If you asked to do something fishy then document it and consult a lawyer. Don't do anything that is above the bare minimum required to cover your ass. You get nothing for doing the "right thing" and are likely to be penalized for it - word will get around and future employers have no interest in figuring out if you were right nor will they care, you will have proven to be disloyal or worse an idealist.
Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
101–110 of 369 posts
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#102Software developers should sign a code of ethics, like other professions do and then cite it when asked to do unscrupulous things. This would work for activities that aren't illegal but still unethical, like defaulting user privacy choices to open/public. Citing professional organizations like ACM or IEEE would deter retaliation.
Do you mean:
A) Software developers should be free to sign a code of ethics, or
B) Software developers should be compelled to sign a code of ethics, and be prevented from working if they refuse to sign, or
C) Something else.
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. The law is the law, and there is no excuse for breaking it. Your manager is certainly culpable, but if you act against the law, you are culpable as well. The exception is if you fear literal physical violence against you or others, or are being blackmailed or…
> I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent mora…
Yeah, but you have to factor in the probability of the orange jumpsuit.
You're not going to be of much use to your family in jail.
It's still a difficult decision, but it's not just your job vs your morality. It's your job vs morality+potential jail.
We dish out criminal sentences precisely in order to affect the equation like this, because we know people don't always act on morality alone.
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#104Software developers should sign a code of ethics, like other professions do and then cite it when asked to do unscrupulous things. This would work for activities that aren't illegal but still unethical, like defaulting user privacy choices to open/public. Citing professional organizations like ACM or IEEE would deter retaliation.
We have plenty of difficulty just following the Agile Manifesto.
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#105I really do not know what to think of someone facing up to 75 years in prison getting 3 years of probation.
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent mora…
> When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions This is the time when your ethics are tested. Anyone can do the right thing when they're getting paid for it.
Nah. I’ve been in the exact situation you describe and it’s pretty obvious tbh. Loss of a job is a temporary setback. Being locked up in a jail is a permanent one.
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions This is the time when your ethics are tested. Anyone can do the right thing when they're getting paid for it.
There's a nice Jordan Peterson quote: > There was a lesson to learn from the holocaust. We're always reminded that: "Never forget, we've learned our lesson." "What was the lesson?" That's the question. The lesson is, "You're the Nazi". No-one wants to learn that; If you were there, that would have been you. You might think "Well, I'd be Oskar Schindler and I'd be rescuing the Jews." It's like, no, afraid not. You'd a…
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Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#108'You can always say no...' That is like something from a bad movie about spouse abuse. 'Just leave' plays well on TV but the reality is often that a job is someone's life. Just saying no and leaving will have real, and likely massive, harm to the person. Where do they go? What do they do? Do they actually have 6 months of savings to look for a new position and explain why they left their last one? How about the money to spend on hiring lawyers to help them? We need functioning protections for whistleblowers that are well advertised, well funded, -not- subject to the whims of whoever is in office and that actually allow people to 'just say no' and not have their lives shattered.
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#109Software developers should sign a code of ethics, like other professions do and then cite it when asked to do unscrupulous things. This would work for activities that aren't illegal but still unethical, like defaulting user privacy choices to open/public. Citing professional organizations like ACM or IEEE would deter retaliation.
We have plenty of difficulty just following the Agile Manifesto.
The agile manifesto is far from a set of ethics that if you disagree with you can’t help but sound like the bad guy.
For example, try disagreeing with the statement “SWEs should take reasonable effort to protect user data”
Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
#110I really do not know what to think of someone facing up to 75 years in prison getting 3 years of probation.
The media is terrible about reporting on "maximum sentences". The federal sentencing guidelines are super complicated and lazy journalists usually just add all the maximum numbers up and write these egregious numbers. In reality, a lot of the charges are deduplicated, can be served concurrently, or are automatically attenuated by factors like being a 1st time offender.