Robert Clayton Dean is a lawyer whose happy family life is turned upside down after

meeting his college buddy at a lingerie shop by chance. Along with their swift conversation,
his buddy cleverly slips a self-taken videotape assassination of a congressman into his bag.
Unknown to Robert, his life begins to turn sour when he became the eye of a ruthless group
of National Security Agents commanded by a belligerently ambitious Jon Voight, a high-
ranking State Department official of the famed National Security Agency. Using
sophisticated surveillance from snooping devices, every digital footprint left by Robert
becomes a source of invasion to his private life as the villains tried every possible means to
regain the video which is in Robert's possession.

What were the ethical (or moral) dilemmas in the movie? List four.

Dilemma 1 - The use of state of the art intelligence surveillance system effectively address
terror threats and those activities that are hostile to the national security. The use of advance
microchips, powerful computers and mass data storage devices has opened possibilities to
keep track movements of people as well. Along with this development, there is so much
power in the use of this technology as it offers vulnerability to infringe the rights of
individual privacy. Privacy versus Security is the primary dilemma very obvious in this film.

Dilemma 2 - When all law enforcers are out to capture Robert, he has no other way to regain
back his normal life but to face and outwit his detractors. Upon losing the incriminating video
tape Robert have in possession, he lost a perfectly good chance to clear his name with all the
so-called invented bad reputation induced into his character. The dilemma here is, Robert has
nothing to prove about his innocence.

Dilemma 3 - Two of the major characters in the film(Robert's friend and the congressman)
were murdered by National Security operatives because of self-serving motives. Where is
justice? The dilemma here is that the victims didn't get justice especially if those who
perpetuated the crime are ironically the crime busters themselves.

Dilemma 4 - There may be ongoing use of high-end surveillance gadgets that somehow need
legal intervention on its appropriate use as in the case of this film, yet no body had to bring
this issue into the judicial spotlight for further ethical scrutiny. The NSA's use of such
surveillance gadgets are in fact of no legal basis and therefore intrusive and infringes privacy.
The dilemma here is- who will expose such corrupt and exploitative operations, when all
teams of the NSA department (in the film) are involved in the conspiracy of doing illegal
activity. This is an issue probably true in real life situation as in the case of human-cloning
where certain clinics clandestinely operate in secret laboratories.
How do the ethical theories apply to these dilemmas? You can choose just one theory for all
of the dilemmas, or use different theories for each.

Privacy vs Security

The use of intelligence and surveillance system is undoubtedly a state of the art way to detect
suspicious and potentially terrorist-related activity. The cost of this breakthrough would mean
vulnerability to infringe privacy. On the other hand, because employing its use significantly
helps save lives, there is societal tolerance on certain privacy given up in selected areas as
evidently seen in most public places such as grocery stores, airports and transport stations. It
is a perceivable trend in the future, that more and more surveillance gadgets will soon be
installed as far as invading our homes. Man, in his moral and intellectual capacity, to some
certain degree, favor security at the expense of privacy because of his moral obligation to
mankind to prevent acts of terrorism by using technology as his weapon. This is a problem of
moral obligation where privacy and security are the two conflicting issues that pose
challenging solution. Additionally, the use of "security" as an issue, becomes a susceptible
reason to mask real egoistic intentions which is most likely to personally intrude others.
Transvaluation of values suggests that altruism is merely a particular form of egoism. With
security favored over privacy, we shall expect that in the future, our privacy will be in the
hands of those who operate surveillance systems and that without proper legal measures to
govern its use, there is a likelihood that our lives will be threatened by the terrors that
unscrupulous crime busters themselves breed.

Abuse of Position

In our quest to uphold moral ascendancy by following laws that govern our daily operation in
life, there are cases when proving our innocence seems too elusive. There are so many
orchestrated crime scenes and conspiracy to implicate the innocent and cover the real
personalities that commit the actual crime. This is especially true when the conspirers are
those who are in the influential government position. The use of surveillance electronic
gadgets is one area in which our private lives can be altered instantaneously by some self-
serving extremists as in the case of Robert. This is an example of pure greed; a reflection of a
self-serving utilitarianist who are so obsessed about their own happiness and their
indifference to other people's interests. They take advantage of their influence and position to
feed on their egoistic motives.

Integrity of Work

Ethical principles are guiding precepts that are foundations of our laws. Those men who hold
vital information including privates ones are ought to be morally and lawfully responsible in
the conduct of their duty. The problem with the story is that men in the NSA are fueled with
greed of power whose real intentions are covered up by the so-called national interests. It
should be a moral duty of the higher appointing offices to carefully discern who will be the
competent individuals to best fit to the positions in the NSA.