A Question

[foster]

People's callings in the Church are not private, especially if they are bishops. What privacy has been violated by confirming someone is not a bishop since Dan already knew these people's names? What privacy would have been violated by confirming that someone was a bishop?

Do you understand that access to the directory is restricted?

Edited September 25, 2013 by foster

[Kenngo1969]

I would think that helping a member deal with harassment from an alleged fellow member would be considered as part of being a member of our faith and especially appropriate for a bishop to do.  It might have been more appropriate for Dan to contact his own bishop to ask the service from, but I do not see a bishop as being limited to helping only those members of his ward anymore than I believe that we should not stop and help someone who is stranded on the road if we can simply because they are from a different state or country than we are.

Besides which, what do you think the likelihood is that Foster's really gonna "rat" on Dan?  I don't think it's very high.  (Other than the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ [to say nothing of ... Jesus Christ Himself] frowns on gambling, do you know of any other reason why I shouldn't take bets? )  Dan's here posting under his own name.  While I've never met him, despite legions who apparently question his intellect, I've never thought of him as anything approaching "dim" (and that's a vast understatement); if he really thought what he did were unethical, he's taking a rather big risk.

[Kenngo1969]

Do you understand that access to the directory is restricted?

Fine.  Are you going to rat on Dan (or on the bishop Dan contacted) or are you just here flapping your gums about it (as it were)?

[LordUther]

To be honest I don't think in either of the situations was confidentiality breached. The Bishop involved didn't divulge any information contained within his directory other than to confirm/deny facts that Dan already had. If the Bishop had said "no he's not the Bishop of that ward, this is the name & address of the Bishop of that ward" I'd feel differently but that wasn't the case. Even if the bishop had come back and confirmed the information to be true, it still wouldn't have been a breach of privacy because the person had already supplied the information. Was it a misuse of the directory? Well according to the letter of the law yes, because that's not the intended use of the directory, but was it against the spirit of the law...I'm going to say no as in my opinion it was about protecting interests, either financially with the first or possibly against a deranged stalker in the 2nd.

Edited September 25, 2013 by LordUther

[Bob Crockett]

The problem, Bob, is that we can always come up with "legitimate" needs to know this or that about members (or those who claim to be members), and there is no end to it.  In law enforcement, after frequent violations of that nature, our confidential, nation-wide data base was placed under tight restrictions -- requiring a specific investigative need and probable cause by those assigned to the case.  No looky-loos. Training was instituted and the system was carefully monitored for compliance -- errant officers being threatened with everything from days off to loss of job to jail time.  Even at that, we still have those who feel compelled to check up on a girlfriend or boyfriend, or to provide information to the press or private investigators.

Just so, we have church members who access confidential Church records without permission and without justification.  When in positions which have given me such easy access, I have pointedly not looked at the records.

Thus, in the case placed before us by Dan Peterson, the person who was uneasy about this claimed "bishop" should have reported the matter in writing to his bishop or stake president, and left it there for them to deal with.  Such a claim is serious and actionable by Church officials.  What is even more nauseating are the continuing instances in which active or past bishops turn out to be engaged in fraud or other violations of the law.  It does no good for the Church when such matters are disclosed in the press -- as they must be when an arrest takes place.  We need to nip this problem in the bud.

The leadership directory is not a confidential membership record. The restriction that it be used for church business does not make it confidential. Any member may make inquiry of it. It is exactly like any stake directory.

A membership record is confidential because it contains sensitive info and a person has the right to keep his membership a secret, so says NCAAP v Alabama.

[Calm]

I'll second what Cal says on the matter (I often do: we belong to a Mutual Admiration Society! ) I'll also add that we're talking about several potential "candidates," probably from several different stakes. I don't see any reason why Professor Peterson is obligated to make several phone calls when one will suffice.

I third it...With all of Ken 's additions included Edited September 25, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

Do you understand that access to the directory is restricted?

Do you understand the conditions of those restrictions.

[Calm]

To be honest I don't think in either of the situations was confidentiality breached. The Bishop involved didn't divulge any information contained within his directory other than to confirm/deny facts that Dan already had. If the Bishop had said "no he's not the Bishop of that ward, this is the name & address of the Bishop of that ward" I'd feel differently but that wasn't the case. Even if the bishop had come back and confirmed the information to be true, it still wouldn't have been a breach of privacy because the person had already supplied the information. Was it a misuse of the directory? Well according to the letter of the law yes, because that's not the intended use of the directory, but was it against the spirit of the law...I'm going to say no as in my opinion it was about protecting interests, either financially with the first or possibly against a deranged stalker in the 2nd.

