Trident University Bruce W. Johns Module 1 Case Assignment ETH501 - Business Ethics Dr. Shondria Woods July 29, 2011 Should Bank of America refuse to process payments and do business with WikiLeaks? WikiLeaks a company of mystery and without scruples that will release information on anyone or anything that it thinks it may be able to discredit. In my belief ethics upon both WikiLeaks and Bank of America are scarred and will lead both to doing things that are unethical and could be illegal.
Bank of America is one of our nation’s largest banks that has throughout its history has conducted business in almost every country and with many governments including our own; has been given the opportunity to receive and gain information that could bring down the economy of the United States and lead to a financial meltdown of the U. S. and the world. So processing payments in support of a web based information mill such as WikiLeaks by these large banks could complete the ethical dilemma that the US and many large banks are being ethically challenged.
With ethical challenges being evaluated and the amount of people and the organizations that are involved if such a leak should happen will cause devastation upon many companies and individuals that could lead to the meltdown of trust for our banking system. I think that if we take a true ethical evaluation of the circumstances that we will find that both entities have utilitarian and deontological ethics when it comes to providing as well as suppressing information that may be released because of a so called hard drive that Julian Assange from a high profile individual from a large US bank could cause.I will break down these ethical issues and try to determine if the leaks would benefit or discredit our US banks and if the overall outcome would devastate more than it could benefit. So taking on the ethical stance that such an issue would cause, I would like to evaluate Julian Assange and which form of ethics that he stands for utilitarian or deontological. Mr. Assange developed WikiLeaks to debunk the methods government and individuals use to keep information from reaching the public.
He started this site when he was defending himself in court for visitations with his child. In the case of WikiLeaks and Bank of America this individual that stands behind the idea that freedom of speech and the First amendment of the US constitution. So he rests his ideas and methods of providing information on his website as if it is a sanctioned method of providing information to the public through online media.Does the general public believe that WikiLeaks is a full and truthful source of information or just a site that an individual with unproven information to release and discredit whomever he feels to discuss at whatever time he feels he would like.
If we just look at Mr. Assange at this point I would say that he is hiding behind deontological principal of ethics. Like most media organizations and journalists they look to the first amendment to freedom of speech. Mr.Assange could say that he has the right to speak his mind and the government has the duty not to stop him from what he wants to say.
If Mr. Assange has the information that could show that these banks are doing things wrong by the people that utilize the banks and maybe he believes in the utilitarian principal that if he shares the information more people could benefit or save themselves from misfortune than those that would not have been hurt by the information that is located on a hard drive of a highly positioned executive in one of the major US banks.This individual has built his company around shadows and without a corporate entity. Many of his servers are hidden around the world and supporters of his cause right or wrong have donated their time and services within their own homes and companies to store information on servers that are not physically linked to Mr. Assange. Because Mr.
Assange has never actually admitted to which bank he has information pertaining to how many banks do you think he may have put onto alert and currently purging all paperwork over the last ten years and taking accountability of every computer, hard drive and every executive that may have been able to make copies of documents over the same time that would lead to having information that Mr. Assange could use. Could you possibly believe that information obtained by Mr. Assange is being used to black mail or to possible find away to just make a company question his motives and become nervous enough to incriminate hemselves? This could lead me to believe that his motives could be looking to payoffs not to release information that could incriminate these companies which many companies would most likely be happy enough to pay Mr. Assange off. This could be a form of egoism ethics to justify that he is smarter than the biggest CEO’s out there.
Finally, if he has nothing to gain for releasing this information but to make the public question business actions with Bank of America based on the purchase of Countrywide’s mortgage loans ultimately would lead to better that of the many and not the few.I have discussed the issue that may have played with Mr. Assange and his reasoning and how ethics may have played on his decisions to make statements in the fashion that he had made towards a large U. S. Bank and the hard drive that he claims he has acquired.
Let us now discuss Bank of America and what led to their actions once the information was released. Bank of America being one of the United States largest banks has been under the investigation by the S. E. C, the House Oversight committee and the New York Attorney General’s office for transactions and acquisitions between the years of 2008 and 2010.The professional ethics of this company has been evaluated and scrutinized by our government and by individuals such as Mr.
