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VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

reuters.com

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Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#61

Post by Pulcinella »

danso wrote: post #48
jamesred wrote: post #24

Shouldn’t there be a distinction between the person writing the code and the person who chooses to use the code? An engineer shouldn’t be responsible for knowing the law and doesn’t have access to corporate lawyers that executives do. You could argue that there are legitimate reasons to write code that’s illegal for research purposes but never implemented. Why should an engineer be responsible for that?

I'm in favor of punishing the people in charge, but I'm reluctant to overlook rank-in-file just because they were just following orders. It feels hypocritical, as an engineer, for me to say that engineers should be recognized not just for raw technical experience but for their ability to be creative artists and humane leaders, and then argue that senior engineers and their ideas and work have no agency or worldly res…

In addition, I would say there is value in trying to tell people, "Don't stick your neck out for corporate boss! Otherwise you may go to jail and they may go free."

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#63

Post by jonas21 »

ballenf wrote: post #58
sqeaky wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article. This guy was an executive and 7 or 8 other executive were charged as well. He happened to be the executive in charge of engineering. He also plead guilty.

I thought I had read it closely, but did miss the detail regarding his executive status. The implication remains, however, that higher executives were the source of the pressure to defraud. Maybe it was his idea and maybe they did get the "right" person. Pleading guilty, however, is as much a sign of pragmatic intelligence as actual guilt, especially when dealing with federal law enforcement in the US.

One higher executive (Oliver Schmidt) has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. The others are German citizens living in Germany and can't be extradited.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/business/volkswagen-diese...

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#64

Post by Pulcinella »

angersock wrote: post #55
Geekette wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the typical pattern of cooperation and plea deals, I assume his cooperation was in exchange for lesser charges and/or a relatively lenient sentence, i.e. it could have been much worse without.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's any better. "I'll only break your hand instead of cutting it off" doesn't mean you're getting a good deal.

Well he still broke the law(and not unjust ones either). Just because you cooperate doesn't mean you should get off free.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#65

Post by dsfyu404ed »

paulus_magnus2 wrote: post #50

Corporations aren't democracies, closer to tyrannies (Chomsky). You refuse work, look for new one... Waiting for his boss to get 400 months, and 10x until CEO level. They killed people ffs.

>They killed people ffs

You say that as though they shot them or discussed the possible body count in a meeting.

Sure, people died as a far downstream result of a bunch of cars polluting a lot more than they supposedly did. The effect is far enough downstream that it's not really relevant. The alternative to VW breaking the law was not a pollution free world. People die as a result of things that are technically preventable all the time but society does not have the resources to allocate to preventing every "preventable" death or disease.

We as a society don't judge people by every downstream effect of their actions.

The lithium mine required to supply some of the materials for the computer or phone you typed that poorly thought out comment on probably isn't doing good things to the people that work at it.

I'm sure you own a few products that "fund terrorism" (or some other boogeyman) somewhere up the supply chain.

The world is a dirty place. Trying to make an example out of everyone who contributes to it just makes it dirtier.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#66

Post by ErnestedCode »

kermittd wrote: post #36
ballenf wrote: post #22

There's a flip side implication of this decision: it gives tremendous autonomy to engineers to stand up to management. It can empower legions of engineers to do the right thing when faced with pressure to do wrong. Maybe I'm trying too hard to find a silver lining. I'm angered at the hypocrisy of the management getting to sleep in their own beds for the next 40 months and their kids having no indication of their pare…

I was going to make a similar comment but in this case wasn't this guy in a leadership role? I believe the article may have even referred to him as an exec but I have to reread. But yes others should definitely be held responsible.

"Liang is one of the lowest-ranking executives charged so far."

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#67

Post by rplst8 »

danso wrote: post #48
jamesred wrote: post #24

Shouldn’t there be a distinction between the person writing the code and the person who chooses to use the code? An engineer shouldn’t be responsible for knowing the law and doesn’t have access to corporate lawyers that executives do. You could argue that there are legitimate reasons to write code that’s illegal for research purposes but never implemented. Why should an engineer be responsible for that?

I'm in favor of punishing the people in charge, but I'm reluctant to overlook rank-in-file just because they were just following orders. It feels hypocritical, as an engineer, for me to say that engineers should be recognized not just for raw technical experience but for their ability to be creative artists and humane leaders, and then argue that senior engineers and their ideas and work have no agency or worldly res…

The real crime here is 40 months in prison for violating the clean air act.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#68

Post by rsp1984 »

jonas21 wrote: post #63
ballenf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought I had read it closely, but did miss the detail regarding his executive status. The implication remains, however, that higher executives were the source of the pressure to defraud. Maybe it was his idea and maybe they did get the "right" person. Pleading guilty, however, is as much a sign of pragmatic intelligence as actual guilt, especially when dealing with federal law enforcement in the US.

One higher executive (Oliver Schmidt) has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. The others are German citizens living in Germany and can't be extradited. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/business/volkswagen-diese...

Technically Oliver Schmidt is also a German citizen, living in Germany. He just made the mistake of going to Florida for holiday...

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#69

Post by LoSboccacc »

vmarsy wrote: post #57
LoSboccacc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a chance unless clear whistleblower laws emerge providing strong incentives coupled with extreme protections

There is already such incentives for companies defrauding the government [1] : "Qui tam" where the whistleblower can receive "between 15% and 25% of any award or settlement amount" on cases like this seems to be a pretty huge incentive. Look at the "Example" section in [1]: - 2009 : [...] was awarded $51.5 million for his role as a whistleblower 102 million that was distributed between the six whistleblowers [...] wh…

seems little for a lifetime of unemployment

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#70

Post by bluGill »

jamesred wrote: post #24

Shouldn’t there be a distinction between the person writing the code and the person who chooses to use the code? An engineer shouldn’t be responsible for knowing the law and doesn’t have access to corporate lawyers that executives do. You could argue that there are legitimate reasons to write code that’s illegal for research purposes but never implemented. Why should an engineer be responsible for that?

That depends, was the engineer told "here is your spec", where the spec was they could have higher emissions than the law actually says, or was the engineer told here is the law, but you can ignore it if it gives us better numbers. In the first case the engineers who broke the law was mislead by those he should be able to trust to explain the law, while in the latter he knew he was part of breaking the law.

The law is generally written in legalese. It is really hard to understand how X volts on some sensor relates to emissions regulations. Therefore the engineers doing the work are easy to mislead, they probably don't even have access to sensor values that can directly tell you something in the law. Rather it is a mechanical engineer explaining that when the temperature is X and (pages of sensors they do have) you change these actuator settings. Give wrong information here and the engine will run as design and the programmer who made the mistake won't even know.

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