Somethings can be restricted in access yet without having any attempt to be private or confidential.

[stemelbow]

How about we up the ethical ante, in the situation regarding the Israel trip.

 

First the conditions the Church has placed on accessing the directory of organizations and leaders:

 

emphasis added,

 

 

You do realize, though, the restrictions don't have in mind a story of an anonymous person on the internet endlessly attacking another non-anonymous person and that anonymous person is throwing out lies about himself to help bolster (I guess?) his criticisms? 

 

It's kind of a letter of the law vs spirit of the law thing.  Try to get Dan or his bishop partner in trouble from the Church on this and you'll get laughed out of there.  This dude and his many partners are, in this case, using pharisaic approach as it suits their vendetta.  They have no interest in the rules the Church puts out. 

[webbles]

Do you understand that access to the directory is restricted?

Do you realize (as I mentioned earlier) that the names and phone numbers are freely available and unrestricted to all members through the lds maps site?

[rockpond]

Okay.  Sorry to have led a few of you down rabbit trails, but I wanted to get some general ethical discussion going.

 

Here's the actual situation:

 

Two or three years ago, a pseudonymous poster on a basically agnostic-to-atheist message board that is devoted to attacking Mormons and ridiculing Mormonism claimed that his wife had surprised him with plans to go on a tour of Israel with me the following April, about six months away.  He would, he said, provide regular reports from the tour of my antics and my ridiculous comments.  He reiterated this claim several times, and his audience was greatly amused.

 

This same poster had also been claiming to be a currently serving bishop.

 

I wasn't very pleased at the prospect of a double-dealing cynic riding along on the bus with us, feigning orthodox Mormonism and secretly sneering at me and the other "sheeple" on the tour as we visited such places as Capernaum, the Mount of Beatitudes, Gethsemane, and the Garden Tomb.

 

But the amusement at his plan eventually died down and, quite frankly, i forgot about it.

 

For that reason, I made no effort to figure out the identity of the secret sneerer on our tour.  I didn't even think about the matter.  I assumed that, in the end, he hadn't gone.

 

Afterwards, though, somebody asked him on his board whether he had indeed gone on the tour.  As I recall, he responded that he had, and that he would soon provide reports for their amusement.

 

At this point, I began to wonder who, if anybody, on our small tour might have been the covert cynic.  (During a nearly two-week tour on a bus and at meals and at the sites, together from early morning until fairly late at night, we come to know one another reasonably well.)  I concluded that the pseudonymous poster was probably a poseur.  He hadn't actually come with us.

 

But I decided to check something in order to be more certain.  I had definitively eliminated most of the men on the tour, because I knew that they weren't currently serving bishops.  (Some of them I had already known long before the tour.)  But I contacted a friend of mine who is, in fact, a current bishop, and asked him if he could check the directory regarding four men on the tour whose current callings I didn't know and then tell me whether any of them was currently serving as a bishop.

 

He responded that no, none of them were currently serving bishops.

 

Thus, I knew that no secret cynic currently serving as a bishop had accompanied us on our tour, for the simple and sufficient reason that there had been no currently serving bishops in our group at all. 

 

This told me that the pseudonymous critic was not a currently serving bishop and/or that he did not accompany us to Israel.  Which demonstrated the poster to be, to that extent at least, a lying fraud.  And I said so.  (He has, by the way, never posted an account of his supposed trip with me, nor any photographs of it.)

 

For the past couple of years, though, some of his fellow denizens of that agnostic-to-atheist anti-Mormon board have been citing my request to my bishop-friend as an instance of blackly unethical behavior of the very worst kind.  I was, they say, seeking confidential information about the poster, violating both his privacy and Church policy.  The incident is simply another redundant example of my complete lack of moral character and my vicious, vengeful personality.

 

That's the real story.

 

.

 

Kinda reminds me of that scene from "A Few Good Men" when the judge says:  So you want to submit into evidence a flight log that doesn't show the flight in question?  (paraphrasing)

 

The complaint being filed against you is that you attempted to look up a name that was not on a list.  Hmmm.

 

Technically, you have not violated the privacy of anyone since none of the names that you inquired about were on the list.  The "four men" weren't on it and neither was the "pseudonymous poster".  You have uncovered zero confidential information.

 

Regarding the other complaint, that you misused church resources... whether true or not (I don't know and don't care), it can't be argued by the same people who misused the title of Bishop to suit their needs.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

How about we up the ethical ante, in the situation regarding the Israel trip.

 

First the conditions the Church has placed on accessing the directory of organizations and leaders:

 

emphasis added,

Oh snap better get a constitutional lawyer. Oh wait......

