library profession, Jane Robertson Zaiane, analyzes ten current English-language codes of ethics published by national library associations in the context of information ethics in library and information science. Jane identifies select elements of each iden- tified as significant in an ethics code representing a national professional organization, including human rights, intellectual freedom, technology, privacy, definitions, and professional development. She brings to light the relevance of cultural context, professional intent, breadth of interpretation, necessity, and function with regard to ideal ethics as illustrated in these library statements. Of note, nine of the codes seemingly base the moral and ethical statements on humanist and philosophical ideals, while Indonesia's code appears in phrasing, purpose, and character to be guided by nationalist ideals. Jane's work makes a strong case for the value of intercultural and global understanding in the task of information ethics scholarship more broadly. Moving forward into the everyday ethics of language use, from the United States, academic librarian Emily Drabinski draws on contact zone theory and work on language equity in composition studies to advocate a reorientation of library instruction away from teaching the specifics of library language and toward teaching library research as a process of struggle and translation at the site of the database search interface. As promoters of equitable access to information, she asserts, information literacy instructors should learn to invite users into our discourse without the additional requirement that they dump their own discursive realities at our classroom doors.Because Emily's work delves into knowledge organization and the power of naming responsibly it bridges naturally to fellow American academic librarian K.R. Roberto's subversive ethics treatment of how traditional library cataloging models and hierarchical taxonomic and classification structures are used to describe bits of information. Such schemas, he suggests, lack methods to acknowledge people's sometimes vague and often flexible identities. K.R.'s article specifically treats Library of Congress-based cataloging practices, including classification, and their role in putting into effect normative boundaries for queer sexualities and gender. K.R. concludes that through the use of inaccurate language in the Library of Congress Subject Headings and problematic classification schemes, library catalogers often unsuspectingly play a role in the production of library environments that are passively unfavorable to transgender users. …

Having a Stroke: Ethical Issues in Medicine and Law

Abstract: Tom (not his real name; all names are changed) had a stroke. I learned a lot about this case and see various medical and legal realities that reflect possible ethical concerns. I present the case history below, and number the possible ethical issues involved.Tom's stroke occurred when he worked in the retail store of a large U.S. corporation and the person doing clean-up accidentally splashed toxic chemicals on him. Tom eventually had to be taken to the hospital where they failed to diagnose that he had a stroke (possible ethical issue #1). Later, they figured out that he had a stroke, but misdiagnosed the kind of stroke (possible ethical issue #2). Regarding 1 and 2, are these ethical issues when a hospital gets the diagnosis wrong? Should medical practitioners know better or should we conclude that anyone-including professionals-can make a mistake? Certainly, professionals cannot always be accurate. I almost laugh when people say things like, "How could the parole board let him out?" after someone goes on to commit more crimes. The answer is that one cannot be close to 100 percent accurate in predicting which prisoner will or will not commit future crimes. However, there are minimal standards that any professional-such as hospital personnel-should attain, and sometimes the failure to attain these minimal standards is an issue of ethics, e.g., when due to neglect of something that is known or should be known. But hospitals and other agencies protect themselves by claiming to be operating according to their code of ethics (Hauptman & Hill, 1991; Konner, 1988; Wallace, 2010; van Meijl, 2000).Ethical issue #3 occurred when Dr. Dollar referred Tom to the rehabilitation center where Dr. Dollar has a financial interest and apparently gets money for referrals. Is that unethical? If the answer is "no," what if Dr. Dollar refers people who do not need that service, but is motivated by the money he will make? Is that not clearly unethical? The rehab center had Tom doing exercises that caused horrible pain and yet another stroke. When Dr. Hasty heard about this, he was furious at Dr. Dollar and yelled at him, "Why did you have him doing exercise? He had a stroke. He should not be exercising."Ethical issue #4 occurred when the hospital finally figured out what kind of stroke Tom had and rediagnosed him AND changed the earlier diagnoses to make it seem that they had it right all along. It seems to me to be clearly unethical and probably criminal. It makes me wonder, How often does this occur in hospitals and in medical practice and in other contexts?Ethical issue #5 was the inadequate treatment Tom received in the hospital, even after the correct diagnosis. In fact, they informed his wife that he would probably not live for more than a few days. Fortunately, his friend Jack visited Tom in the hospital. Jack was in medical school (though older than most of his fellow medical students) and knew about strokes. He looked at Tom's charts and other information about his treatment and concluded he was being mistreated. He contacted Dr. Hasty who said he would be glad to take over the treatment of Tom, but first Tom's wife would have to fire his current doctors. She did, Dr. Hasty took over, changed the type of treatment Tom received, and Tom survived.Consequences of the StrokeThe stroke had horrible consequences in Tom's life. He had to relearn how to walk, talk, swallow food, and much more. He is legally blind, although he has some sight. Strokes affect the brain and are harmful to anyone, although Tom seemed to have had the bad fortune of winding up with poor medical treatment, as opposed to Taylor (2009) who also had the bad fortune of having a stroke, but received top notch treatment since she worked at Harvard Medical School. Tom talked to an attorney who filed a lawsuit against the corporation Tom had worked for. He was seeking many millions of dollars. Later, other attorneys heard about the lawsuit and asked if they could be part of it. …

From Advocates to Terrorists: Ideology, the State of Exception and the State of Emergency, and Political Ethics

