OMG, I just read a news item about the Hewlett Packard spying effort that stated that the private investigators (is that an oxymoron?) sent the complete report describing their covert and possibly criminal investigations to the HP ETHICS Director!!

And no, the Ethics Director did not blow the whistle on this...an outside Board Director did. Is it just me or does anyone else find this just a bit, ummm, ironic?

How can an Ethics function include the tactics of sending emails with spyware to specific individuals to track their keystrokes, "obtaining" (hey, isn't that stealing if it doesn't belong to you?) individuals' social security numbers to impersonate them in order to get private information from AT&T, and physical surveillance of relatives of HP Directors?

Evidently, the Big Heads (the Ethics director as well as senior management) felt that the "egregious" leaks emanating from the Director deliberations over several years was enough reason to justify actions that many experts now are saying are illegal.

Even IF they aren't illegal, don't they fail the smell test?

Well, evidently I am out of touch with corporate America. Because in a recent study by Ponemon Institute , 85% of corporate directors surveyed believe that the "sanctity of boardroom discussions is more important than protecting their privacy rights." And 50% of them felt that the tactics used by HP were totally ok....as long as they aren't deemed illegal in the upcoming investigation. IOW, right now they aren't sure if they are technically illegal so it is ok to do it...and they would do it.

OK, color me confused, but I have always thought that "ethics " included moral principles above and around the law...you know, like following the Golden Rule . It's technically not breaking a State or Federal law if you don't treat your neighbor as you would yourself but sheesh, the whole foundation of the rule of law is that everyone is treated equally, fairly, without prejuidice. IOW, even when YOU dont treat your neighbor as you would yourself, the law treats you and your neighbor the same.

So! Returning to the corporate directors of corporate America, evidently they are ok with their corporate internal neighbors spying on them in the interest of their corporation's privacy. But how would they feel if another (outside) corporate board authorized the same tactics to spy on their personal lives? With ethics you can't make "conditions." Like, "yes it is ok to spy and ignore privacy rights because the BIGGER right is keeping the Boardroom private. But outside the Boardroom my privacy rights are paramount." Huh?

The Golden Rule isn't complicated. In fact, acknowledging its supremacy in daily decision-making eliminates a lot of the false suppositions that confuse and deter us from doing what we know in our hearts is the right thing to do. The inner compass in each of us is natural, it is put there in our individual identities as creations of the One Creator. This is our moral and spiritual DNA.

What confuses us and gets us off track? Fear, hatred, selfishness. But these are not in our spiritual DNA. What is? A favorite ethicist of mine, Mary Baker Eddy , wrote this over 100 years ago:

Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love -- the kingdom of heaven -- reign within us...

With these qualities as our moral compass, how can we be confused and make unethical or even illegal decisions? Every employee can be an "ethics director" in his/her job.

Read more from this blogger at Grits .