[Avatar4321]

How do you violate someone's privacy by verifying public information. Sure the lists aren't public, but the fact that someone is a Bishop is very public.

 

Also, how do you violate someone's privacy by pointing out they arent what they claimed to be?

[CA Steve]

I'll second what Cal says on the matter (I often do: we belong to a Mutual Admiration Society! )  I'll also add that we're talking about several potential "candidates," probably from several different stakes.  I don't see any reason why Professor Peterson is obligated to make several phone calls when one will suffice.

Given Dr. Peterson's initial scenario, it would take one phone call which would be based on information the purported business partner and bishop should be willing to freely offer. If such information was not freely offered then Dr. Peterson should walk away from the deal without ever having to verify anything. It now appears that the scenario Dr. Peterson was really inquiring about is quite different in that it is not a business deal but rather online interactions gone nuts.

[ERayR]

The answer to the opening post is no. The church directory of leaders is available to all members although you need to be at least a bishop to access it. The leadership directory is not confidential.

Had you used it to solicit a bishop for an investment you'd be using it contrary to its posted restrictions, much like a similar misuse of a stake directory. But even then there would be no breach of any confidence as being a bishop is not a confidential matter.

I once used the directory to chase down an old missionary companion to reconnect. That was no breach of confidence.

I used the directory to chase false assertions of membership in a ward when I was a transient bishop. Seems a member ought to be able to use it to test a person's claim that he is a bishop. A false claim that one is a bishop is potentially a priesthood issue.

 

I don't think the directory is confidential information but rather is a limited distribution document.  One can use a phone directory to find a bishop.

[Bob Crockett]

Do you understand that access to the directory is restricted?

Do you understand that that restriction does not mean that the leadership list is confidential, nor does it mean that a member cannot ask a bishop whether another person is or is not a bishop?

 

Access to an LDS meetinghouse is "restricted" in the sense that the general public cannot come and go as they please, but that does not mean that a member cannot use the building.   

 

Access to my employee list is "restricted" at my work, but that does not mean that employment at my firm is a secret.

 

The LDS leadership directory is confidential in some people's mind, I suppose, but not in the Church's protocols and certainly not in the law.

[Daniel Peterson]

Obviously, no, I don't feel that this was even remotely unethical or a violation of anybody's privacy.

 

Whether or not somebody is a bishop isn't private information.  It's published in ward and stake directories that are hardly kept under lock and key -- though, in my experience at least, they typically feature the warning that they're not to be used for commercial purposes -- bishops of wards are often identified in public phone directories, callings of new bishops are sometimes even announced in small town newspapers, and so forth.  I've never had the slightest moral hesitation about looking in a stake directory, even if it's not mine (which I've been obliged to do a few times), and I would have no ethical qualms about looking for somebody in more than one such directory -- nor even, in principle, in all such directories.  Which would be no different, ethically speaking, than looking in the overall directory of the Church.

 

I've served as a bishop, and I've had access to and used the general Church directory.  While membership records contain confidential information, the directory does not -- neither at the ward or stake level nor at the level of the entire Church.

 

Moreover, while I'm being excoriated over on the phony traveling bishop's board for seeking to "out" his real-life identity, this isn't true:  Had one or more of those four men turned out to be a currently serving bishop, I still wouldn't have believed any one of them to be the double-dealling cynic of that agnostic/atheist message board.  I had already concluded, before I asked my bishop-friend if he could check the directory for me and give me a yes or no answer regarding them, that it was extremely improbable that the poseur in question had toured Israel with me.  My friend's answer simply confirmed my judgment beyond reasonable question, thus reinforcing my confidence on the matter.

 

Finally, just for the record:  This isn't a matter, as someone above has suggested, of an internet interaction gone awry:  I don't post on the bogus tourist-bishop's board, and I don't interact with him.  (This episode illustrates fairly obviously one of the reasons I don't post there:  While the population on the board celebrated the phony tourist-bishop's initial claim with guffaws and drooling anticipation of juicy specimens of my silliness and depravity, they've been perfectly serene about the virtual certainty that he was lying.  Their indignation is, instead, reserved entirely for me.)

[ERayR]

Do you understand that access to the directory is restricted?

 

Yes but the information isn't.  One who has legitimate access can share the information with those he decides has a legitimate and valid need.

[LordUther]

Somethings can be restricted in access yet without having any attempt to be private or confidential.