Abstract: IntroductionPolitical information, like much of what is comprehended as information, today, is often understood in a rather passive sense of being expressions that are consulted for understanding. This is a liberalist view that sees persons as choosers and consumers of information. In this article, we would like to go beyond this epistemology and discuss information from an expressive viewpoint, namely, that of an agent's expressive actions in relation to the State. Our discussion will pass through the topics of ideology, States of exception and States of emergency, and the distinctions between morals and ethics, law and justice. Far from being passive or synonymous with "facts," information will be understood as expressions by agents, both institutional and personal. Our final discussion in this article will be in regard to the writings of the political theorist and activist Antonio Negri in the context of his imprisonment and trial on terror charges from 1979 to 1983 (the writings issue from 1983-the year in which his case actually began to be tried). Here, we will suggest the dissonance between States and social movements as expressive agents and forces. Here we will see the denial of the ethical by the moral, justice by legal right, and the denial of a more open future for a nation by classes that control a State.Today, these topics could not be more timely. "Intellectual Freedom" and "Freedom of information" form core value for the Western library tradition, but as I write this the Library of Congress, as well as all other United States government agencies, have been forbidden by the federal government to allow access to U.S. diplomatic dispatches or "cables" made public by an internet organization named Wikileaks. As I write this, the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been under legal threat by the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, and several leading politicians in the U.S. have urged his arrest and trial for treason (despite his being an Australian citizen), with several other leading political and media figures also calling for his assassination as a "terrorist." The Vice President of the United States, Joseph Biden, on December 19, 2010, referred to Assange on a popular Sunday news program as a "hi- tech terrorist"1 and the commercial media has largely continued this view of Assange, echoing the dominant government line. The accused leaker of this material, a U.S. Army private, Bradley Manning, has been held for over seven months at the time of this writing in harsh solitary confinement without trial or conviction. Further, Senator Joseph Lieberman, Chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, on December 7, 2010, said that the U.S. Justice Department should extend the investigation of these leaks to the New York Times, which published reports based on the Wikileaks releases.2 While the press coverage of the contents of the leaks has been relatively sparse in the U.S. press, European and other world wide presses have been reporting on the contents since the time of the first release. For the most part, it would not be unfair to suggest that the U.S. media-including the New York Times-in contrast to main European newspapers, have largely focused on the personal and alleged sexual life of the founder of Wikileaks and Swedish criminal investigations related to the latter, rather than upon the contents of the "cables." And as I am editing this article, the revelations of the "cables" have contributed to the overthrow of dictatorial governments in Tunisia and Egypt. The Hosni Mubarak government in Egypt unsuccessfully relied in large part upon the silencing of the Internet and mobile telecommunication media as a means of stopping popular revolt. Meanwhile a bill earlier introduced in the U.S. Senate will be reintroduced by Senators Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins in 2011, giving the executive branch authority, without judicial review, to control "crucial" parts of the national Internet cyber- infrastructure in the case of a "national cyberemergency. …

The Ethical Importance of Extensive Quotation of Reviewed and Cited Authors

Abstract: Reviews. There are two genera of unfair reviews: those that critique a book or article for not having the aims the reviewer might wish it had and argue against the work under review for its other and different aims, and those that represent the author of the book or article under review as holding views or making arguments (or citing evidence in favor of either) that are neither in nor genuinely supported by the text. (Notice that the latter genus of unfair review can certainly redound to the reviewed author's considerable advantage, but to the ultimate detriment of the review's readers who must rely on the reviewer because they have not [yet] read the work under review. [See Fulda, 2006.])Extensive quotation-providing the reader with both text and substantial context-very nearly precludes both genera of unfair review. All that is necessary is disclosure of the aims and scope of the work under review by extensive quotation from the preface and for each substantial criticism - whether favorable or unfavorable-of a view or argument (or evidence cited for either), once again, extensive quotation of that view or argument with enough text so as to preserve context. Following that, the reader has what he really needs to judge for himself whether the reviewer is or is not on the mark as the reader sees it. The same is true of criticism, again whether favorable or unfavorable, of the writing: Show the reader; do not merely tell him. Of course, the reviewer is adjured not to give away the store, either! And the reviewer who does otherwise in this last regard is violating the author's moral rights and potentially his legal rights, by exceeding fair use and potentially "fair use."Yes, this method can and often will weigh down reviews-especially if the work under review is not well-written-not to mention that it will almost always make the reviews significantly longer. But it does provide a check on reviewers' tendencies to substitute their own aims for the reviewed author's and their own view of what the author says and means for what he actually says and means.1Citations. The situation with cited authors is quite different and much more complicated. Authors can fairly be quoted-and I have often done just that in selecting an epigraph-out of context, provided either the quoted author's aims are not represented-explicitly or implicitly, and that last is crucial-as being in accord with the quoting author, or the quoting author disclaims the same or similar aims, or both. But, then, quotation is the simplest and least ethically complicated type of citation, and not the usual type.Much more often, a cited author is not quoted, but is simply cited in support of or as contrary to a particular view or argument. In my experience, this is where the ethical problems usually lie. For oftentimes, a check indicates that the cited author does not actually hold the view as claimed or cannot easily be used to support or controvert the argument at issue. This has happened to the present author numerous times (although not as numerous as merely frivolous citations which appear to serve no purpose at all-at least none for the reader, although their presence indicates that they must have satisfied some purpose for the author, editor, or reviewers). What to do about this is perhaps less obvious.If the citing author is self-aware, he can and should limit his claims and hedge his arguments, and adjust his authorial voice to reflect his degree of (un)certainty about both, although this last is certainly not so easy a task. But that is simply not enough. When the arguments of the cited author are subtle and complex and the claims of the cited author are themselves hedged and nuanced, almost any paraphrasing of them amounts to a heavily interpreted rendition which unethically saddles the cited author with views he may not endorse (and more importantly has not actually claimed) or arguments he might disavow (and more importantly has not actually made). …