Intelligence

The moral issue

On the first hand I thought it was very difficult to get a moral issue out of a film or
series. Lately I have been watching the series Intelligence so I thought I would
watch this episode again since I thought it was quite interesting. The episode I
have been watching is the 11th episode which is called: The Grey Hat. In this
episode a cyber-worm infiltrates a power grid and it consist of two moral issues
which are related to each other.
The main moral issue is whether blackmailing is the good thing to pursue, the
moral issue which is also important and is a part of this is whether revenge is also
the good thing to pursue. These are issues since blackmailing and taking revenge
are in conflict with social norms and with religious norms such as charity in
Christianity. On the one hand I can understand what he did since he was trying to
help his brothers, which is a social norm. But in this case it is not in proportion
since he was blackmailing all the people just so his brother would be a free man.
He was blackmailing the people by saying he would cause a nuclear meltdown.
He wanted to do this on a power grid out of revenge for his other little brother
since in the past doctors did not want to help him so he now wanted everyone to
be blind.
If everyone in the society would start taking revenge, the Rule of Law would be
violated and it would not be save in the countrys anymore. People will take the
law in their own hands by taking revenge and in this way the government does
not have much to say anymore which makes it very unsafe. If you blackmail
people or take revenge on people this can be for a small thing on which we can
turn a blind eye because they do not really matter. But if people really start
blackmailing other people and taking revenge on them you will get the law of the
jungle; everyone can do what they want and the ones with the most powers can
achieve everything they want and let people do whatever they want.
Characters
In this issue there are two main characters involved who are both round
characters, Gabriel Vaughn and Riley Neal, you get to know them better during
the series. And there are also three characters used who are flat characters and
are only used for this episode of the series, Troy (also called Cortez), Torbin Salvi
and Dominik.
Gabriel Vaughn
Gabriel is the main character in the series. He has got a
microchip implanted in his brains which gives him access to the globalised
information grid. He can get into any of its data centres and access files. This all
is to protect the United States from its enemies.

Riley Neal
Riley is an ex-Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect
Gabriel from outside threats and let him follow the protocol, so he does not use
his chip to do other things like searching for his ex-wife.
Troy
Troy is a fifteen year old boy who is the mastermind behind
the worm, online he is called Cortez. His worm has been stolen and is put into use
to destroy the power grid.
Torbin Salvi
Torbin is the leader of the Ukrainian terrorist group who stole
the worm. The moral issue about blackmailing is about him. He wants his brother
to be released from prison.
Dominik Salvi
Dominik is the brother of Torbin, he is in prison and was
supposed to go to a prison in Russia. But because of the deal he was released.
Dealing with the issue
An advanced cyber worm infiltrates the power grid. The Cybercom group thinks
the worm is made by Cortez but when Gabriel and Riley pay him a visit, they find
out that an Ukrainian terrorist group stole the worm and unleashed it on the
power grid, with as target the San Jacomo nuclear reactor. If the worm wont be
stopped on time there will be a nuclear meltdown causing thousands of deaths
and injuries. While watching this episode I started to ask myself three questions:
why would you do something like this, what do you want to achieve by doing this
and has somebody done something wrong to you? By continuing watching this
movie I found at that the leader of the group, Torbin, wanted his brother,
Dominik, to be released from prison. So he used to worm to blackmail Cybercom.
But after finishing the episode I still did not know why would you want to cause a
nuclear meltdown and not for example kidnap someone to achieve something, so
I decided to watch the episode again. I found out that another brother of Torbin
was born with just one eye and bad lungs, and when his family asked some
American doctors to help him they did not want to help since the operation was
too expensive and was not that necessary. So in this way if the blackmailing
would not help, there would still be revenge on all American citizens.
The issue in different perspectives
I believe these issues depend on your moral standards since you have to ask
yourself if this is the right thing to do, those moral standards variate per person
and not really per religion.
In this episode, if this Russian group was replaced with a Jewish group I believe
not really anything would have changed since there are some people in a certain
relief that believe family is much more important and would do anything for their
family but there are also some persons which believe that family is important but
there are not willing to obey the rules for them. This is not only with Jewish
people but with every religion. So I believe this moral issue is really about your
own standards, the way you interpret things and the way in which you deal with
certain things and it does not really variate per religion but per person.
The reasons for this issue
I think these issues are chosen since they are quite timeless issues, I feel that
everyone in daily live has got to deal with this issues. Maybe not on these big
scales but I believe everyone has to deal with blackmailing and taking revenge.
For example when someone stole a pen from you, you have got to ask yourself
should I take revenge on this person and steal something else from him or do I
just turn a blind eye to it. This is not something very bad and you can turn a blind

eye to this very easily but you have still got an issue since you have to ask
yourself whether you are going to take revenge or not. This is the same with
blackmailing, I believe almost everyone has been blackmailed. For example I
have been blackmailed by my friends, they do not really mean it that serious but
if you think about it, it comes down to blackmailing. They ask you whether you
can do something for them but if you can not or do not do it they will do
something bad to you, so that is the moment when you will do the thing they ask
you to do for them.

Marloes van Dam, 4VD

1-12-2015