 

While ethically I agree with you in principle under UK law it's a different matter. If a company or organisation holds information on an individual it is bound to keep that information confidential except for where officers of that company would need to access that information for the purposes of that organisation. So under UK law the Bishops directory would be considered confidential information regardless of how the church viewed it. I had a similar conversation with the missionaries because technically their area books break this law because they're keeping files on people and those people don't even know those files exist.

[Daniel Peterson]

While ethically I agree with you in principle under UK law it's a different matter. If a company or organisation holds information on an individual it is bound to keep that information confidential except for where officers of that company would need to access that information for the purposes of that organisation. So under UK law the Bishops directory would be considered confidential information regardless of how the church viewed it. I had a similar conversation with the missionaries because technically their area books break this law because they're keeping files on people and those people don't even know those files exist.

 

So are bishops' identities kept confidential in the UK?

[Bob Crockett]

So are bishops' identities kept confidential in the UK?

Yes; that reponse doesn't make sense.  I am not a UK lawyer, but I understand the general principle that employee lists should not be circulated outside of the employer and that an employee might have the right to complain about public circulation if it is used to solicit him or her for non-employment stuff.

 

But here, we have a religion.   There are no such business restrictions.  A bishop is a highly visible office in the church. 

 

Back to the church leadership directory.  I can see how, possibly, one can criticize a bishop for answering a member's question about whether a person is or is not a bishop, as a highly restrictive view of the restrictions could be read to prohibit that.   Having said that, a mere member is not at fault for posing the question of the bishop.   But, even if one were to read the restriction the way "foster" wants to read it here, there is no violation of confidentiality rules by answering the member's question.

[stemelbow]

Moreover, while I'm being excoriated over on the phony traveling bishop's board for seeking to "out" his real-life identity, this isn't true:  Had one or more of those four men turned out to be a currently serving bishop, I still wouldn't have believed any one of them to be the double-dealling cynic of that agnostic/atheist message board.  I had already concluded, before I asked my bishop-friend if he could check the directory for me and give me a yes or no answer regarding them, that it was extremely improbable that the poseur in question had toured Israel with me.  My friend's answer simply confirmed my judgment beyond reasonable question, thus reinforcing my confidence on the matter.

 

Rollo, Scratch and company don't care a bit that you proved EWC has been lying.  They're just a pitiful bunch holding onto anything to carry out their attacks.  This calls into question their personal integrity, I'd say, ironically.  They know as well as you that you weren't trying in the least to access information about EWC. 

[LordUther]

So are bishops' identities kept confidential in the UK?

 

No but it's not his identity I'm referring to. It's the use of a document created by an organisation that was used in a way that it wasn't intended for would be a breach. Now if you go back to my first response I actually said that I don't think that either of your situations broke any privacy issues because the Bishop didn't supply any information that was in the directory but only denied what you had been told. What I refer to as regarding the spirit & letter of the law I was referring to the church's intended use of the directory.

[Bob Crockett]

No but it's not his identity I'm referring to. It's the use of a document created by an organisation that was used in a way that it wasn't intended for would be a breach. Now if you go back to my first response I actually said that I don't think that either of your situations broke any privacy issues because the Bishop didn't supply any information that was in the directory but only denied what you had been told. What I refer to as regarding the spirit & letter of the law I was referring to the church's intended use of the directory.

I guess I can understand, theoretically, what you are saying. 

 

However, a religion is the composition of its members.  A member has the right to know which person is a cleric and which person is not.  Perhaps if the Associated Press asked a bishop to confirm whether Wayne Ching was a bishop in Montana it might be a technical misuse of the leadership directory's restrictions (I don't really agree, but I can see the argument) to answer the question, but the criticism becomes even more improbable when it is a member posing the question.

 

I know that when I served in a position to have a copy of the leadership directory, I would respond to members' questions about who was the bishop in a particular area of the world without asking the reason for the question.  My only source for the information was the leadership directory, which at that time was mailed every year or so in a disk form.  

[Daniel Peterson]

No but it's not his identity I'm referring to. It's the use of a document created by an organisation that was used in a way that it wasn't intended for would be a breach. Now if you go back to my first response I actually said that I don't think that either of your situations broke any privacy issues because the Bishop didn't supply any information that was in the directory but only denied what you had been told. What I refer to as regarding the spirit & letter of the law I was referring to the church's intended use of the directory.

 

I can't imagine that my bishop friend would have been violating any privacy even if he had supplied information from the directory.

 

Suppose I had said to him that I was going to be spending three months within what I knew to be the Brazzaville 3rd Ward.  I wanted to contact the bishop there about something, but I didn't know his name.  Could my friend look him up?  Yes, he might respond.  His name is John Jones.

 

I don't think that even that would constitute any kind of ethical or legal crime.