Assange and WikiLeaks followers interested in this case. So when Mr. Assange made the accusations that he possessed a hard drive that had information of illegal transactions and practices of a large U. S. bank, why do you think that Bank of America began the in-depth investigation that he put together in the case that scrupulous information would come to light to in the public arena.
Bank of America has made itself look guilty in the way that they have gone to try to protect them from the information that could be released. First, you could say they put a dream team together to find the bottom of the leak and to what end and information was released. I could say that they were looking at the legal obligations that they have to their clients. Second, I could speculate that they wanted to find the leak and dispose of it as soon as possible.
Finally, I believe that both reasons were probably the reason. I would not want my customers and clients to end their business with my company if I could help it.To stop this I would hire lawyers to make sure that I could be prepared if I had just lost hundreds of thousands of individuals personal information in which my clients lively hood has just become available to possible criminal action and what would we have to do to correct it and stop it from damaging my clients. Second, did Bank of America have a team sifting through documents to make sure that the oversight committees would not find anything that could show illegal activity and bring this company down to its knees? The accusations alone caused a decrease in the value of the corporation’s stock and creditability.So Bank of America could have been acting upon its professional ethics and tried to take care of its customers not knowing what information was taken and not even knowing if the information came from their bank or another bank. Using information that had been released from other banks though out the world, Bank of America was more visualized throughout the world because of its size and how many countries that have connections to them.
So in this case I believe so far that Bank of America was looking out for their clients.But the next issue that they did leads me to believe that they wanted to press their point and opens up other ethical issues. Bank of America jumped on board with Visa, Master Card and PayPal to stop payments that support WikiLeaks and as a way to try to put a end to Mr. Assange’s financing. Do we think financial institutions should have the power since it is not regulated by government oversight what are the ethical issues that could arise from such actions and could you consider WikiLeaks a form of terrorism if they create or maintain information that could cripple a country.
I believe that in this case the bank uses its rights to deny services to customers that they don’t feel that they should support. Is this just a way to give power to the banks and give them the right to deny anyone that they want and is the ethical. The question at hand is, are the trying to protect the majority, if so I would support the reason to stop payments but if they are doing it to get rid of a thorn then they just look guilty of a cover up and it could cripple the company and the financial system of the United States.Ethics in this case is deontological since they are standing behind a right that has been given to them even with the possibility that their justification is either right or wrong.
To me someone needs to come out the better person. So in conclusion I have pointed out that both have ethical issues that they need to get through and make sure that the information they are trying to protect should be in the side of the greater good for their clients and supporters. In the case that has been provided in some cases you can say they are basing their decisions for the greater good of the people.I also believe that on a side bar that they will do whatever it takes to stay afloat and hide any discredit of themselves. This first thing that comes to mind is the fly or flight reaction and both entities involved in the above issue are greater in size than most want to admit and if Bank of America should have substantial discredit then much of what has happened of over the last few years in the economy to not only overseas economies but our own would cause a economic collapse and possible cover-ups.
On the hand of Mr.Assange he looks at providing information to the public that could allow them more insight into the companies that they conduct business with but with attacks against himself he may take his ethical beliefs from that of protecting and providing information to the public to profiteering and black mail of large wealthy financial institutions that show and try to hide corruption in the down turn our government and financial institutions that hold most of the US securities. References Nelson D. Schwartz. (2011, January 3).
Facing a New Type of Threat From WikiLeaks, a Bank Plays Defense :[Business/Financial Desk].New York Times (Late Edition (east Coast)), p. B. 1.
Retrieved July 24, 2011, from Banking Information Source. (Document ID: 2227689851). Banks and WikiLeaks :[Editorial]. (2010, December 26). New York Times (Late Edition (east Coast)), p. WK.
13. Retrieved July 24, 2011, from Banking Information Source. (Document ID: 2221835691). Isabelle Fraser. (2010, December 4). My long weekend with the world's most wanted man :WikiLeaks The WikiLeaks chief is likeable, disarming and quite sexy, says Isabelle Fraser, who worked as a volunteer.
The Times,16. Retrieved July 30, 2011, from ProQuest Newsstand. (Document ID: 2204118731).
